How to become a Meal Planner?

boymamaco

I love to cook but am always scrambling at the last minute. We live in the heart of a ton of great restaurants and eat out a ton. LO is great with it - in fact he loves to sit on our lap, facing the table, and takes it all in. But, we really want to start eating healthier and I'd like to get into a groove with meal planning. Those of you who are active meal planners, how did you get started? How long do you take each week to plan out your meals? Do you go to the store once, twice or more each week? Do you have preset grocery lists per each meal? 

I'd love any tips and tricks on how to make this easier and less cumbersome. TIA!

tanabeans

I do the same as @Sundae13 with the whiteboard except I look in the pantry and fridge and wrote down what I have, then I look at ingredients to make meals and put what I'm lacking on the grocery list. I try to only go to store once. I also agree with leaving cheat days . In your case I wild try to plan two meals a week on easy days and increase from there.

V&G101808

Meal planning for me was a little easier when Google Reader was available but you can do the same thing with Pinterest or even a real-life bulletin board.

I'm constantly pinning up recipes that I'd like to try and I keep a list of our favoritre go-tos (list continiously gets longer as we try new things).  Sunday afternoons I sit down, browse my recipe folder and pick out what I'm going to make for that week.  I write down all the ingredients and there's my grocery list.

Sunday evening we go grocery shopping and I leave out what I need for Monday and prep what I can ahead of time.  Organizing during the weekend really helps make it easy since I work full time and don't want to spent too much time in the kithen.  Baby snuggles > cooking

LEMSA

I use Pinterest a lot too. Just take a few hrs one day and get it all done. Now that it's fall, I tend to do heavier crockpot meals and soups. Those are super convenient. If the meal needs meat, sometimes I get H to grill it all ahead of time.

It's a lot easier to get the majority of shopping done once a week.

AmeliaKris

I usually use pinterest and look at what we have going on during the week. Busy nights are crockpot nights. Make a grqocery list. You actually save so much money with meal planning.

Snowbird7

I've found it helpful to make double and triple batches of things and stick them in the freezer. If I'm making turkey meatballs on a Sunday, I make three pounds. If I make chicken tetrazzini, I make three dinners and freeze two. It makes it easier to stick to a meal plan if I have one or two night's worth already stashed.

EricaLee2013

V&G101808 said:

Meal planning for me was a little easier when Google Reader was available but you can do the same thing with Pinterest or even a real-life bulletin board.

I'm constantly pinning up recipes that I'd like to try and I keep a list of our favoritre go-tos (list continiously gets longer as we try new things).  Sunday afternoons I sit down, browse my recipe folder and pick out what I'm going to make for that week.  I write down all the ingredients and there's my grocery list.

Sunday evening we go grocery shopping and I leave out what I need for Monday and prep what I can ahead of time.  Organizing during the weekend really helps make it easy since I work full time and don't want to spent too much time in the kithen.  Baby snuggles > cooking

This exactly and I use Pinterest to pin recipes that I find on my favorite cooking blogs, even from my own blog. Pinterest is like my recipe book on the go so I can quickly look things up if I forgot to put it on my shopping list. I usually plan 3 meals a week which leaves room for leftovers or take out if we want.

I also freeze things like marinades so all I have to do is buy fresh chicken and make the sides.

girlmama83

The skinnytaste website has become a life saver for us.

We sit down and pick out at least 5 recipes we'd like to try from it and put the ingredients on our shopping list. We grocery shop every two weeks but we do very light simple shopping with only necessities. We pick one junk food item to get each shopping trip, like last week we bought Oreos.

LJUTCMommy

I plan out the week on Sundays. I use the "Peek at the Week" page from the I Heart Organizing Blog. I print it and put it on the fridge.

After I plan meals, I make the grocery list. I loathe grocery shopping, so it's only once a week.

I'd say the planning only takes about 20-30 min.

Marvel1013

On the weekend I plan out the meals for a week. I have a journal book I use to write down my Monday-Friday plan. I keep a lot of my recipes in an index card box which I've written down recipes we like or have used. Once I've figured out the meals for the week I'll check to see which ingredients I have and I will do a list for all the stuff I'll need for the week and do one grocery shop. If I forget anything I'll go back to the store, or if something changes.

danal613

I too use Pinterest to find recipes and make my list from there. I've found a lot of delicious meals and my family loves them!

CaliforniaDream87

Because we are "eating clean" in our house it's fairly easy to meal plan and prep. I cook 3 meals ahead of time which helps me stay on track. Grocery shopping is done with a list and we buy nothing more than what we have planned for the next week and a half or so.

Cocolamo1

I also try to do 'theme nights' such as Mexican Monday. It helps me narrow down meals for that day of the week. I try to shop just once a week.

Kstowe07

Pinterest has helped me tremendously with ideas and planning meals

KimIC24

Setting aside a time to prep your ingredients for the week really helps too.  That way when it comes time to actually make the meal, everything is chopped and ready to go.  On week nights that helps me actually make what I planned, not just order something or eat out because prep takes too long.  And when you do it all at once, it really does save time.  I do my prep on Sunday afternoons, and meals are either ready to go or almost there.  Casseroles that taste better as leftovers are great too.  Make them on the weekend to eat Monday or Tuesday night.  The slow cooker is the greatest thing ever too.  

A few weeks of practice and it will become second nature.  Good luck!  

Critter015

I just made a list of all of the dinners that I know DH will eat. Then I printed out a calendar for the month and adding the meals onto it, then I would make a list for each week or two weeks of what I needed to make the meals. It took me maybe an hour to fill in the calendar and make the grocery lists. When I was working I would work on it on payday so every other week. That way I knew how much I needed to budget for groceries for that 2 week period.

Now I've been having trouble sticking to my calendar because some nights DH ends up working late so I just fix something simple that DH may not like those nights. I've also been shopping every two weeks or less because it is such a hassle with both kids. I just make sure I keep ingredients on hand for the majority of the meals that I make.

I also try to prep ahead if possible. If I need to brown ground beef I'll brown twice as much as I need and freeze the other half for next time. When I was working I would make a casserole, enchiladas, or other meals that could be frozen on the weekend so on a week night all I had to do was throw it in the oven. Now that I SAH I just do most of my prep during nap time and I'm able to use my crockpot
more as well.

kanned0121

Thank you for this thread! I am going to try it... I need to learn to like cooking..

boymamaco

Thank you for all the responses. I finally got a chance to get back on here and check... talk about a long term post and run! 

For those that followed this - I just found the Peek at a Week template is posted for free right now. Check out https://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2011/10/freebie-time-peek-at-week.html

henderson1026

I have a binder.  In the cover sleeve I have a month-view calender with the meals written in.  The front part has index cards with shopping lists for each meal and the back part has printed recipes.  I print the next month out and work on filling it out slowly so that by the 1st it is complete.  I grocery shop once a week.