Meal Plan Tip #1

Most people that I have talked to get super overwhelmed thinking about making a meal plan every week and really don't know where to start. Honestly, I was too at the beginning. I would spend hours pouring through cookbooks, food magazines, etc to find meals that I could make for the week.

 Eventually it got easier because I saved the recipes in a binder that became our favorites and we would cycle through those frequently. I was committed to making at least 2 meals a week that we had never tried before. I'm just not into doing Meatloaf Mondays, Pork Roast Tuesdays, etc. That sounds so BLAH to me. 

Anyways, if you are one of those people that gets overwhelmed about making a meal plan, my best advice to you is start small. Try a couple recipes from the ones I have shared on this blog. Only make a meal plan for maybe three days or just for the weekend. That will seem like less of a burden. Believe me, it WILL get easier once you get in the habit of doing one. You will probably ask yourself, "Why didn't I do this sooner?"

How do I make a meal plan? On my meal plan I usually only do dinners. Breakfast for us is usually the same types of things like cereal, yogurt with granola, bagels, or pancakes. Lunch is usually either leftovers, Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, or I make something up from the things we have in the fridge (usually it will be some kind of a stir-fry dish). I always buy salad materials, because I'm a big fan of either having one for lunch or with our dinner. We do our shopping on Mondays. I make a meal plan either Sunday night or Monday morning.

It will look something like this:

On most weeks, my goal is to go shopping one time, and that's it. Weekdays is when I like to make a "new" meal or one of our favorites because that's when my husband Travis has had a long day at work, and he looks forward to coming home to a nice home cooked dinner. Weekends are usually something simple like quesadillas, something that I froze from last week's meal, etc.

For those of you that are avid meal planners, what do you do? Do you plan for 1 week, 1 month, etc? Do you have a program on the computer that you use to meal plan? Where do you get your meals from? Magazines, online, old family favorites? I would love to hear from you!

~kristina