Meal Planning for the Busy Mom
Meal planning is one of those tasks that I just don’t look forward to anymore. I think it’s mainly because our typical meal plan staples have gone up in price making the task of planning budget friendly meals feel impossible. If your family is on a budget like our family, you know meal planning is a necessary step to staying in budget. In this post you’ll find tips that have helped me tackle this not so fun task and starting next week I will be sharing our weekly meal plan. I hope you find this to be a helpful resource for making your busy life a bit more peaceful!
Don’t Plan Weekly
For years I did our meal plan week by week. I’d spend an hour or so creating a grocery list and the meals for the week. After our fourth child was born, I realized my time was even more limited and I needed to find a different way. That’s when I started doing a monthly meal plan. Now I don’t come up with a different meal plan every month I simply swap meals out as needed, but it stays the same for the most part. I also save my weekly grocery lists on my phone, so I simply swap items out instead of creating a new list every week. This has simplified my life so much.
Keep It Simple
I know my kids aren’t the only ones that are picky. There are things my kids enjoy eating and things my kids don’t like. I create my meal plan around staples my family likes only introducing new meals a few times a month. I used to spend hours scouring Pinterest (this was before TikTok and the growth of YouTube) to find different recipes. This took a lot of time, and my family didn’t always like the recipes I found. Over the years keeping things simple by sticking with those tried-and-true recipes has consistently made meal planning a lot better.
Shop the Sales
To keep us in budget I purchase items on sale and that have coupons mostly. I also stock up on items we use consistently when they’re on sale. Tuesdays are taco days for us. What kind of taco meal I make depends on what’s on sale. If chicken is on sale we would have crockpot chicken tacos instead of beef tacos. If I have hamburgers on our meal plan but hot dogs are on sale, I swap that out. It’s important to always add prices and coupons to your list so you know exactly how much you are spending. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at the checkout and my order total is $50 or more over the price on my list due to coupons or promotions not being deducted.
Prep Now, Not Later
I like to prep as much as I can for meals on Sundays. I chop up vegetables, wash fruits then put them in our snack basket/bins, stick meat in bags to marinade, divide meat to put it in the freezer, bake sweets, etc. The more you can prep ahead of time the easier it will be to fix meals in the midst of the busyness of the week.
Keep Your Pantry & Snacks Organized
About ten years ago I realized my biggest fault when it came to going over our grocery budget was not organizing my pantry and snacks. I would rebuy stuff we already had because it got pushed to the back of the cupboard or refrigerator. Produce would constantly go bad because of this. I also didn’t wash the produce and have it prepped for the kids to grab. At the time they were too young to reach the sink or the produce bin. On top of this if I just let my kids grab snacks whenever, they’d eat them in one day. Instead, over the years I have filled snack bins, baskets and in one house I used a door organizer to fill with snacks for the week. This way the kids can get the snacks they want within reason, but this avoids eating snacks just because they’re bored.
These are just a few things I can think of that have really helped me with meal planning. As I share my weekly meal plans, I’ll add more tips along the way as I think of them. What are some things that have helped you with meal planning?
