Monthly Meal Planning Mommy Machine Style

There are a million different ways to plan meals for your family. I have found, through trial and error, a way that works for me.

I have tried the "make a list of things I run out of and go to the store and plan meals while I'm there" method. I would buy things I didn't need, forget things I did need, and we usually ended up going out to eat because I was too lazy tired to go back to the store. This was not the method for us.

I got my stuff together enough to make a weekly meal plan. This worked for us for a while. I went grocery shopping every Saturday, I made a list, I had a plan. Eventually, I started straying from my list. I fell victim to the "Mommy, I want"s. Even when the kids weren't with me, I would still over shop and I was starting to spend a good 25% more every week. Lesson learned: I'm a weak shopper and I should be in the grocery store as little as possible.

Now, I plan our meals for a whole month. I grocery shop every 2 weeks. I leave myself room for error- I still forget things, I change my mind, sometimes I am still too tired to cook and we switch our "eat out" nights. But we spend less because I shop less. This is the method that works for us, so I want to share my process with you.

Around the first of every month (give or take a couple of days), I sit down with my Erin Condren Life Planner. Yes, that's right, Life Planner. I love it! I use the "month view" to plan out our month of meals. First, I write in the days I know we will have other plans (holidays, family events, etc). Then, I start with writing in what I want to eat.

I use Pinterest by creating a new Monthly Meals board each month. I re-pin meals from my Recipes board and write them into my planner.  I also have meals that I make every month like "brinner" (breakfast for dinner) and tacos (yum).

I try to find things that I know I can make enough to have leftovers, I use an arrow to designate this in my planner. I plan 2-3 days to eat out per month.

Once all of the meals are planned, I add the meals to each day of the week in the "weekly planner" section. I also make myself a note for when I will need to set stuff out of the freezer. I freeze all of our ground beef and chicken, so I want to make sure I am prepared!

I mentioned above that I still change my mind. When we end up having something that I didn't plan, I make a note of that by crossing out my plan and writing in what we had instead. This helps me to make sure I don't plan to make something that we just had, or if I changed my mind because KC didn't want some crazy new recipe, I won't repeat that either ;)

This method has worked for us, there is still a lot of flexibility but it saves us time and money- always a good thing! Stay tuned for a second post about my grocery shopping strategy next month!

Tell us, what is your method of meal planning & grocery shopping? Weekly, monthly, whenever you feel like it?