A Good Way to Start Meal Planning

If you’re not sure where to start with planning your meals, you can make it easy by taking stock of what is in your kitchen. Take note of everything in your pantry and refrigerator, write it down, and see what meals you can make from those ingredients.

  • This should be a good start, and then all you might need are some filler ingredients.
    • You may have almost all of the ingredients you need for homemade biscuits, so you know you can have a meal that uses those biscuits as a way of saving money and time.
  • Once you know everything you already have, start considering what the different meals are that your family will be interested in, but don’t forget about considering how each of those meals will be prepared.

If you know you will be pressed for time, try to think of meals you can make ahead of time or that can be made in the slow cooker all day while you are at work.

How to Be Detailed in Your Meal Plans

  • Once you have started noting down some meals you would like to make during the week, try to be as detailed as possible.
  • If you think you will have leftovers from a chicken dinner in order to have lunch for 2-3 days, note that in the plan!
  • This helps you reduce how many lunches you need to prepare, which further saves you a lot of time when it comes time to prepare your different meals for the week.

After listing the meals, make another list with all the groceries you need to purchase, minus what you already have on hand.

Leaving Room For Flexibility Throughout the Week

  • While planning every meal is a great way to save time during the week, there are going to be some situations where it doesn’t go quite as you planned out.
    • Make sure you leave some room for flexibility in your meals and meal planning.
  • For example, you might have a day where you want to go out to dinner because your spouse got a big promotion and you want to celebrate.
    • Don’t hesitate to celebrate just because you planned to make spaghetti that night.

Just readjust your schedule and make it another night. Meal planning is meant to simplify the process, not restrict yourself too much.

Include Leftovers in Your Plan

  • Always try to think about leftovers or using certain ingredients in your meal planning that can be used for multiple meals.
    • If you know you want to make chicken and dumplings and are going to buy a pack of chicken breasts, buy more than you need and freeze them.
    • This lets you have enough chicken for that meal, but also for chicken soup, salads, sandwiches, or other dinner ideas.

You’re going to save money and time by having the extra chicken on hand.

How is Meal Prepping Different?

Meal planning and meal prepping are often confused, but these are actually two entirely different things.

  • With meal planning, you are simply deciding what the future meals will be.

When you meal prep, you actually buy those ingredients, then start getting certain aspects of the meal prepared, so that very little needs to be done each day when cooking time arrives.

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