Over the course of the past year, I’ve gotten into the habit of planning out all of our meals. For me, I like planning them about one month in advance. Crazy, I know. But, I’ve gotten so many compliments in terms of how organized I am and how diverse our meal plans are. Today I want to talk about why I chose to do meal planning, how it helps us, and how you can get started. I find that there are a lot of benefits to it for my family.
What Is Meal Planning, Anyway?
Okay, so it probably seems pretty self explanatory, but meal planning is literally planning out the meals you intend to have for the week, month, etc. Before meal planning, we would literally just do whatever sounded good so we were going to the store multiple times per week which sucks. That being said, let’s talk about how I find this to be helpful.
The Why:
Before we had our son, we were going to the store what felt like a million times per week. I always felt like things were really hectic around meal times because I had to basically think of what we were doing on the fly. If you’re like me, we’ve all done that dance around the kitchen where we open the cupboards, go to the fridge, go back to the cupboards, look in the freezer, etc. trying to find what to make and blanking. If you’re REALLY like me, it ends up being “screw it, let’s get Taco Bell.”
That brings me to the first reason why I meal plan:
Meal Planning Reason 1: I feel less stressed about cooking.
Having a plan makes me feel less stressed. I am someone who needs structure in that way. Knowing what I’m making ahead of time makes it so that I can anticipate which meals will be difficult and which will be easier. I also can sometimes get some of the prep work done during the day. This is only possible if I know what I’m planning to make. That being said, the plans aren’t set in stone. I can move meals around, or order out if I’m having a crappy day and don’t want to cook.
Reason 2: I (usually) save money.
By planning out meals, I can save money in a few different ways. 1) I can plan meals according to what produce is in season. 2) I’m not going to the store 4 times per week and buying frivolous junk every time I’m there. 3) I don’t end up buying fast food (as often) because I don’t know what to make. I will say though that the only draw back to planning meals weeks in advance is that you obviously won’t know what the sale items or coupons will be. But other than that, knowing exactly what I need for each recipe is super helpful for saving money.
Reason 3: We constantly try new recipes.
I absolutely love trying and making new foods. This is especially important to me because we want to make sure our kiddo isn’t a picky eater. Ever since he was little, we’ve always switched up the menu to make sure he tries new things. I also like to challenge myself. If I’m constantly making the same thing, I’m not growing in my cooking abilities. If I branch out and make new dishes, I get to try new techniques, new ingredients, etc. By meal planning, I am able to make sure that we aren’t always eating the same thing each week.
Reason 4: We can eat healthier.
By logging what meals we plan to have each day, I can make healthier choices. Typically, I calculate the number of calories per serving and then add them up for each day. Now, I know not everyone agrees with that method, and that’s fine. You can do what works best for you! We aren’t here to discuss weight loss strategies at this time though. Typically Saturdays are our cheat days, but the rest of the time, I’m calculating calories. We also are able to add healthier options into the plan instead of grabbing whatever fried food from the grocery store freezer sounds appealing when we shop while we’re hungry.
How To Get Started With Meal Planning:
Meal planning doesn’t always come easy, especially if you’re taking nutrition into consideration. It can be a long process of calculating calories, carbs, fat, etc. While planning isn’t always easy, I do still find it super rewarding, even if you only plan one week at a time. If you don’t feel like calculating this stuff and just want to make what sounds good, that’s fine too!
How I Find Meal Ideas:
I think the hardest part for me is finding new meal ideas. We love trying new things, so I try to change things up every week instead of making the same recipes all the time. To do this, I pull recipes from a few different sources each week. But before I ever even begin looking at recipes I first look and see what ingredients we may already have on hand. Then I try to find recipes that use those ingredients. This helps cut costs by a lot.
