Easy Meal Planning

Meal planning may sound intimidating at first, but it’s really not that hard.

The first thing you should do is to write down all of your family’s favorite dishes. This will be very handy when you just can’t think of anything for dinner

Next, grab the grocery ads. If you don’t get these in the mail or in your weekly newspaper, just jump online and visit your favorite grocery store’s website. Most grocery stores have their weekly ads listed right on their websites now, and some are even interactive (allowing you to create a printable shopping list – very cool!). Once you have your grocery ads in hand, scan them for sale items that can be used for this week’s meals.

Before you get to deep into your menu plan, you might want to look at your calendar for the week. If you have family or work activities that will keep you from getting home at a decent hour, you will want to plan very simple meals or even leftovers for those particular nights.

Next, you should take an inventory of the items in your fridge and pantry. Do you have any food that needs to be eaten right away? This is one of the greatest benefits of meal planning. You waste much less food because you only buy what you plan on using that week.

At this point, you should have an idea of what you want to cook for the week based on the grocery store ads, what you already have on hand, and your family’s activities for the week. Go ahead and write out the meals you plan on cooking for the week, and fill in your grocery list for the items you don’t have in hand.

All you have left to do at this point is to do the grocery shopping, post your menu on the fridge for all to see, and create your meals each day. The rest of your week should go much more smoothly now that you don’t have to worry about “what’s for dinner” at the end of each day. See how easy meal planning can be?