Here we go, its honestly pretty simple. I want to keep it that way because I know the idea of meal planing can get crazy. With everything else that you have to do on your plate trying to plan for meals and grocery shop and then make the meal it literally takes up so much time. Its kind of crazy! So hopefully this can help take back your time/money that you are spending on either going out to much or spending way to much on groceries.
I created 3 worksheets that you can follow along just like I do every month and we can meal plan together :) Also feel free to print off as many as you need. You might have more than one of the meal ideas or grocery list. At the end of the day do whats best for you. Don't lock yourself in a box. I am still learning how to get even more precise with my meal plans.
The first worksheet is just fun. You literally think of all the meals in your head that you know how to make and jot them down. If you are like me, you may not start off with very many. But don't worry more will come to you. Figure out snacks, dinners, lunches, desserts, homemade dips, appetizers, honestly whatever you want that you can eat right it down. Besides going out to eat.
This is your base on where to draw from, after this has been exhausted, go to Pinterest, cookbooks, online, friends, family, where ever to get more ideas of meals. I will explain a super easy trick later on that will make planning out the meals a whole lot easier.
Alright so now that you have your meal ideas on a list that you can go to so you don't have to keep them in your head and take up head space. Go to your calendar and lets meal plan this baby out! Put the month and dates in, and if you want you can label each day with B-, L-, D-, S-. I do not, because to me that is why to scheduled and I like flexibility and it seems way to stressful to have to plan each meal of each day. But you can do that I just don't. For meals like breakfast and snacks I honestly just stick to basics like eggs with sausage, oatmeal, toast and butter. We are not the best morning people.
For meals like lunch, I already know we eat sandwiches so I just buy enough sandwich stuff and sides like crackers, pickles, carrots, hummus ect. to last us a month. We also eat a lot of left overs for lunch from past night dinners, chicken tenders, and soups & salads.
So that takes care of both of your breakfast and lunches and super simplifies those. Same idea with snacks. Typically you just have a good set of snacks in mind that are great go-to snacks that you don't have to make super complicated everyday. We love Natures Bakery Bars. They are all natural and gluten and dairy free. Super yummy fig bars.
You can always create a fun snack every week and same idea with desserts have maybe 4 desserts or so that you can have supplies to make if you want or easy grab and go desserts like store-bought cookies or ice cream or whatever your family does. But this does mean planning out your desserts that you would potentially make and same. I just list my desserts at the bottom or on each Saturday (wether I make them that day or not I just have it written down)
Okay, DINNER:
Here is how I will help you, come up with a theme night for every day of the week. For the month so that its constant each week but you get plenty of variety. Depending on the season and where you live it could be different. You never have to stay in this box but its a great guide for if you need that extra planning help.
Mondays-Pasta night (options are endless)
Tuesdays-Fish, potatoes, bakes veggies
Wednesday-(was pizza but had to change that, now its baked chicken which there are a lot of options for that)
Thursdays- Mexican (so many options)
Fridays- Random meals that don't fit in other categories ex. red beans and rice, chicken curry
Saturdays-Soup/Crock pot
Sundays- Left overs/French Toast
That is how I base my whole month around. It is a life changer. I used to plan every week meals for the week because budget wise that worked better than every two weeks. But that would take so much of my mental time throughout the weekend. So now I just dedicate 3 evenings towards the end of the month to meal plan and grocery shop and its so nice...
With grocery shopping I created a shopping list to help you. My suggestion on how I shop is I start with the 1st day and make sure I have everything then go to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on. That way I don't back track and if I find I need multiple things I can mark a 2 or 3 next to each item so I know I need more. Also look in your kitchen to make sure you don't already have an item because that can save you money as well is using up what you have and if something is going to go back make that meal towards the beginning of the month.
LAST TIPS:
Veggies, fruits and dairy are a great question, thank you for asking. Heres what I do for that, I buy half of my veggies frozen for meals. The other half is fresh. Potatoes last quite awhile so I usually don't worry about those.
I save $100 from our grocery budget and break that up over the 4 weeks (its really 3 weeks because that first week you are using all that fresh produce). So either $25/30 extra a week to buy fresh fruit, veggies, and coffee creamer, milk, whatever needs to be replaced. Things like cheese and butter can actually be frozen so make sure you look up what can be frozen because than you can buy that in bulk for the month as well. This is also why you don't run out of food by the end of the month because you have a little wiggle room.
Also I use Walmart grocery for most of my groceries. This is super helpful as well. I also use target and Aldi for certain things but because I have two kids, there is Covid going on, and its getting cold out so being able to just add my groceries to an online order and just drive and have them load the truck up is everything.
Let me know if you have any questions. I hope this helps you and saves you a lot of money. We were able to cut back on out eating out by a couple days a week because we planned out our meals so it is never stressful on whats for dinner because its always in stock.
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