Meal Planning has always been one of those things that we are really good at for a while, but then tend to slip up and get really bad at it for a while (read; eat out often and spend ridiculous amounts of money on random food items) before getting organized and smart about it all again. It’s a nasty, silly, expensive cycle.
We originally started meal planning a couple of years ago as a way to spend less money eating out. We find that if we make a plan and go shopping twice a month based on what we need and have meals planned for, we’re pretty good at sticking to it. However, when we don’t plan it out and we come home tired and uninspired, we tend to order take out or eat poorly (Cereal for dinner? Again? OK!). This gets expensive for our wallets and our bodies.
With Sprout coming this fall, I’ve been thinking about all of the things that can make our lives a little easier/more organized and meal planning is one of those things. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a Little One running around the house and, honestly, there is a lot to reflect on around it all…but that’s another post for another day.
One thing that I know I want our new addition to experience is good, healthy meals cooked at home and eaten at the table (if not every single night, then most nights).
Additionally, I really need to break out of my food rut! I have a few things that I am really good at making, but the list is short and I get bored easily. So, at 36, it is past time for me to learn some new tricks and expand my repertoire!
So, as part of the process of writing down our meals, I thought sharing them here might 1) help motivate me to plan ahead 2) remind me to keep it up for more than a few weeks at a time and 3) inspire me (and us) to try a few new recipes from time to time.
Not sure if I’ll maintain this format for these posts, but it’s a start, right? So, here’s our current Meal Plan.
Meal Plan (6-15-13 thru 6-29-13)
DINNER
BBQ Ribs with organic corn on the cob
Tuna Patties
Breakfast for Dinner (French Toast with strawberries and sausage)
Pot Roast
Bean Burritos
Our general rule of thumb is, once we plan our meals and purchase our ingredients, we’re allowed to pick and choose which meals get eaten on which days as opposed to saying “X has to be eaten on Tuesday, Y has to be eaten on Thursday”. Honestly, we crave different things on different days (as I’m sure we all do) and if I don’t want to eat a particular meal on a set day, it will make for a miserable experience…which kind of defeats the purpose, right?
Do you meal plan? I’d love to hear about your plans, tips and tricks about sticking to a food budget while cooking healthy meals at home. Please leave any related comments or links in the comments below!
xoxo,
M
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We meal plan every week and have for years. Print it out and hang it on the ‘fridge. We do our shopping on Saturdays so by Friday night, we have a Saturday – Friday meal plan for the coming week. We do it by day and *rarely* have problems of “I don’t feel like that today”. I guess mostly because we’ve been doing this for years.
Doing meal planning has cut down our food waste to near zero and has helped tremendously with budgeting. Impulse buys are rare… I have to admit to being a planner by nature though 🙂
I do hope meal planning becomes part of our nature! We have already seen what a difference it makes in the way of food waste and budget concerns…it just has to become what we do all the time 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration!!!
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I have done meal plans a number of times. I found that having several go-to meals for nights that I was too tired to cook really helped. I made a list of my favorite easy recipes: quesodillas, fishsticks, spaghetti, in my case (and a few more.) This was not my meal plan. It was in addition to my meal plan. So if one night, I was totally wasted from the day, I could pull out something that took no more time or energy than take out, and I made a point to always keep the ingredients for those meals on hand. It really has helped us. It might help you, too.
For the spaghetti, I actually would make it ahead and freeze it in meal size portions so that it would be an easy meal. I have 5 meal size portions in the freezer right now.
Also, since you eat breakfast for dinner any way, don’t forget eggs and grits. They make a nice end of the day meal, and they are really easy. (And you have your own eggs…) 🙂
I love that you make and freeze spaghetti ahead of time! We will sometimes make ravioli and freeze a bunch of it for quick meals, but we often forget it’s in the freezer! Thanks for the reminder 😉 I also appreciate your go-to meals for when you’re wiped out (ours are burgers, burritos and mac & cheese with tuna or ground beef). And yes! Grits! I always forget about grits!
In keeping with my fairly organized way of living… We have a freezer-only in the basement and I keep a detailed list (Excel spreadsheet) of everything in it hanging on the upstairs ‘fridge. The list also contains an inventory of all of our home-canned food. Every once in a while we’ll forget to cross something off, but we’ve gotten pretty good at remembering that if we bring something up from the basement, it has to be crossed off the list. (There were times we had a dinner scheduled with, say, the last ground beef pack in the freezer, only to discover there was no more beef because “someone” had forgotten to cross one off the list).
Things like frozen remains (leftovers) get put in the freezer portion of our upstairs ‘fridge and since I see them all the time, we don’t tend to forget what’s in there…
I love the idea of keeping a running inventory or the freezer on my fridge! We tried that last fall and got as far as making the list, but never printed it out. We’ll do better next time 😉
I have a sorta meal plan. I plan 2 or 3 dinners each week and since it is only the 2 of us those 2 or 3 dinners usually make about 6 meals. So they carryover for lunch the next day or leftovers the next night.
We also need to eat more fruits and vegetables. We actually don’t eat out much anymore due to budget constraints but are notorious for eating cereal or pb&j sammies instead of a good meal.
We’re definitely adjusting to cooking for two since my daughter moved out! We’ve always had leftovers, but now we really always have leftovers 😉 We usually eat them for lunch since we work in a non-profit and pretty much always eat at our desks.
While I know they’re not the healthiest options, I am glad to hear we’re not the only ones eating cereal for dinner! Lol…Sometimes, I’ll throw in a few berries to try to feel better about it!