Read on to learn some simple tips for easy meal planning for beginners!
It’s almost dinner time. You look in your fridge and realize there’s nothing ready to eat. The freezer only has some bags of vegetables and a dino nuggets package with just 4 pieces left in it. So you look through your cupboards where you find lots of ingredients, but nothing that quite goes together to make a meal. Now the kids are whining and you’re feeling pretty hungry yourself. So you end up just ordering take out or eating cereal for dinner. Again.
Does any part of that sound familiar? Do you get back from the grocery store and feel like you bought so much food, yet it seems like there’s never anything to eat come dinner time? Or maybe you just want to cut back on eating out and aren’t sure where to start.
Friends, meal planning can help you! And it does NOT have to be stressful or complicated. Imagine not feeling stressed at dinner time. Or only having to go to the grocery store once a week! That could be you, even if you’re a beginner!
Are you sold yet?
Give yourself a few weeks to get in the groove of planning meals, and you’ll be surprised at how easy it is — not to mention how much money you save by sticking to a planned out shopping list!
We all know the benefits of meal planning: save time, save money, save your sanity! And it’s often healthier, to boot! So why not give it a shot?
Just follow my simple, step by step guide to weekly meal planning and you’ll be a pro in no time!
Step 1: Plan your meals (surprise!) š
I always plan 5 meals each week, counting on 2 days of leftovers. You can adjust this according to your family needs, though.
If your family never has any leftover food, then you’ll need to plan 7 meals. Or make larger meals, so that you do have leftovers (this is what I’d do, personally– it saves you from having to make dinner from scratch a couple of times a week — I’m all about making things easy when possible).
Or if you tend to have lots of leftovers, maybe you only need to plan 3 or 4 meals a week. Once you get into the groove of weekly meal planning, you’ll figure out what works best for your family.
I usually plan my meals on the notepad app on my phone; that way Iām way less likely to misplace my plans, haha. Plus, you can move around the order of everything without having to retype anything, which comes in handy in the next step.
That being said, there is something extra helpful about having a tangible meal plan, especially when you’re first starting out and developing your rhythm. You can check out my FREE meal planning and shopping list printable here. š
I also keep a master list of meals my family enjoys on the same app so that I can refer to it if I’m just drawing a blank when meal planning or if I’m not near my recipe book.
If you need some help brainstorming meal ideas, click here.
Step 2: Schedule your meals
Next, you want to schedule your meals. This may seem unnecessary, but trust me — it helps things run so much more smoothly!
The way I usually do this is I look at my schedule for the week and assign the easier meals (think crockpot dinners or things that come together really fast) and leftovers to the days that I’m the busiest. Then the meals that take a little longer to make get assigned to my less busy days. But be careful when scheduling your leftover days — you need to make sure you have one or two meals that usually have leftovers before you plan a leftover day.
It’s also good to keep in mind that if you have ingredients that need to be used right away, schedule those for as close to your grocery shopping day as you can.
Step 3: Make your shopping list
Make your shopping list with everything you’ll need for all those dinners you planned. Make sure you also add whatever your family needs for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. That way you can get all of your shopping for the week done in one go, which saves you time and money in the long run.
Now, this is the part where most people tell you to go through your pantry and fridge to see what you already have before making your list. I’m not going to say not to do that, but if it causes you stress, just skip it this time.
Remember the goal here is to make meal planning a regular habit, not to get everything perfect the very first time. I personally hate going through the pantry and fridge when making my shopping list, even after over a decade of weekly meal planning.
So if you’re like me and that step might cause you to procrastinate making a meal plan and shopping list, you have my permission to not do it! And if you end up having a few duplicate items in your pantry, well, you’ll just be that much more prepared for next time.
*Tip: Organize your shopping list by how you usually move through the store. For example, I always start in the produce department, so I put my fruits and veggies at the top of my list. Then I head over to the condiment and baking aisle, so those things go next on my list, and so on.
Step 4: Go grocery shopping
4. Now you’re ready to go grocery shopping and just follow your dinner plan for the rest of the week! You did it! Easy peasy.
Reader Question: What does your family do for breakfasts and lunches?
I had a reader message me about how her big struggle with meal planning is that she tends to take on too much. She asked if my family had the same foods for breakfast and lunch every day and only changed up the dinners? I thought I’d share my response here in case anyone else is having the same struggles.
The short answer to do we eat the same thing for our first two meals every day is: yes… and no. Helpful, right? š
We have several, easy on-hand options for breakfast and lunch every day, most of which my kids can get for themselves. For breakfasts, we usually have some combination of cereals, oatmeal, yogurts, fruits, and cheese sticks (my kids love cheese sticks, haha).
For lunches, we do some combinations of sandwiches, cheese, crackers, fruits, veggies, peanut butter, and leftover dinners. Sometimes we’ll go all out and make macaroni and cheese or scrambled eggs, too, haha!
Keeping things simple is the key to success, friends. Especially when you’re just getting into the groove of meal planning!
What did you plan for dinners this week? Let me know in the comments!
