My little meal planning system

I don’t pretend by any means to have it perfected, but I do have a little meal planning system that I’ve come up with. And it really helps me get through the week, so I thought I’d share it in case it can help someone else, too.

I use a pad of weekly menu pages, a4 size, and I write on a new page every week. I tried the whiteboard thing but it just didn’t work for me, so paper it is. I tend to sit down and write out a loose plan for the week on Monday, but honestly some weeks it can happen any day, it just depends when I remember to do it and also when I do the supermarket shopping. Menu planning usually happens the day before shopping, so that I know what I need to buy.

I think the biggest key to my meal planning is that it’s flexible. I don’t put any pressure on it, and things can swap and change sometimes, it just gives me a good structure to start with and I go with the flow of the week. When I tried meal planning and tried to make it perfect and stick to it 100%, it all fell apart and didn’t work. I think I have an inner rebellious streak that needs some freedom and flexibility 😉

So I plan out a week’s worth of lunches and dinners on my plan. Breakfast is always easy for us, we just have eggs/porridge/toast on rotation and usually my two big girls will decide what we have for breaky, so I don’t schedule that in.

I used to just schedule in dinners but then found we weren’t eating proper lunch meals because I hadn’t thought ahead. So now lunches are included and it’s made a huge difference to our days.

Most of the time, my meal planning will happen with one or both of my big girls with me, so they can choose a couple of meals that they want in the week as well. I find this really helps with them eating the meals I make, because they have chosen them and they know they like them.

And as I’m meal planning, I’m adding items to my shopping list so I know exactly what I need. I think this saves a bit of money too, we tend to have less food waste when I’m sticking to a plan.

On each day, I write down what’s planned for lunch and what’s planned for dinner. Often lunch will be leftovers, if the previous night’s meal allows for it. I use a lot of food from our freezers because we get meat in bulk, and I always have some meals ready to go in the freezer too - I use these if I know we’ve got a big day or will be getting home late. So on the meal plan, I’ll also write down what I need to defrost - so if we’re having a BBQ on Friday, I’ll write *defrost steak and sausages on Wednesday.

I’ll put an example at the bottom of this post so you can see what I mean.

So I’ve written out the meal plan, I’ve done the supermarket shop, and then it’s just a matter of checking what’s for lunch and dinner each day. And if something needs to change, it does! By the end of the week I’ve usually got a few things crossed out and swapped over (keeping my inner rebel happy!).

I do try to save time in little ways, like if I’m having chicken Tues + Thurs I’ll cut all the chicken up on Tuesday and put half in a container for Thursday, so on Thursday I’ve got the chicken ready to go. I also like to use the slow cooker as much as possible, so having a meal plan is a reminder to put the slow cooker on either overnight or in the morning. And as much as possible, I make big batches of meals so that I can have the leftovers for lunch and/or freeze a meal for another week when I need it. Doubling a recipe might take a little bit longer at the time, but it’s still so much quicker than making the same meal twice.

I think that’s it - as I said, it’s not perfect but it really works for us. And there are weeks when I don’t meal plan at all, and we still survive! But I do think it saves us time and money on the weeks that we do (mostly) stick to the plan.

I’d love to know - do you have your own meal planning system? Or would you like to try something similar to mine? Comment below if you’d like to chat or have any questions xxx

And remember: everyone benefits when mum is happy + healthy. You matter!