Meal Planning

It's supposed to make life simpler.
It's supposed to save money.
It's supposed to ease stress.

Apparently I have been doing it wrong then.

Meal/Menu planning for my family is something I suck at. Growing up it wasn't something I remember ever doing. I don't really know how my parents decided what we were buying at the store. Were we out of something we always had on hand? Was it based on sales and coupons? Was it based on recipes that they wanted to try out in the next week or two? I have no clue. I do remember eating the same handful of meals over and over again with some delivery or take-out sprinkled in now and again.

I had really hoped to avoid doing that but my husband informs me that I indeed have fallen into that rut of cycling a few easy meals over and over again with pizza, chinese food, runs to subway and the occasional rotissarie chicken from the local grocery store thrown in to make it seem like we aren't eating the same thing constantly.

I am terrible at organization and thinking ahead and so meal planning is not something I am great at. And I kind of hate it a little.

But I KNOW that its something I need to do. Just like I KNOW I need to take my vitamins every day and how I KNOW that homemade mac and cheese is far healthier than the stuff made with powdered cheese that comes in a blue box. I still forget to take my vitamins and I still occasionally cheat and buy the easy stuff so I don't have to grate cheese and boil water.

In an effort to really improve myself as a housewife and mother I am giving it a real shot. After scouring Pinterest for ideas on how to plan my meals out and how to shop for said meals, I settled on one that looks like it might work for me. You can check it out here

I like it because it involves post it notes. Now, I got smaller ones than she suggested-it was an accident-but I am actually okay with it since I can fit more on a single page. I have yet to get the self laminating sheets she suggests and for now I am just using clear report covers to keep things in place. I even color coded it. Funny how my OCD seems limited to silly things like color coding, organizing clothes in the closet by color and being anal about my silverware drawer.

I decided to organize it by preparation method first-so oven(dark yellow), stovetop (Yellow), crock pot(Blue) and Grill(Purple). I also decided that if it was a Lent friendly meal (meatless) that I should be given its own color of light purple. I also decided to use the dark pink for recipes I have never tried before and try to have at least one of those on my menu ever other week and finally sides in orange and green. I had a couple other colors I could use, like dark green and light pink-at this time they are kinda pointless.

The explanation for the whole ordeal can be found in the link above and she does a great job explaining the how's and why's.

I am hoping that this will be the trick to having a more streamlined dinner making and of course grocery shopping experience.

We finally went shopping in the middle of the week (which was the same day I picked up my post it notes) so I won't start my weekly calendar until the upcoming Monday. I have a grocery shopping day set up for every other Wednesday so that I can pick up the non-bulk items, fresh produce and the things for new recipes since I don't want to stock up for a meal my family may not like. I will come back and post my meal calender this weekend!