May 22, 20233 min read

Meal Planning

Hello! I have not written in forever but today is the day I get back on the writing horse. I have been on the struggle bus since late January dealing with major morning sickness with Baby #2. It is something I did not have with my first so the meals and desserts I planned to share did not happen because ya know all day sickness AKA not so fun stuff.

But okay enough about me, now that I am feeling better I wanted to share something my husband created that I find genius and yes it is already a thing but working so well for us in this season of life... MEAL PLANNING.

The cool part about how we did this mean planning is that I think we took a different spin on it making it easier to do week after week without feeling you are repeating the same three or four meals.

How we made our meal plan:

Write down all our favorite meals from as simple a mac n' cheese to a gourmet steak dinner.
Once all meals were written down we broke them into categories: Salad Night / Cajun Night / Breakfast for Dinner Night and so many more.
Now the fun part, just pick and choose from whatever categories you want to create your weekly plan.
If you want to take it a step farther, this week I took it a little farther and am doing chicken a few ways to save more time and money.
We always leave a night for leftovers/eating out just to have some flexibility in the schedule.

Here is a weekly example to help:

Sunday: Eat Out / Leftovers
Monday: "Dad" (My husband's special recipe: I'll share soon!) Salads + Grilled Chicken
Tuesday: Turkey or Philly Steak Paninis
Wednesday: Olive Oil Light Pasta with Diced Tomatoes and Shredded Chicken and Asparagus
Thursday: Blackened Chicken and Cucumber Salad (from Magnolia Table Cookbook)
Friday: Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries or Tots
Saturday: Breakfast for Dinner: Egg and Cheese Sandwiches

I try to plan / pick these on Friday or Saturday so we can go shopping over the weekend for what we need. In the two-ish weeks we have done this we have found out a few things. 1. We are saving a ton of time in the store each week. Most weeks I would be trying to think of dinner and my husband would have to stop most nights to grab one or two ingredients to finish the meal. 2. We are also saving a ton of money. If you are anything like me every time I have to go grab one thing at the store I always end up buying more, usually snack foods because I am shopping hungry but it is wasting a ton of money on things we do not need. 3. This meal plan is flexible with our weekly shopping trip completed before the week begins if we feel like switching up a day we easily can while having all the ingredients in the house. 4. Lastly, we are not wasting as much food. Like I said before taking multiple trips to the store just adds additional opportunity to grab something you think you will use or looks good. Most likely it will get forgotten or thrown out. 5. BONUS THOUGHT: I also see a lot of "meal planning" of people prepping to eat the same meal every day for a week. I am not knocking it at all because if it works for you keep going, for us it was not obtainable and our child and myself included would be so bored of it by day 3. With this meal plan we are spending more money than eating the same thing all week but adding in something to look forward to eat night and can involve our children in picking and cooking when they are older.

This is totally something we made up to fit our family and the best part is we can change it as our family grows or needs change. Right now it helps us get a better sense of what is going on and takes away some of the stress asking "What is for Dinner tonight?!"