There are so many reasons that meal plans are a great idea. The two I look to the most are that it helps to save money (if you are prepared to eat out less) and it helps to keep you on track with healthy eating (if you tend to eat out). Seeing a trend here? Yep.
When I eat out not only do I tend to over spend, but I over eat too. I have tried more meal plans than I can count. Well, okay, more than I can count on one hand. Point is that I’ve tried many solutions, from simple to complex.
The most complex was the “cook once, eat well for a week method.” Not only was the up front time and money investment huge, it was hard to translate into anything other than what the book stipulated– you know, to use it with recipes I actually like. And we ended up with way too much food, food we didn’t really care for in the first place.
Then the most simple was to just go to the grocery store whenever. Basically no plan. That was unhelpful.
And I tried some middle of the road methods with mapping it out day by day and buying to the groceries. That failed because it was too specific. And mapping out snacks and lunch? Meh. My tastes vary too much.
It was a hard balance between too much food, too little food, variety of fickle tastes, and a varying schedule.
I finally have it figured out. I’ve been just mapping it out in lists on paper.
After week 3 of successful meal planning, cooking said meal plan, and eating it, I’ve decided to make it up official like and fun.
Here is how it works:
1. List all the things you want to have on hand for breakfast, snacks, and things to pack with your leftovers for lunches (that’s what the add on means).
2. List what you like to have for sides with your dinner (could be the same or different from the lunch add-ons).
3. Dig through all your favorite recipe books and list 2 or 3 new recipes to try out. Try however many you new recipes you feel comfortable with. It’s always a good idea to try at least one new recipe each week. It makes it fun and helps expand your skills. Then list all your oldies but goodies you know by heart to fill it out.
Now here is the thing, if you want to put a day with each meal, that’s your choice. Me, I like to just have everything I need for 4 home-cooked dinners. I come home and if I have time I’ll make one of the 4, whichever I feel in the mood for. I shoot for 3 easy and one more complex. Then lunches, snack, and breakfasts are all grab n’ go.
You can download the meal plan as a pdf here.
I tend to get all tweety when I’m working on my meal plan on Sunday afternoon, snacks especially. You all are so great at helping me out, especially when I was stumped on healthy snack options a few weekends ago.
This is the cutest meal plan ever- I love it! I make mine at the bottom of my grocery list. I think I’m going to start using yours. I’ll be linking as well. I like picking what we’ll have for dinner the day of as well. It’s much more of a treat that way.
I use a similar method, but I plan out the week’s meals on my Google calendar. That way I can go back a few weeks and find recipes I liked, and the ones we eat the most I can make repeating ‘events’, adding notes if needed.
My husband likes it too, because he can link to my calendar at work and see what we’re having for the week :)
I love this idea!!! I have been trying to think of something similar and, there you go, you have done it for me. Thanks for sharing!
Have you checked out ziplist.com? I blogged about it just today! It has really helped me figure out my menu plan for the week and then generate a shopping list. It won't do all you're doing with your cool graphics but I think you might it interesting. Thanks for posting! I got to you via Whip up.