How I Meal Plan

Ever since I discovered the world of mommy blogs, I've found so many helpful tips and tricks. I'm sure so many of you already do this but if you don't, I highly recommend meal planning! Before I started meal planning, I never brought complete meals. I would always need to run to the store and buy an item, or put a meal together quickly. Meal planning saves me time and pressure. I keep all of our meal planning stuff in our home binder (I plan on going through mine in a different post). My binder helps me keep all my paper together and in one place.

There are a couple different sections in out home binder, and meal planning is one of them. In this section I keep blank calenders, coupons, meal ideas for Baby B, my dinner list, and anything else I might need.

 I'm not the best cook and I'm a very picky eater, so I have a number of dinner items I rotate. I have them written down, as well as saved on my computer. This way I can scan the list and decide what to cook on each day. I know I need to get some more recipes (please don't be afraid to leave some ideas!)

I always meal plan for 2 weeks, since that's when we food shop. I find this to be most important because if I only meal plan week to week, then I'll have to food shop every week.

I always plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. This way I have everything we could need and don't buy a ton of junk food. This was another issue I'd have, we would buy a ton of cookies, ice cream, chips and things like that. When I meal plan I try to make 1 snack a fruit and the other can be something more tasty.

I also plan for Baby B's meals, he tend to not like a ton of things, so if we're having something I know he doesn't like then I'll already have something else prepared. The current week get hung on the fridge so I can take out whatever I need before work.

Food shopping easier, as well as making our shopping list. I can see exactly how many pieces of chicken we'll need, how many pounds of ground beef, or how much oatmeal we'll eat. I do keep our grocery list saved on the computer so I can just makes the changed needed. It's kinda like our "master" list. I do want to say that I buy things that Bobby likes, like ice cream such. Also if we don't follow the plan exactly that OK, it's just a guide that I like to use in order to food shop efficiently.

The template I use to meal plan is available here if you'd like it.

Thanks for for reading friends! If you have any tip or tricks, please share them with me. I love hearing from you!