A little lesson for myself this week (not in regards to meal planning-I'll get to that) is to only start binge watch Stranger Things episodes AFTER I actually have a blog post written. Because...yeah...THIS SHOW! Sucks me in and then I'm MIA around here.
I have such a love hate relationship with meal planning. The hardest part, for me, is just sitting down and taking the time to actually do the planning (why is this!), but then once I start it's pretty painless and I'm happy it's done for the week. Not to mention our week flows so much better + we're not just sitting around wondering what's for dinner! It saves time. money. and you stress less.
These are some things that I've found helpful when it comes to meal planning...
+Have a Pinterest board just for weekly dinners. Pin 4 or 5 for the upcoming week so that you can refer back to it when you need to get the ingredients and head to the store (or do an online order) This is also great because you can access your favorite recipes quickly!
+Order online: What I like to do is have the recipes I want to make for the week pulled up and then add the ingredients for each recipe to my shopping cart online. This way you never forget an item and you're also not buying things you don't need.
+Schedule a specific time for weekly meal planning (I normally like to do it on Friday's)
+Do theme nights: Meatless or Mexican Monday, Taco Tuesday, Whatever Wednesday, and so on! Makes it easier to plan.
+Since we eat a lot of eggs in our house, on Sunday's I will make a dozen scrambled eggs and store them so that all I have to do in the mornings is heat them up. Less cleaning + quick = happy mom and boys. You can also do this with so many other foods!
+Cut up and portion out the kids' snacks or fruit/veggies for meals into containers so that they're ready to go. I wish I did this more often because it saves so much time!
+Try to make enough for 2 meals
As for my recent fav recipe I've tried lately...it would be this chili recipe, hands down (also pictured above!) I've made it twice in the past 2 weeks. YUM!
What secrets do you have when it comes to meal planning? What helps your family? Share with me!
PS: You can follow all my Pinterest boards here!
I don't even have kids, but online grocery shopping changed my life HA! I do the same with recipes pulled up, and it seems like I don't end up buying a million random things I didn't really need like I do wandering at the grocery store
ReplyDeleteLOVE these tips - I need to be more intentional with my meal planning next year! x
ReplyDeleteI'm fully a meal planner! I always encourage keeping sides/salads/snacks/etc in mind as well...a new entree means an easy side is in order! Burnout is real when there's a daunting week of new recipes! I also started doing those shorter crockpot meals over night since some chicken ones don't need to be cooking/keep-warm for the 9 hours we're all gone for the day!
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