Antiquated Attitudes: Menu Planning

This is one of the things that can set off our whole week if I don't take the time to get it done. This can be very time consuming, but I have found some short cuts that I'm going to share with you.

I am currently making my meal plan for July. About a year ago I downloaded a Monthly Meal Plan from a blog that I frequently read called, Confessions of a Homeschooler. The information from this blog is time saving!

So, I open my June Meal plan and make changes to meals that are already there. I am a firm believer in not reinventing the wheel. A common phrase I use is Work Smarter not Harder. The menu already has Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for Monday through Friday. It has only dinner listed for weekends, but I changed mine to include Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for all 7 days.

Here is another variation of a Monthly Menu in fill-in PDF style. This is a sister blog to Homeschool Creations which is another blogger I follow. .

We eat different foods each season and we change our menu slightly each month to include new favorites or old favorites. This is something Jo-Jo is going to start learning about this year. She loves to cook, and she is old enough to learn to organize meals. This is not something she should have to learn on her own after starting her own family.

After finishing our menu I make a weekly shopping list based off these meals. (Saves us a ton of money!) Then each shopping list is hung on the fridge, so that items can be added as we run out of them, like bread, or toilet paper. These days I use Cozi App on my phone to enter in my shopping list for the 4/5 weeks and shop with the list there. The only problem I have had with this is making sure my phone is charged enough to use it...lol.

If I have time I pre-print the next month and write changes on it as we go, so updating it is a breeze.

As far as preparing the meals, I prep lunch (if needed) and dinner before/after breakfast to free up our day. This of course is the plan, as life happens this does not always happen. Usually because I don't have an ingredient, if the store is our of it. Prepping ahead helps us get dinner on time (4:30-5pm). We ear early so that the 3 days we need to be places by 6, we don't have to change our routine. Things get crazy when we change our routine. People in my house get very grumpy too...lol.