After seeing what we already have, the first place I look for recipes is my own head! Before I look elsewhere, I try to see if there are any ideas I’ve come up with myself for recipes. I have a list of different recipe ideas that I want to try to create, so I try to make one or two meals of my own each week. Next, I have a pretty large cookbook collection. I like to make one or two meals each week from my cookbooks so that they don’t just sit there collecting dust, haha! My favorite cookbooks right now are this Instant Pot cookbook that I got last Mother’s Day, this One Pot Weight Watchers cookbook that I got for Christmas and honestly, this Baby Led Weaning cookbook that I bought when our toddler was little. These three books have a ton of delicious recipes!
Lastly, I almost always use pinterest for recipes. There are so many great food blogs out there that have great recipes. A couple of my favorites are Pinch of Yum and Gimme Some Oven. They have a ton of great, well reviewed recipes on both of their sites.
What Meals Do I Put More Effort Into?
I honestly put more effort into lunch and dinner ideas than breakfasts. In the morning, I’m really groggy and not feeling like making big meals. The only real day that I do put more effort into breakfasts is Saturday because it’s the one day that we aren’t intermittent fasting or counting calories. So on Saturdays, I’ll typically make a breakfast dish of some sort and we’ll have an easy lunch or leftovers. Our son isn’t really super picky, so for him during the week, it’s easy to just give him some toast, fruit, etc. and not really worry about “making” something. Lunches are typically leftovers from the night before, but sometimes I’ll get fancy and make something. So dinner is really where I focus the majority of my meal planning efforts. This being said, I stagger lunches and dinners so that I really only have to cook one meal a day at most. It’s helpful not feeling like I’m always in the kitchen all day.
What Tools Do You Need?
1) Something to Write Meal Ideas On:
For physically writing down my meal plans, there are a few products I recommend. First, I really like this health and fitness planner bundle from Squizzleberry on etsy. Included are food logs, habit trackers, etc. but this is what I use to write down the plans for each week including how many calories, etc. The sheet that I use is the food journal. On this sheet, in addition to the foods I eat and calories, I can also keep track of hydration each day and my weight changes throughout the week.
If you aren’t feeling the whole health and fitness vibe though, this meal planning book is super cheap and helpful! Or, if you want something even more simple and multi-purpose, I’ve also just used pages in a plain spiral notebook in the past. This notebook from Gotcha Covered is SO CUTE and this “Get Shit Done” one is one I actually have, haha! I really like these notebooks because the paper is really high quality. With gel or felt pens, I don’t end up with a lot of bleed-through.
2) Something to Organize Any Groceries You Need
The next tool I use is this adorable magnetic grocery list from the brand Knock Knock to help keep track of what I need to purchase every week for the meals I pick out. I find this super handy because everything is broken down by the area you’d find it in the store. It also has blank spaces for you to add groceries that may not be included in each section of the checklist. I’ve been using this for the last few years and love it. They even have a keto version and a vegetarian version.
3) Something To Write With
I’m a pen connoisseur. I have a lot of different pens that I really like that write nicely and are vibrant. I think my favorite kind though are felt pens. They’re just so incredibly smooth. My absolute favorite pens are these papermate flair pens, but these iBayam Journal Pens are a cheaper alternative that I’ve been using lately.
4) A Place To Store Your Hard Work
For me, because I use the food journal pages mentioned above for meal planning, I have to have a place to keep my plans. For me, I like having everything on my fridge so that I can see it all easily and know what the plan is for the week. To do that, I like having a heavy duty magnetic clip, like these ones. Sometimes I’m hanging 4-5 meal plans at a time and I want to make sure the magnet isn’t just going to slide down or fall off of the fridge.
Meal Planning Examples:
Here are four meal plan ideas spanning from the middle of March to the middle of April. Here you can see the variety in the meals that we’re having, how breakfasts are always usually something very simple, the different sources I use to find meal ideas, etc.
Well, that’s basically it! Let me know if you have other questions in the comments below or if you need any help getting started! For meal ideas to add to your own meal plans, feel free to check out my recipes page here. I’d love for you to try them and let me know what you think! If you want more fun and family ideas, feel free to check out my Family and Fun page here or subscribe to Growing Up Garlicky below. Thanks!
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