Meal Planning
- Colleen
- Apr 13, 2016
- 3 min read
There are two things that I love most in this world: organization and food. When you put the two together, amazing things happen.
A couple of years ago, meal planning was HUGE on Pinterest. Martha Stewart Moms were making elaborate lists and plans on how they feed their ten children for $50 a month all thanks to meal planning. Now, I'm not quite on their level, admirable as it is, but I do believe that meal planning is an amazing way to keep your day stress free as well as your grocery bills low.
Where I'm working now is my first full-time job. I've always had part-time or school before, so when I started this job, meals became very difficult. I work close to a second-shift day, so I have to make dinners at 10 am if I want to have a real dinner. Otherwise, pizza it is. I do love pizza, don't get me wrong, but I know that I really need to eat something with a little more nutrition in it. Same goes for the hubs. If I didn't cook, he has lived off of bologna sandwiches and boxes of mac n cheese, and I know he will do it again.
I got my first meal planner on clearance at Anthropologie. I loved it! It was adorable and had blocks for each meal of the week. I may have bought it just because I liked the look of it, but after using it I was hooked.
I love meal planning so much because it really does save me time during the week. It's great to be able to look ahead the night and know what I need to get out to thaw or prep before I go to bed. It also saves Ross time in the morning when he is eating breakfast. I'm usually still asleep when he eats breakfast, so it's great for him to be able to know what is there for him.
Meal planning also saves you money. Because you're planning every single meal for the week, you know exactly what ingredients you're going to need. I hated shopping before when I wasn't really sure what to get, so I would get something if in doubt. I ended up with tons of stuff in my not-so-roomy kitchen that took forever to use up. When I'm planning next week's meals, I take the time to look at each recipe and write down ingredients that I'm out of. I also try and plan meals around ingredients I have leftover such as any kind of pasta.
Above is the meal planner that I'm using right now. I love that it has the grocery list to the side of it so it's easy to add things we run out of during the week. It's also perforated so I can easily take it with me. I am lost without my list! I found this planner at Amazon for a really good price! You can check it out here.
If you don't want to spend money on buying a big pad, I found this free printable from the blog Neat House Sweet Home. This is a really cute template! It would be easy to use each line for a different meal if you wanted to plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can find the template on their blog here.
Meal planning may not be for everyone, but it works well in our home. Have you ever tried it before? Let me know your thoughts and how you budget for your grocery bills! I'm always looking for ways to save money!