I’m sure you’ve been in the situation where you’ve been so busy that you’ve lost track of time and suddenly it’s dinner time and nothing is prepared for your family to eat. You end up serving sandwiches or calling for pizza. We’ve all been there. While there’s nothing wrong with this occasionally, it’s going to get old or expensive if it happens all the time.
I’ve found the best way to keep on top of mealtime organisation is to have a meal plan in place. This doesn’t have to be rigid, but it should be a guide to planning your meal preparation.
There are several ways of doing this. Some like to plan out every meal and snack. This works well for some families, especially if there’s lots of little kids. Personally I just plan the evening meal because my children prefer to choose for themselves what to eat for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I just try to provide a variety of options. Whatever works for your family.
When it comes to the meal plan, one way is to make a list of your family’s favourite meals, perhaps supplementing that with new recipes you’d like to try, and then shop for ingredients accordingly.
Another way is to plan your meals around what is on special at your local supermarkets. This is a good way to save money.
An even better way to save money is to ‘shop your pantry’ - take stock of what is hiding in your pantry and plan your meals based on what you already have on hand. This prevents wastage and saves money because you don’t have to buy as much. This is what my meal plan is based on this week.
This past weekend I was forced to clean out my pantry due to a bad smell coming from it. It turned out to be a leaking carton of long-life milk - eww! I’m telling you, my weak stomach could not handle it. I was dry-reaching all over the place and my cast-iron-stomach-endowed 18-year-old daughter had to come to my rescue and finish the job for me 😂. That girl is a champion!
Anyway, the up-side is that it enabled me to find out what was hiding in my pantry and I was able to plan meals for the next week out of it. I haven’t been grocery shopping for over a week (although I had to ask my husband to pick up some fruit and milk while he was out yesterday) and so will be able to go at least another week before I have to shop again, thus saving money.
Some like to just have a list of meals to pick from and then decide on the day what to eat. But I work two days a week and am not home on those days to cook. So I need to plan meals for those days to cook in advance so that my family just needs to heat it up. Although my husband and older daughters are capable of cooking a meal, it just makes it easier for them to just have to heat something up. On the days that I am home I can be a bit more flexible. So I will assign a meal to each weekday but I might swap things around some days. I don’t usually plan for the weekend unless we are having guests. Otherwise we have leftovers or something simple.
So here is my meal plan for this week:
You’ll notice I’ve planned lasagne for Monday. This is because I work on Monday. I cooked it on Sunday evening with help from my 17-year-old daughter who is actually better at making lasagne than I am. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of it for you. I’ll have to remember to do that next week, when I’ll be making it again.
Meal planning really does take the stress out of getting dinner on the table.
I’ve found the best way to keep on top of mealtime organisation is to have a meal plan in place. This doesn’t have to be rigid, but it should be a guide to planning your meal preparation.
There are several ways of doing this. Some like to plan out every meal and snack. This works well for some families, especially if there’s lots of little kids. Personally I just plan the evening meal because my children prefer to choose for themselves what to eat for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I just try to provide a variety of options. Whatever works for your family.
When it comes to the meal plan, one way is to make a list of your family’s favourite meals, perhaps supplementing that with new recipes you’d like to try, and then shop for ingredients accordingly.
Another way is to plan your meals around what is on special at your local supermarkets. This is a good way to save money.
An even better way to save money is to ‘shop your pantry’ - take stock of what is hiding in your pantry and plan your meals based on what you already have on hand. This prevents wastage and saves money because you don’t have to buy as much. This is what my meal plan is based on this week.
This past weekend I was forced to clean out my pantry due to a bad smell coming from it. It turned out to be a leaking carton of long-life milk - eww! I’m telling you, my weak stomach could not handle it. I was dry-reaching all over the place and my cast-iron-stomach-endowed 18-year-old daughter had to come to my rescue and finish the job for me 😂. That girl is a champion!
Anyway, the up-side is that it enabled me to find out what was hiding in my pantry and I was able to plan meals for the next week out of it. I haven’t been grocery shopping for over a week (although I had to ask my husband to pick up some fruit and milk while he was out yesterday) and so will be able to go at least another week before I have to shop again, thus saving money.
Some like to just have a list of meals to pick from and then decide on the day what to eat. But I work two days a week and am not home on those days to cook. So I need to plan meals for those days to cook in advance so that my family just needs to heat it up. Although my husband and older daughters are capable of cooking a meal, it just makes it easier for them to just have to heat something up. On the days that I am home I can be a bit more flexible. So I will assign a meal to each weekday but I might swap things around some days. I don’t usually plan for the weekend unless we are having guests. Otherwise we have leftovers or something simple.
So here is my meal plan for this week:
You’ll notice I’ve planned lasagne for Monday. This is because I work on Monday. I cooked it on Sunday evening with help from my 17-year-old daughter who is actually better at making lasagne than I am. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of it for you. I’ll have to remember to do that next week, when I’ll be making it again.
Meal planning really does take the stress out of getting dinner on the table.
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