Plan Those Meals!

Just like your money has a budget (or should) your food should have a plan. I feel better when I have things mapped out for me. Takes the guess work out of day and I have one less thing to worry about. Spending a little time once a week I knock out my meal plan AND my grocery list. How's that for multi tasking?

Over the years I went from going to the grocery store, picking out what looked good- mostly junk food- and taking it home to sit and go to waste because we didn't have real food and would end up going out anyway. So much waste.

Now the process has evolved. This is an example of what I do. Well this is the exact meal plan I set up for this week. I plan my meals every week on this template. I usually grocery shop on Wednesdays so this tells me what I need to get. It's very easy for me to see what we have planned for that day. Anything that would affect meals. Then I check what we already have and then shop for the rest. This is the amazing part. Produce usually costs less than processed food and so as a nice bonus my grocery bill has DROPPED since I have been eating clean. Shopping each week lets me keep fresh fruits and vege's in my fridge so it doesn't go to waste and I can get the good stuff and not break my budget.

As you can see I take easy shortcuts here and there. My breakfasts are just different meals that I switch every other day. Lunches are a few meals and repeated. Snacks and other meals use repeated ingredients. I try to make it as easy on myself as I can. I get lots of freedom with dinners. That is what I spend the most time on. I search the internet; mainly Pinterest for clean eating dinner ideas. There are a few I do every week like tacos and turkey burgers so I end up only having to come up with 3-4 for the week. Leftovers are great because Austin can take them for lunch to work. I try to only buy what we need. It has helped me learn to appreciate the food we have and not let it go to waste.

This has taken me years to figure out. I hope it helps you. I absolutely love feedback so comment if you loved this idea, what you do to help your family and any suggestions you have for future posts. Thanks all.

Much Love,

Jennifer

Note: My phone is my best friend for EVERYTHING!! Grocery shopping especially :) I use the app AnyList to help cut my grocery shopping trip down. This helps with a busy toddler. It categorizes what you need so you don't end up zig zagging through different ends of the store and wasting time. I've talked a lot about waste this post only because I had a big problem with it. Haha enjoy!