Friday, November 27, 2009

Planning Meals

I have decided that I am going to try to be more organized and less wasteful by planning our meals. We are going to give it a whirl, and I am sure that this is a great way to reduce spending! I am hoping that this will help me use up things like fresh produce before it goes bad because I forgot that we had it. I am thinking it will also help me to utilize the ingredients in my cupboard as well, before I go out and get more! I have thought of doing this before, but have never gotten serious about it. I think it will also help me to plan ahead enough to avoid eating out as much as possible.

I found some awesome printable meal planning charts over at www.organizedhome.com/printable/household-notebook?page=1 . They have them for weekly or monthly menu planning. I am going to start out with the weekly meal planning form. I think doing the monthly one would be too overwhelming for me. I am also going to plan on having my family help me plan the meals by giving their input. By doing this, I think the transition to meal planning will go more smoothly and the family will be sure to have some of their favorites on the menu. I think I am also going to look around http://www.organizedhome.com/ some more, they seem to have lots of ideas and tools for being more organized, and their printables are free!

2 comments:

  1. We got our menu planned for this week. It was relatively simple. Lunch every day is going to be either leftovers or sandwiches, and we have a different meal for each dinner. Breakfast is usually cereal or malt-o-meal, and I threw a french toast day in there too. We decided to leave the meals open for Saturdays and Sundays, which will still leave room for us to be spontaneous. I think everyone is going to be happy with this!

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  2. Well, our first week of menu planning is over. I think everyone liked it! I liked it because I already had a plan for meals and didn't have to figure it out on the fly. The kids really liked it because they could look at the menu and know what to expect. We are definitely going to try to make this a regular habit!

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