10 unique meal plan tips when you hate meal planning.
Oh boy, I can’t be the only one, right?
My meal planning game has been sooo weak over the years.
But, now that we have another mouth to feed (my almost 2 year old son), and it turns out his stomach is a bottomless pit like me and his dad. It was time that I make better use of our meals and money management. They seem to go hand in hand, but today we are going to discuss how to get started with just meal planning. Because, getting started is the hardest part!
Yes, the first time will be a little time-consuming, but with the tools and resources I will share every month will be easier and easier until it takes you about 5 minutes to figure out your meals.
Get ready for some REAL tips and actionable steps you can take to make planning actually happen and make it easier until it becomes your second nature.
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Why do you want to meal plan?
So, let’s get down to it, why do you want to meal plan? What are you looking to do or achieve? What is your goal with meal planning?
- Are you trying to save money?
- Trying to eat healthier?
- Are you bored with food and looking for more variety?
- Trying to prevent food waste
- Are you willing to try more diverse foods?
- Are you just wanting to be more organized when it comes to having meals scheduled?
How to begin meal planning?
Did you answer yes to any of the above questions?
These are all great questions to really think about because they can help you focus on how you would like to create a meal plan.
Now, what questions did you relate to the most? Pick 2 of them, MAYBE 3. But, let’s not get carried away. We don’t want to get burnt out before we even begin! Listen, you can have all these things, budget friendly meals, diverse foods, healthier meals, etc. but try not to overwhelm yourself with all of it at first.
Every week you can chose to try a different strategy, start with your most important reason for creating a meal plan, for example:
- Week 1: Create budget friendly meals (shop the sales).
- Week 2: Diversify my foods (try new foods).
- Week 3: Less food waste (eat the leftovers).
- Week 4: Use the appliances you have (crockpot meals, instant pot meals, air fryer meals).
- Week 5: Create a meal planning binder.
10 UNIQUE tips to meal planning for your family
1. Ask your family what they’d like to eat
I know this is seems like a derrr common sense question. But, oftentimes, I found myself making whatever I thought was easiest (hello, mom life) AND what my family might like…but you know what I wasn’t doing? I wasn’t verbally asking them.
Yeah, I figured I had a good sense of what they would like to eat. But, I wasn’t actually asking them what they wanted to eat.
So, avoid my mistake and start taking into consideration what your family ACTUALLY wants to eat and ASK them. You might be surprised at some of their answers.
2. Create a menu or list of meals/foods your family eats regularly
I am going to assume you’ve done the suggestion above, and now that you know what your family actually wants to eat, you can create either a running list of foods your family likes to eat. You can do this as just a continual running list somewhere in your house (the kitchen is a great place) OR you can do this weekly.
I prefer creating my list weekly, because sometimes my family isn’t in the mood for a particular meal.
Every week, I ask my family, “Hey, what do you want to eat next week?”and then I just write it down on my list. This works for us because I like to go grocery shopping every week. I feel like it saves us money, but that’s a topic for another day.
3. Plan, plan, PLAN
I know you desire to be more organized with your meal planning, otherwise you wouldn’t have read this far. You’re taking great steps towards your progress.
Create a schedule (this is the ‘planning’ part).- daily, weekly, or monthly meal plan schedule. Sit down and think about what works best for you and your family. Is it better and more efficient for your family to have monthly meal plans since you only go shopping once a month? Do you go to the grocery store bi-weekly (hello, pay day!), or maybe you’re like me and prefer to go weekly?
If you’re not sure what will work for you, pick one that goes in-line with the amount of times you currently grocery shop and see how it works. You can always change your plans if it didn’t work out like you thought it would
We want to be organized, but fail to plan. So, don’t give up and keep on planning, mama!
If you fail to plan, prepare to fail.
Ledyliz.com
4. Mindset matters:
If you are trying to get your finances together and lower your debt, what is the first thing you have to do? You’ve got to change your habits, but even BEFORE changing your habits you’ve got to get in the right MIND SET. You have to be mentally prepared to stop spending. It’s the same with meal planning. Get in the right mindset, things to start mentally preparing for: get use to eating leftovers.
5. Have a space for your “meal planned” foods
Now that you’ve got your food, create a space in your pantry or somewhere in your kitchen to put all your food items. I personally do this because I don’t like having to scramble looking for my pantry-staple-foods- last-minute.
So, this is what I do; Each week, I add all the non perishables (that Mayo is brand new, hehe) that I will use for that weeks meals and I add them to my basket and when the day comes I have all my pantry items ready to go!
6. Have at least one meatless meal a week at dinner time.
Unless you are vegan, chances are you are consuming a crazy amount of meat products for protein intake. Don’t even get me started on the other animal products we consume (butter, cheese, eggs). I am a huge vegan enthusiast, but it has been a difficult ride trying to implement a more plant-based diet in our home. But, the one way we try and implement it is by having one at least one “meatless” meal a week.
Tips: You don’t have to plan for one full day (breakfast lunch, and dinner) of meatless meals.
Ease into it, try replacing one meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) any meal of your choosing and making it meatless.
Every week you can add a vegetarian meal, vegan, plant-based, or if you’re really ambitious fully-raw recipes into your arsenal of meatless meals, and in no- time you will have a large stock of recipes ready at your disposal.
7. Pre-chop your food
I have recently become a huge fan of pre-chopping vegetables. I absolutely loathe all the time it takes to chop onions, peppers, and other veggies. It drives me nuts.
Now, I chop all my onions and green peppers ahead of time, so that I can just pop them out of the fridge when its time to cook.
This isn’t absolutely necessary BUT, it can make your life a lot easier.
8. Make extra food to refreeze.
How many times have you had extra food in the fridge only to find it way in the back corner of the fridge a week later. I’m guilty too.
Instead of letting it go to waste in the fridge for a week, pull out leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge 2, MAYBE 3 days max. And toss it into the freezer for a day when you and your family will want it. It should be good in a regular freezer for up to 3 months.
Is there a particular food your family loves or asks you to make over and over again? Make a double batch of it and store in the freezer.
9. Use what you got!
Do you have a slow cooker, instant pot, or air fryer collecting dust in the pantry? It’s time to dust those babies off and start utilizing them. You can save so much time and make meal prepping so much easier with one of these appliances. I think all these appliances have their own unique place in the meal prep world. But, I prefer my slow cooker, rather than an instant pot. But my air fry is KING.
10. THINK REALISTICALLY- “cheat day”:
, Ok, this is my favorite part. Plan your cheat day. Because, stuff happens, days are long, kids are crying, and how often are you honestly planning to cook homemade?
Things to consider: Are you going to order takeout this week? If so, what day will you order takeout?
Go, ahead and add your “takeout” or “restaurant” day into your meal plan.
Nothing to be ashamed of! I lovee eating out, so having a day to eat out, helps me not to get burnt out from all this home cooking
