For quite some time, meal planning and preparation was a bit of a struggle for our family. I would overthink the menu and spend tons of time looking up new recipes to try each week. Once I’d have my lengthy list ready with obscure and seldomly used ingredients, I would head out to the store to buy everything on my list including other goodies and extras along the way.
Throughout the week, we would only end up making half of the extravagant meals and end the week with a ton of wasted grocery items. Some meals were hits while others were not.
This would result in a TON of food waste from uneaten leftovers or just unused ingredients, a TON of wasted time looking for and making recipes, and a TON of wasted money spent on foods we didn’t end up actually eating.
Over the past few years, my husband and I have been working to simplify this entire process to accomplish the goal. Feeding our family everyday, with much less food, money, and time wasted by the end of it. I want to help you and your family do the same!!
We started by writing a list of our family’s favorite go-to meals to act as a solid foundation for our weekly menu while only adding a few (if any) new recipes a week. I highly recommend starting your own family’s go-to recipe list and for more information on getting started click here. Our old meal planning schedule would include mostly new recipes which was overwhelming and anything but simple.
Throughout the rest of this page, I will explain our new meal prep and planning strategy. I hope it saves you and your family as much stress, money, and time as it has saved ours. Scroll down for a copy of our free Meal Planning and Grocery List printable.
Meal Plan
Step One: Start with what you have.
Look through your fridge, pantry, and freezer to see what items you already have available. This is an excellent place to start because chances are you probably already have most of what you need for at least a few meals. I usually just quickly glance through what I already have and make a list, either mental or physical list, of what could be potentially turned into a meal.
Step Two: Plan Out Your Meals
While you decide on your menu for the week, write out your grocery list to fill in the gaps of items you are missing. While filling in your menu, you can add one or two new recipes but try to keep it simple and fill your menu primarily with meals you know your family already loves. You can download my Menu and Grocery List Planner to help you get started.
Step Three: Shop for what you actually need. Only buy the items on your list!
Grocery shop for the items ON YOUR LIST. This is big. It is so tempting to get more than you had planned or more than you need. I usually keep a little extra money set aside to buy sale items that we use on a regular basis (primarily sale meats that I can freeze). Aside from that, we really do stick to the list. It also helps that when I go grocery shopping I usually bring all three of my kids with me, and the list helps us stay focused instead of just quickly throwing items in the cart.
Bonus Benefit: Shopping with a shopping list has actually been an amazing tool to help my kids avoid wanting everything in the store and throwing fits if they can’t have it. If they ask for something, I just kindly respond that it isn’t on the list, so we won’t be able to get it this time or that I wish we could get that too, but it’s not on the list, so maybe next time we can remember to add it to the list! As if by magic, it takes the pressure off of me and transfers it to the list. To this day, it has worked like a charm, and my kids have yet to throw a fit over not getting the grocery item they wanted.
Step Four: Prepare your food.
Clean and prep your food. Depending on the week we will prep the food in advance or we will just prepare it on the day we plan to eat it. Either works, but prepping and/or organizing the food as soon as you get it home definitely increases the chance of it actually being eaten. For example, I wash and prep all of my kids’ produce snacks and set them up in the fridge so that they can help themselves at snack time. The weeks that we don’t do this I tend to notice a lot more food waste.
Step Five: Actually Eat the Food that You Bought and Prepared
The point is to focus on the food you already have and the meals that you know your family already loves. I have a google doc that I use as our family’s running list of our go to family favorites. This ensures that my family will actually eat the meals that I make, and I waste a lot less time because I already know how to make many of the recipes. To learn why and how to make a family favorites list click here.
Eat your leftovers the very next day. This cut down significantly on the food that we were throwing away at the end of each week.
Another way that we have simplified our meals is by using mostly whole foods. Instead of having to buy a specific brand of premade foods it is surprisingly easy to make you own. Instead of buying hash browns, dry mashed potatoes, potato soup, etc. you can buy potatoes and make any of these recipes on your own. Instead of buying bread, pita bread, English muffins, tortillas, etc you can buy flour and make your own. To learn why and how our family uses mostly whole foods click here.
To download your free Meal Planning and Grocery List printable simply fillout the below information and it will be sent to your email shortly.
