Why does it feel so shameful? As if I need to apologize for trying to manage my family’s chaos.. so weird, right? Hey, in all honesty, I used to roll my eyes at the people I’d see online, talking about meal planning. Like, sure, Strange Internet Lady with a Clearly Disposable Income.. you pay someone to make your grocery lists, do the shopping, the cooking, and probably the cleaning..

I could not have been more wrong.

Meal planning is not only for THE RICH, Internet-famous households, and wedding receptions. NOT ANY MORE!

Meal planning is for anyone who:

1. Needs a little bit of structure in your household

2. is currently spending hundreds of dollars at the grocery store and ending up throwing a portion of it away or buying duplicates

3. needs to match family meal time to a hectic family calendar

4. loves to try different recipes but forgets what they wanted to cook to begin with so the groceries get used differently than intended (THIS ONE IS ME).

5. in a food rut

Meal planning gives you an opportunity to have a little more control over what your family is eating throughout the week. If you’re trying to be health conscious, making an effort to buy fruits and vegetables rather than processed snack foods will really pay off. Are you tired of your family asking you what’s for dinner? ME TOO. Now I just point to the wall, where the meals for the week are posted.

How many times have you opened your veggie drawer and had to throw the contents away because the veggies turned bad? Yall, almost nothing makes me as mad as this. It’s wasted money and mama ain’t got money to waste. By meal planning, I know that there are fresh veggies and fruit to be eaten each week. I take it one step further and wash all the fruit and veggies and put them in bowls inside the fridge. If my kids can see them and they are washed and prep for eating, the chances of them getting thrown away are lessened dramatically. Funny how that works…

With Covid, many family calendars are seriously lacking in activities, but there are parts of the country that have opened back to close to normal. Whereever you fall in that.. sometimes you’ve got five people going seventeen different directions and figuring how to get everyone fed is a CHALLENGE. With meal planning, you’re forced to take a look at your family’s weekly schedule and try to work in meals (together or not) where you can. Even if it means you have to create calendar invites to get all your family seated at the same time and in the same place, you can send that invite early enough in the week so there are no excuses for missing it!!

I’m absolutely notorious for forgetting things. Seriously. I’ll go the grocery store with a whole slew of pinterest-fueled recipe ideas in my head, and buy all the ingredients needed. Don’t you know that I’d forget what I was going to cook just about every time?!?!?!? There is just too much running around my melon to try to expect it to remember what I was gonna cook. By writing it down, I keep myself accountable to my original plan, which at the very least helps keep me happy.

Finally, for my friends out there who are sick of the answers “I don’t care”, “whatever we have”, “whatever you want”, and my personal favorite “oh, whatever you feel like cooking”.. meal planning can give you a chance to try something new. Rejuvenate your culinary repertoire. Expand your palette. Or just pass off a super quick meal from a box as a high end gourmet meal. With a plan, you can try anything in your kitchen!!

Meal planning became a necessity for me when my youngest daughter had to go on a restricted diet. Going from free eating to gluten- and dairy - free is a shock to the ol’ system, but by doing my research, I could find fun things for her to eat that wouldn’t leave her feeling cheated. It opened my mind to understand that food is fuel, sustenance, and should be eaten (mostly) purposefully, and when I plan meals there is some intention to it. For me, I’m trying to eat more plant-based, but my husband isn’t quite on board. Thinking about our meals allows me to add more veggies on nights that start out meat-heavy or plan a meat-free night so he can mentally prepare (lol.. he’s paleo ALL THE WAY).

There a tons of apps available to help you in your planning. I’ve tried a few, but I always find myself back with the ol’ pen and paper. No kidding, I have spiral notebooks that have menus from 2015.( I admit it - I need to throw those away…. ) If you’d like to give it a try before investing in apps, I’ve created a fillable PDF menu for you. Download it to you pc or Ipad, and you can pull it up and fill out the menu, then print it off. However you get started, just start. Give it a try.