Do you loathe meal planning? I used to. I would have no issues preparing my meals but planning what to eat was exhausting! I was sharing this frustration with a family member one day when she finally said to me, “you’re making meal planning too complicated.” She continued, “you don’t need to make a Pinterest recipe every time. You just need to make sure you’re eating good, healthy foods and balanced meals.” So I decided to change my approach to meal planning. Here’s what I do now:
Step 1: View weekly ads. If you can, shopping at 1-3 different local stores around you will save you money. Stores usually have different things on sale. If you can’t, find your store and get familiar with that week’s ad!
Step 2: Identify and shop for what’s on sale. In the weekly ad, you’ll be able to see what produce or other grocery items are on sale that week. These are the items you should plan on targeting for your grocery list. Of course, if you need a staple that week that is off sale, that’s fine. You should give yourself some flexible but your list should largely include sale items. If you can, stock up on items and freeze anything that is perishable so you can use it later. Be careful: Not all items marketed in the weekly ads will be at the rock bottom price. Sometimes they are just low prices and not that great of deals. If you can’t remember what the rock bottom prices are off the top of your head, keep a spreadsheet of what you’ve spent on items in the past to keep track.
Step 3: Clip coupons or deals. If your store offers an app, download it and search for any coupons that may be available on top of the weekly sale ad. Clip the ones you plan to shop. You may also be able to get coupons from your local newspaper.
Step 4: Meal plan after your grocery trip. Now that you have all of your items from the week, you can meal plan based on everything you have in your kitchen. Keep it simple. Pair items together that make sense based on what you already have and what you now have from your store run this week. Tap into your freezer or pantry items. Keep items in separate containers vs trying to create meals. For example, cook a batch up chicken and steak for the week. Then cook a batch up broccoli and a batch of carrots. Keep all 4 items in separate items containers so you can mix and match to switch things up.
This approach has saved me an incredible amount of time, money and my sanity. After meal planning, our family typically tries to prepare meals every Sunday for the week so that we have food throughout the week and aren’t constantly worried about cooking each night. How do you approach meal planning? Anything you would add?