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Does figuring out what to cook for dinner every night stress you out? Do you resort to eating out way more often than you should because you don’t know what to cook or don’t have the ingredients that you need? Do you spend way too much at the grocery store? Does food go bad in your home before you use it? 

If you said yes to ANY of those questions, then you need to try meal planning! 

Have you ever considered meal planning, but didn’t try it out because it seems complicated? 

Honestly, I felt the same way when I first started considering it. I thought it was scary, confusing, and a waste of time. I even tried it (not with much effort) and gave up before fully committing to it. 

Now that I have been meal planning for a while, I have realized there are many benefits of meal planning! If you are curious about what meal planning is, how to do it, and how it can help simplify your life, keep reading! 

What is Meal Planning?

Meal planning is exactly what it sounds like- planning your meals! It’s a process of planning out your meals for the day, week, and month. You can plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day of the month, or a combination of whichever meals you’d like for each day. 

Some people do it every week and others do it for the whole month at a time. I prefer to do it for the whole month, but you choose the method that works best for you! 

Meal planning is a great way to slide some new recipes onto the menu, or add some of your favorite, easy meals to make dinner a breeze. 

Meal planning is a way to take the guesswork out of what you will be making for dinner (also breakfast and lunch). You won’t spend so much time thinking about dinner every night (amazing, right!?).

You will already know what you will be cooking AND you will know that you have the ingredients to make it. 

Related Post: Why a Label Maker is Essential for Organization

How Do I Make a Meal Plan?

I find the easiest way to make a meal plan is to print out a calendar (snag your free printable below) and write out your meal plan on the calendar. It allows you to visually see what you are planning to eat each day, you can hang it up, and the family can see it as well!

You can also write it down on your phone, on a whiteboard, or however you choose.

I usually base my meal plan on things that I had the previous month and then add a few new recipes or a variety of foods.

I love to use my slow cooker so many of the meals we eat are slow cooker meals. We also love spicy food and luckily, neither one of us is a  picky eater so making a meal plan is easy. 

You can base your meal plan around diet meals, healthy meals, picky eaters, or whatever meals your family loves! No two meal plans will be the same, and you get to make it your own. 

For your first meal plan, think of meals that you enjoy making, your family’s favorite meals, and easy meals. Next, check your pantry to see what you can make with the ingredients you have on hand. Lastly, do some research to find new recipes or different ways that you can cook things you have.  

I will admit that meal planning doesn’t always go perfectly. Things come up during the week unexpectedly that throw off your plan. Sometimes, you may not feel like cooking even with a meal plan, and that’s okay! Pick back up tomorrow and keep going. 

Another option is using a meal planning service. Many people recommend using a meal planning service which is a service that plans meals, provides recipes, and creates a grocery list for you. It takes all of the work out of meal planning! 

You could also incorporate a meal kit service into your monthly meal plan! We love to use Hello Fresh occasionally to change things up.  

Some meal planning tools you might find helpful are a magnetic meal planning sheet, magnetic calendar with grocery pad, or a book of meals!

How Can Meal Planning Help Simplify My Life?

Meal planning can help simplify your life in several ways. 

It makes your time at the grocery store quicker and less stressful. 

It makes figuring out what’s for dinner much less stressful! Cooking dinner can be a breeze now, and people in your family can help if they know what’s on the meal plan. 

Overall, it simplifies the food struggles that most of us have experienced throughout the month. One less thing to worry about on busy days!

What Are the Benefits of Meal Planning?

Once I finally got on board with meal planning, it was a huge game-changer! It has helped simplify my life in more ways than I imagined and makes dinner time less dreadful. Coming home and cooking dinner always felt like such a chore, but now it’s not so bad. 

It’s even better when my husband helps me when he gets home early because he knows what we are having. 

1. Grocery Shopping Made Easier

Do you mindlessly make a grocery list without thinking about dinner plans for the future? Do you go through the store (or add to cart) and put groceries in your cart and have to figure out later what meals to make with them?

I love meal planning because I know exactly what I need when I go to the store, or when I put in my online order to pick up my groceries.  I make a shopping list based on the meals that I have planned. When I put in my grocery order, I order the ingredients I need for all those meals unless I already have them on hand in my pantry staples. 

Meal planning makes grocery shopping easier because I know what I need. I don’t buy a bunch of random stuff and then try to make meals with it later. I used to do this a lot, and it was so frustrating. There was no plan in place when I bought groceries. Later, when it came time to cook meals, I always had to run to the store for things I didn’t have but needed to make specific meals.

