Mastering Meal Planning

**Did you miss the other posts in this series of 31 Days Of Intentional Living?  You can find them here!

Every night at 5:00 do you sit and rack your brain trying to figure out something quick and easy to make for dinner?  Do you scavenge through your cabinets to pull out a frozen pizza or slap together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (for the 3rd time this week)?

Ladies, life does not have to be this way!  We can intentionally take a small chunk of time, do a little planning, and never have to stare into a refrigerator and try to figure out how to make something with the ingredients staring back at us again.

Planning out each meal using a menu plan is helpful on many levels.  Menu planning is a key ingredient in my adventure of saving money at the grocery store .  I can scan the ads and if chicken breasts and tortillas are on sale, I add chicken fajitas to my meal plan. Menu planning also is helpful when I have 5 hungry, cranky kids because I have a plan and can get to work.  It helps me think clearly and no one has a temper tantrum (including me)!  Menu planning also saves time.  It does take some to get used to, but once you are organized, you will no longer be staring into the refrigerator and trying to figure out what you are going to feed your family.

Here are some tips to help you plan  your menu successfully:

1. Grab and notepad and pen and make a few categories:  breakfast, lunch and dinner.  (You can also add snacks and desserts if you are very detailed.)  Make sure you give yourself plenty of room to write down ideas in between each category.  You may even want to have a separate page for each one.  I include some snacks on mine because I hear a lot of, “There isn’t anything to eat in here” after my children get home from school and are think they are starving to death.
2. Jot down what your family likes to eat under the proper category.  I like to be specific so instead of putting “muffins” under breakfast, I’ll list blueberry muffins, cinnamon streusel muffins, strawberry shortcake muffins, etc.  This way I don’t draw a blank when I’m planning my meals and I have many options.  If I have bananas, I can make the banana muffins, or if I have strawberries, the strawberry shortcake muffins are a better option because I already have the ingredients.  Try to come up with as many ideas as you can under each category that your family likes to eat.   This list is your master list each time you meal plan.  I keep mine in page protectors inside my Home Management Notebook  and pull it out when I do I my meal planning.
3. Decide how you want to plan your  meals- weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.  When I worked outside the home, I was paid every two weeks.  Therefore I planned two weeks of meals at a time so I could budget accordingly.  Now that I’m home, I plan a week at a time to maximize my budget by shopping weekly sales and use what is inside my cupboards.
4. Grab your calendar, paper, or electronic device and get ready to make your menu!  I list my plan like I list it on Meal Plan Monday.  I prefer this because I feel it gives me more flexibility.  If I put tacos on Monday and don’t make them until Thursday it drives me crazy.  (I know, I may be Type A!)  I like to list it out where I can simply cross off the meal after I’ve made it and have the rest to choose from the next time I need to cook.
5. Check your calendar and see if there are any meals that you will not be cooking.  For example, are you having dinner with family, have a date night with the hubby, have a ball game you need to be at before dinner time, or go out to eat after church on Sunday?  These are meals that you don’t have to plan.  Make note of that under the category it falls under.  I’m always very happy to have a spot where I get a “meal off!”
6. I start with the breakfast category.  My kids are not real picky breakfast eaters so they are usually open to what I have planned out.  I do have one who prefers to eat yogurt everyday, but we always have that on hand so it doesn’t really matter!  After I jot down my 7 breakfast ideas, I turn to dinner.  I do this instead of lunch because it is a big meal and if there are leftovers, I can put those on the list for lunch.  After dinner, I do lunch and then snacks.   Ta da!  You now have a menu plan!

Here are a few extra tips for you:

• Make your grocery list as you plan!  If you have a recipe that calls for broccoli and you know you don’t have any, add it to the list.  This is a big time saver!
• On Wednesday nights, my kids have church activities.  Crock pot meals work really well when you know you will be gone around meal times and need to have something ready.  An alternative to crock pot meals is freezer cooking and it also works great for nights like this!
• Some women like to have a theme day of the week such as “Meatless Monday” or “Taco Tuesday.”  If you are having trouble menu planning, just having a theme of the day can be a great help.  This works well for breakfast, where there are less options of things to eat.
• You can plan one months worth of meals and when the month is over, start with day one and repeat.  If you really dislike trying to come up with meals or if your family eats mainly of the same meals over and over again, this may work well for you!

What tips do you use when you menu plan?  

Have you enjoyed what you read here today?  Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource?  If so, please do me a favor!  I have included the links below to share with other intentional women!  They’ll be glad you did!