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!

LOOK WHO GOT A FACE LIFT!

Our little blog got a mini face lift! I could be happier with the way it looks. I used a free Blogger template that was nice, but didn't give off the look I was going for. So what do you do when your in need for something creative? You go to Etsy! There are so many different options out there for premade and custom blog designs. I found Noor, her shops name is Blog Me Pretty (link is here), and she had a great template for a great price. She even installed it for me,which is a plus. That's not even the best part. Because the template was already made, she was able to install it as soon as I paid. For this inpatient mama, that's amazing. So for any blogger that are just starting out, like myself, you should do a mini blog overhaul. The appearance of a blog can make or break me reading. I know that sounds stupid, but if the blog doesn't look attractive most people won't stop a read what you've wrote. Anyway, I like it and hope you guys like it as well!

:side note: My wonderful mama brought Baby B a toy box for his birthday, and it finally arrived today! It's awesome and totally reminds me of when I was a kid.  Look at my little guy looking so fierce!