It’s not quite February and I’ve got my meals planned for the entire month! It’s a huge stress reliever for us when I get this accomplished ahead of time. There is nothing that can drive us quickly insane as the back and forth conversation that goes something like this:

Emily: “What do you want to eat for dinner?”

Joe: “I don’t know/care, what do you want?”

Emily: “Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t really care either. There is nothing I really want.”

Joe: “Me either.”

5 minutes later…

Emily: “So what do you want for dinner?”

Joe: “I don’t know/care, what do you want?”

And this can continue on for an hour!

Meal planning isn’t really that hard. Seriously! Grab a notebook and pen and have a seat. Plan on at least an hour or so, but if you’re time constrained, you can easily break this up into smaller segments. Take a few factors into consideration when you’re planning. Here are a few things I have to consider:

• Sunday dinners have to be simple. We spend a lot of time at church, so there isn’t a ton of prep or cooking time.
• We go to the gym two nights during the week. We need meals to accommodate our time constrains (crockpot dinners work well for these days)
• Meetings, on call nights, dinner engagements, etc- Joe has at least one meeting each month where he isn’t home for dinner, so I don’t have to worry about cooking.
• Relief from cooking- I give myself a few nights a month (avg 1 night a week) where I don’t have a plan. Lets be real, even as much as I enjoy cooking, I also like the break!
• I need something new! I try to plan at least one or two new recipes each month. Sometimes they are complete failures, sometimes we get keepers! If they are failures, I don’t beat myself up over it. Live, learn, and try again!

For the month of February, I have planned 25 nights worth of dinner even though there are 29 days. Depending on how your brain functions, you can divide your notebook page into different categories. I have a Sunday night section, a Saturday section, a section if I’m going to have to prepare food for others (church dinner, etc), and then a general section.

I start jotting down meals that I cook on a regular/semi-regular basis. Meals like spaghetti and meatballs, which take much more prep work are planned for days/nights I have the time- usually on a Saturday. If I can squeeze two meals out of one, it’s a huge bonus! With spaghetti & meatballs, we can do meatball subs the next night. Perfect! That is super simple to throw together on a Sunday evening.

In my general section, I make sure to have a number of simple meals for those nights we don’t have a ton of extra time. Dinners like tacos, chili, or crockpot meals work beautifully. Crockpot meals can be simple to elaborate in prep. A few things we enjoy are chicken and rice, beef stew, bbq, and chicken & dumplings.

I have my list of 25 different meals. Once February starts up, I’ll actually write what meals are on what day in my planner. Things are always coming up and until a specific week is upon us, I cannot commit to certain meals on certain nights.

A few benefits of meal planning-

• Sanity! Save the daily stress of having to figure out what you want for dinner.
• Fewer trips to the grocery store = more time. If I haven’t planned my weekly meals well, I end up at the store more times than I want.
• Quicker shopping trips. When you have your meals planned out, you can create a shopping list, so you don’t have to go up and down aisles, wandering around trying to figure things out.
• Opportunity to save more money. If you’re only buying whats on your list, you won’t be spending excess money on extra items. If you’re not running to the grocery store every other day, you’re saving gas money. If you take your master list and try to pick meals for the week based on sale items, items you have coupons for, and items you have already, you’ll end up saving money!

Start small if you want. Lets say by Friday night of this week, have next weeks menu ready to go along with your grocery list (don’t forget to add the other necessities such as breakfast, lunch and household items). On Saturday or Sunday, head to the store with your list in hand. Commit to only purchasing what you have on the paper. Over the course of the next week, stick to your menu plan as much as possible, even if it requires swapping two nights. I promise, not having to figure things out at the last-minute is totally worth this time and effort you put forth early on.

Oh, a few last tips-

• If you have a random ingredient that you won’t use very often, try to plan at least two meals that week that will use that ingredient. For example, with my jerk chicken tacos, I need cilantro. I love fresh cilantro, but don’t need as much as comes in a bundle. We have another recipe for healthy nachos that uses cilantro. I’ll plan those two items within the same week so that my cilantro doesn’t get wasted…or less of it gets wasted.
• If you’re preparing two items during a week that call for ground beef, check the prices on the 1lb and the 2lb packages of ground beef. Sometimes I’ve found it much cheaper to buy the two pound and split it. And you can always freeze the second pound if you won’t need it until the following week.
• If you find ground beef, chicken breasts, etc on sale for really cheap, stock up! When Harris Teeter puts chicken breasts on sale Buy One, Get Two free, I always buy lots! Then I’ll divide them up into smaller portion bags and throw them in the freezer. Most meals, Joe and I can get away with 1 1/2 chicken breasts. One package of three will serve us two meals. This is a time saver and a money saver!