Let’s about chat meal planning today. Meal planning is an area of home life that can be a struggle for many people. So if this is an area you’ve completely got under control, you may know and apply all of the tips I’m sharing in this blog. I’m sharing about 9 ideas for making planning simpler today.

A picture of a breakfast laying on a napkin.

There are so many ways to do meal planning (like the image I shared below), but I wanted to choose one that works for us that:

  1. Reduces trips out right now and;
  2. Requires the least amount of energy overall. We have a busy family, so anything that cuts time and thinking wins for me.

So for us, that means an assigned day to day meal theme with some flexibility such as chicken/veggies on Wednesday, Fish Friday. As well as one weekend of picking up the groceries for the month and one mid month top up of fresh type items.

9 IDEAS FOR MAKING MEAL PLANNING SIMPLER

  1. Create daily themes. i.e. Taco Tuesday, Fish Friday. See my blog on meal planning with themes here for more ideas. I also found a blog with 100 easy dinner recipes here.
  2. Create a rotating loop of meals. Pick a bunch of favourite meals and loop through them starting at one, working through and then starting back at the beginning again. See my blog here on loop planning.
  3. Meal plan seasonally. i.e. soups in colder seasons, quick foods in the summer. I found a blog called “A Guide to Seasonal Meal Planning” that you may find helpful too.
  4. Plan around seasonal produce.
  5. Meal plan based on sales.
  6. Make extras for future meals.
  7. Monthly or weekly meal plan.
  8. Keep a running list of grocery items you commonly use.
  9. Jot down a list of meals that are hits or new ideas you’d like to try for quick reference.

SAVE MONEY WITH THIS FREEBIE:

If you’re stumped with meal planning and grocery planning, you may enjoy the method I use for our monthly grocery planning. Since I started applying this method, I started saving our family $200-$300/month consistently. It’s also helped our meal planning situation as well. You can snatch that freebie HERE. I also read a fantastic book with all of the tips and tricks you can imagine called Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half. You can find that book in my Amazon shops: US shop and Canadian shop.

THE SIMPLE MEAL PLANNING GUIDE

And if you’re constantly finding meal planning a challenge, you may also love my Simple Meal Planning Guide!

The Simple Meal planning Guide is for you if…

  • you often feel stumped and uninspired with meal planning
  • you often dread meal times
  • you often feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start with meal planning
  • you’d like a simple, streamlined process to meal plan that works for you in every season of life
  • you often are googling meal planning type ideas
  • you can’t seem to find a system for meal planning that sticks

You can find more about it here.

SAVE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE:

An overview of the blog in note form.

Other blogs of mine you may enjoy:

Hi, I’m Kelly! I’m a mother of four children - three boys, one toddler girl - and our family lives on the beautiful east coast of Canada. I’m a past elementary teacher, turned stay at home, work at home mom eight years ago after I had my second child. I’ve found that the busier I’ve become and as my children age, that it’s become even more important to figure out what is most important to me and us as a family. Living a simpler lifestyle has helped us in so many ways in our home life - from better routines to faster tidying up times. It has been through my children that I have been inspired to learn how to effectively manage my time and to simplify in all areas of my home and life. I enjoy helping busy moms simplify home life by teaching flexible planning methods and skills. Enjoyed this blog and think it would be helpful to others? I'd love if you shared it. Thank you!