​Create less stress and chaos when buying groceries by creating a meal plan to shop for!

2. Saves Money

Making a meal plan can also help you save money on your grocery bill.

Knowing the foods and ingredients you need to buy to cook the meals you choose for the month means that you aren’t buying random things you don’t need.

You can be more specific with the items that you buy. You can cut back on impulse purchases by following the list that you make.

If you are more intentional with your grocery shopping trips, you can save a lot of money on the grocery bill!

Related Post: 7 Benefits of Using a Daily Planner + Why You Should Use One

3. You Don’t Have to Think About Dinner

Before I started meal planning, one of two things would happen every single day. I would either get home from working all day and have to worry about what to cook for dinner, or I would have an idea of what I wanted to make, only to find out that I didn’t have all the ingredients that I needed to fix it. 

I would stress out about it, find something to fix, and then be annoyed and worn out by the time dinner was actually ready. I hated this vicious cycle, and it made me not want to cook dinner most nights! 

With a meal planner, I don’t even have to think about what to cook when I get home. I have it written down and I hang it on the refrigerator so my husband and I can both see it.

And the best part? I know I already have everything I need to make the meals! I come home, start dinner, eat, and I am still happy and have plenty of time to get other things done around the house! It takes the extra time of thinking about what to eat out of the equation.

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4. You Won’t Eat Out As Often

Having meals planned for the week means that my husband and I eat out less often. I will add eat-out days to our meal plan depending on what we have going on for the month, or to give us a date night at some of our favorite restaurants. So don’t worry, you can still enjoy Taco Tuesday or your favorite restaurants during the month!

It can be so easy to grab a pizza, or fast food on the way home from work, on Sunday afternoon after church, or coming home from running errands, instead of going home and cooking. 

I know because I have been there many times! I used to grab dinner on the way home all the time. Or I would get home and couldn’t decide what to fix, so I just told my husband we would go grab something in town because it made my life so much easier.

Now, I head straight home after work, or being in town, and don’t worry about picking up something to eat because I know what I’m going to cook at home. 

This doesn’t mean that we never go out to eat, but it is much more limited now and isn’t something we fall back on due to lack of planning.

We used to blow so much money on eating out simply because I was stressed and didn’t want to have to worry about what was for dinner. 

5. You Always Have a Back-Up Plan

Some days, you just aren’t in the mood for something. Or maybe you need a quicker meal. Or something out of the ordinary happens, and you just can’t fix what’s on the meal plan for today. 

That’s okay because the good news is that there is always a backup plan. You can take other meals that you’ve planned for and switch them around if you need to.

The good thing? You know you have the ingredients for whatever meals are on the plan… because you have planned for them and bought the ingredients for what is on the meal plan. 

I like to write my meal plan in pencil so that I can change my meals around if I want to or need to. 

Related Post: 9 Easy Ways to Make Time in the Kitchen Fun

6. Create Less Waste

Food waste is something that we have been trying to cut down on for years. Not only is it wasteful to throw out unused food that has gone bad, but it’s also a waste of money! When throwing out food, you are literally throwing out money that you have spent on groceries. 

Meal planning helps to not waste as much food. You can plan your meals around food you already have in your home, but you also buy groceries for the meals that you are planning to make.

In the past, I have bought food and then forgotten about it until it has expired (usually I find it when I am cleaning out). With meal planning, everything I buy has a purpose!

I always check the fridge, freezer, and pantry when I am planning my meals so that I use what I have therefore it is less likely to go bad before I use it. 

Freezer meals are also a great way to cut down on wasting food. If you see that ingredients are going bad, you can find a recipe to make a freezer meal to use at a later time. 

Having a well-stocked pantry is a great thing, but make sure it’s stocked with ingredients that you are actually going to use before they expire. 

Don’t forget to grab your free printable meal planning template to get you started!

It’s perfect to hang on the refrigerator or somewhere in the kitchen for everyone in the family to see. 

Do you need some easy and tasteful meals to add to your meal plan? Check out these ideas to get you started with different recipes!

It doesn’t take much time at all to plan the meals, yet it frees up so much time during the week. Meal planning also ensures that I always have the ingredients that I need to cook with and that we don’t eat out so often and waste money!

What are your favorite meals to add to your meal plan?

Do you have any meal plan tips or hacks? I would love to hear about them!

Until next time,

Catherine