Prepare a weekly meal plan for your family quickly and easily!
Need to save time and money? Who doesn’t!
One of the primary ways I save money is by preparing a weekly meal plan — and it also saves my sanity when 5:00 rolls around and hungry people start circling me like vultures!
But meal planning takes effort and many times it’s the task that gets moved to the end of the to-do list. Today I’ve got some quick tips to make meal planning much easier and faster for you.
Pre-Planning to Prepare a Weekly Meal Plan
Doing a little bit of pre-planning once can save you time and mental energy each week.
Make a List of Your Family’s Favorite Meals
Create a master list of 15-20 meals that your family regularly eats and enjoys. Be sure to get everyone’s input, so the list includes some favorites for each family member.
If you’re in a hurry, start with dinners only. You can add breakfast and lunch ideas at a later time.
Check out my RECIPES HERE and my MEAL IDEAS HERE for some inspiration.
Organize Your List
Next group the items in your list by the main ingredient. For example, I place all of my pasta meals together, all my chicken meals together, etc. Now when an item is on sale, I can quickly see several recipes to use for that particular food.
You can further organize your list by making a list of Quick Meals or Slow Cooker Meals for busy days. You can keep the ingredients for these easy meals on hand at all times in the event of an emergency (like not wanting to cook dinner!).
Collect Your Recipes
Gather your recipes together in a Recipe Binder (click here for instructions and free printables!), in a folder on your computer or on boards on Pinterest (See my Pinterest boards here.)
How to Prepare a Weekly Meal Plan
To plan most efficiently, create a menu at least weekly so you can shop on one day and be finished for the week. Use these tips:
Use a Template
To be efficient, use a meal plan template or printable.
Find The Peaceful Mom Customizable Menu Planners HERE. These are editable so you can type in your meal each week then screenshot it or print it.
You can also create a note in Evernote that you edit each week.
And if you prefer not to schedule specific meals for specific days, you can simply make a list of your meals.
Check Sales
You can skip this step, but checking your local grocery sales and planning around those sale items can really save you money.
For example, if boneless skinless chicken breasts are on sale, I use my 8 Dinners in 1 Hour Chicken Plan. For ground beef I use my Freezer Cooking Ground Beef plan.
Check the Freezer, Fridge and Pantry
Use what you have on hand to plan your meals for the week, and be sure to fill in any ingredients you need on your grocery list. Print my Grocery Shopping List or my Multiple Store Shopping List here.
Use this Free Pantry Inventory Printable to keep track of what you have available.
And grab the Free Freezer Inventory Printable HERE.
Complete the Menu Planner
If you’re just starting to menu plan, you may only want to plan five dinner meals. You can eat leftovers one night and plan a potluck with friends or order pizza the other night.
Finish Your Grocery List
The last step is checking off or writing in the items you need for this week’s meals. This step ensures that you purchase all the ingredients you need for your meals so you don’t have to go to the store at the last minute, or order take out because you don’t have time to go to the store.
See a step-by-step look at my grocery planning day HERE. (If you’re just starting to meal plan, this might be overwhelming, so do what fits your lifestyle best.)
Easy Shortcuts to Prepare a Weekly Meal Plan
Recycle
Keep your old menu plans to spark new ideas when you’re in a rut. Even if you serve the same meals each month, eating them only once every 30 days keeps them from becoming too boring.
Speaking of once every 30 days, you may want to go ahead and intentionally create a monthly meal plan and simply recycle that plan every month.
Use Theme Nights
To make your meal planning easier, dedicate each day of the week to a type of food. The simplest form of this idea is to make a list of types of main dishes for each day.
For example:
Sunday– soup and sandwiches
Monday– meatless dish
Tuesday– Taco Tuesday of course!
Wednesday– Italian night
Thursday – chicken dish
Friday – pizza
Saturday – leftovers
For more creative theme night meal ideas, check out this post.
Purchase a Pre-Made Meal Plan
If menu planning overwhelms you, start with a ready-made meal plan. I have several frugal and easy meal plans available to get you started.
Click HERE to see all The Peaceful Mom Menu Plans.
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