MEAL PLANNING METHODS
You can hear the audio version of this discussion on my podcast at Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast, on Apple Podcast, and many other platforms!
WHY MEAL PLAN?
As most of you probably know, each week I share my meal plan for my family on my podcast. I do this because meal planning has made such a big difference in our ability to live a frugal life. So, I think that by sharing my meals plans, I can maybe inspire someone with some ideas to help get their meal plan together for the week.
Meal planning has so many benefits. Some of those benefits are saving money, wasting less food, and reducing the stress of wondering what is for dinner. So, today I wanted to share the way that I create my meal plan. I will also be sharing some other meal planning methods that you might like to try. Not every meal planning method will work for everyone. It’s good to know a few different ways to meal plan to see what works best for you and your family.
HOW I MEAL PLAN – SCHEDULED ROTATION OF MEALS
The way that I meal plan is by having specific recipes that rotate on specific days of the week. As soon as we have a meal, I immediately put it on the calendar for the next time that meal comes upon rotation. I do this Monday through Thursday. Friday – Sunday I don’t have a specific rotation that I follow. However, I do try to place a recipe on a future weekend after we have it. To use this method of meal planning, you would need a calendar, an app, spreadsheet, notebook, or some method to place a meal on your plan for dates out several weeks from the current week.
On Monday’s we do hamburgers every other week, and on the off weeks, we rotate hot dogs and steak. So, on a Monday when we have hamburgers, I go into the meal plan two weeks from now and put hamburgers on the plan for that night. On a Monday when we have steak, I immediately go 4 weeks ahead and put steak on the plan. That way, we will continuously rotate hamburgers, steak, hamburgers, hot dogs, and so on.
For Tuesdays, we do a Mexican theme, currently rotating through 5 recipes. So, say we have tacos on a given Tuesday, I go ahead 5 weeks and put tacos on the meal plan for that night. The same thing goes for Wednesdays and Thursdays. We decided on a rotation to follow on each of the days and follow it. By doing this, by the time I get to each future week, the meal plan is already completed at the very least for Monday through Friday. For the weekend, I am a little more flexible and just kind of pick recipes to make. But, I still do consider how soon I would want to have that meal again and place it on the menu for some weekend in the future. Even if it might be 2 months from now.
SEASONAL FAMILY FAVORITES
I was listening to another podcast, I don’t recall which one, because I listen to so many. But they were talking about the idea of having a seasonal family favorites recipe list. I thought this was such a great idea. This is definitely something I could use along with my current method to help fill in on the weekends. I haven’t started working on this yet, but I definitely plan to get started. This is one of those things that you could not get started on because you might think it will take too much time and effort to create the lists. But this is something you could build on over the course of time.
Each time you cook a meal that everyone in your family likes to eat, put it on your list for that season. If you do this each time this occurs, you will build up your list over time. Don’t overthink it. If you put something on the list and later realize it’s not really a favorite just take it off the list. Once you have accumulated a good base of meals for each season, you can use these to create your weekly meal plan
THEME NIGHTS
The reason that meal planning can sometimes feel overwhelming is because there are so many meal ideas to choose from. By narrowing down your choices, it makes it easier to make decisions. So, having a theme night you can still be flexible in what you want to make but you limit the options that fit within that theme. So, you could do a pizza night where maybe you do homemade pizza one night, store-made pizza one night, and frozen pizzas on another. You could rotate the types of toppings also to mix things up.
Some themes you could try: Mexican, Italian, Pizza, Bowls, Salad, Soup, Crockpot
FREEZER COOKING
With freezer cooking, you prepare foods that will be stored in the freezer to be cooked later. There are many cookbooks and websites that offer recipes for things that do well being prepared ahead and frozen. Some recipes are fully cooked, defrosted, and reheated. Others are prepared, frozen, and then cooked once defrosted. Some can go straight into the oven from the freezer.
The good thing about freezer cooking is that you can make a bunch of meals at once when you might have some free time available. And then you can use that meal when you might not have time to cook. Freezer cooking can be used as a main meal planning method, or to fill in the gaps in your regular meal plan or when you have a hectic day.
PLAN BASED ON THE WEEKLY SALES
You can save a lot of money by reviewing the sales for the upcoming week. Then planning your meals around those sales. By planning based on what is on sale you are still limiting your choices of meals based on the main ingredients that are on sale. But you still have the flexibility to mix things up. For example, if you were going to buy ground beef that was on sale, you could do hamburgers, a meat sauce, meatloaf, chili, and many other things but use that one ingredient as a base. If it’s a really good sale, you could even stock up and plan a couple of meals with that ingredient to use over a few weeks.
OTHER TIPS
Don’t forget to take out any frozen ingredients that you need to defrost. Maybe set a reminder on your phone, or leave out a note. It’s the worst when you have a plan for dinner, but simply forget to defrost the food!
Make sure to check for all ingredients that need to be defrosted. I often just think of the meat that is needed. Then I might forget to defrost hamburger buns or frozen shredded cheese that is also needed. So, I try to make it a point to check all ingredients that will be needed for the meal.
Make sure to consider what goes on each day before completing your meal plan. I grocery shop after work on Thursdays. So I make sure to have a quick easy meal to prepare on Thursdays. If you have other weekly appointments, or kids activities make sure to consider how much time you will have available to cook that night.
Double-check how long meals take to prepare before placing them on your meal plan. Hopefully, I’m not the only one who has decided to cook ribs on a weeknight. Then came to realize that they needed to bake in the oven for 3 hours!
What I have found most helpful with meal planning is to try to keep it as simple as possible. If it’s too complicated or takes too much time, you might be less likely to keep up with it.
Just try things out. It might take time, but after some practice and trying different methods you will likely find a way to meal plan that will be really helpful to you.
Thanks so much for checking in! If you would like to hear the podcast version of this topic to check out Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast! Also, be sure to check out my other blog posts on this site!
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