Meal Planning 'Round Here

Reader Jenn asked how I do my meal planning. I don't claim to be an expert meal planner, but I have a system that works for me. I basically make a list of meals, go grocery shopping, and then make the meals. It's pretty simple, but here's how it looks in-depth:

I come up with a list of 7-10 meals. To do this, I consider what we have on-hand that we need to use up. I keep a running list of what I need to buy. Several years ago I made and printed my own meal planning sheets, but I found it easier to just use a legal pad. I hang it on a clipboard, and the clipboard hangs on the wall. I take it down to do my planning and then hang it back up where I can easily see it. I scribble and cross out and draw arrows all over it. No reason to keep it pretty.

I keep a good stock of things I know we use regularly in my storage room. I also keep a lot of stuff in the freezer. I buy chicken breasts about once every-other month and cook them in the crock pot. Then I shred (or sometimes dice) them and throw them in the freezer. I hate the time it takes to cook chicken for things like enchiladas, casseroles, or soups, so I make sure I always have cooked chicken ready to go. I also brown beef (or turkey) and freeze it for the same reason. As with chicken, I buy it about once every two months and portion it out - brown some, freeze some raw, and I usually make a batch of meatballs to freeze. Because I believe in meatballs. Any time I can double a recipe and freeze some, I do it.

After I make the list of meals, I assign the meals to days. I write out the days and then I compare them to my calendar and write in any events that will affect dinner time (for example, maybe we have Pack Meeting at 6:30 this Wednesday, and Daisy has dance until 5:30. That would be a good day for leftovers or something quick and easy). For Sundays, I try to plan crock pot meals or things I can prepare before church and cook quickly after church. We currently have church from 11:00-2:00, so we are ravenous when we get home. We opt for an early dinner rather than a late lunch on Sundays. When we have church from 9:00-12:00 - we just have normal lunch and dinner.

I make note of meals that need to be fixed promptly (for example, I might have asparagus in the fridge that needs to be used within 1-2 days, so I assign that meal to the soonest day). I also leave gaps for leftovers and to allow for flexibility. I always have meals that roll over into the next planning session because plans change, and we don't always prepare every meal on my list. 

I've been pretty diligent about meal planning for about ten years. I always have a plan, but I don't always follow through. That's were I need to be a little more disciplined. I get easily distracted by pizza coupons and lunch dates. 

So that's it! Nothing special. 

In order for my meal planning to be successful, I have to be proactive about getting things out of the freezer. It also helps if I do as much prep early in the day as possible since my kids go nuts after school and make it really hard for me to cook. I find that when I stick to our meal plan, I save a lot of money, and we always have an abundance of food. When I don't stick to it, we overspend, and we are always scrounging for something to eat. 

Meal planning definitely has perks!

**UPDATE**

When Jenn first asked me this question, she requested links to posts I've written in the past about meal planning. I couldn't find any that resembled my current meal planning practices. After I wrote this post, I found a meal planning post on my old blog, which is very similar to what I just wrote. Glad to know my system has been working for so long!