Meal planning has come and gone in our house. No excuses why I haven’t always done it. Life is much easier when I do, but I found myself dreading the task. I set us up for dinners with a newborn when we spent a Sunday making a lot of freezer meals. The food lasted us a month and made life so much easier, but I still had to plan meals and pull out the frozen food. Then again in January we made a bunch of crockpot freezer meals.
A few weeks ago, I sat down and planned meals for February and March. I included one frozen crockpot meal a week. I cut back from planning 5 or 6 meals and instead picked 3 or 4. I cut the number down because most meals leave us with a lot of leftovers. I eat mostly leftovers for lunch but Bryan and Maximus don’t always. We can also eat leftovers for dinners. When I meal plan, I never include breakfast or lunch. We’re pretty standard on those – cereal, pancakes, or waffles. Lunch is sandwiches, Mac and cheese, quesadillas, or leftovers.
Another change I made was to write the meals for the week instead of picking the days they will be made. That seems like a silly thing to change but it made all the difference. I still have to think ahead if we’re making a freezer meal, but that’s a lot easier than starting from scratch with ideas. We love the freedom of looking at the board and deciding what we want for the night based on our schedules and energy level. 🙂
I wasn’t sure about planning a month of meals because I thought I was setting myself up for failure. It has turned out to be a good way to minimize the stress in our nights. Either of us can make the meals, but I did the hard part and DECIDED what we were eating.
