What's For Dinner?

Yesterday, we brainstormed some ideas for themes of the week for our meal planning.  Today, I'm going to talk to your about how I go about meal planning.  Here are the things that I consider when meal planning:

• plan leftovers - that way you'll have them, you'll save time in the kitchen, and it's a money saver
• take schedule into consideration - Wednesday night is church night, so we keep meals simple and quick
• what's in the freezer - some weeks I pull a meal from the freezer one night and the next night is leftovers of that meal - talk about a vacation!  Prep ahead, prep ahead, prep ahead!  Having a couple steps already taken care of is a huge timesaver.
• what's on sale/coupons - if there's a sale on chicken, I will probably try to work that into the meal plan for the week
• the #1 goal is that there's food on the table and we eat together - it doesn't have to be perfect - grilled cheese and a can of soup works 

Write down the days of the week for two weeks and  fill in your ideas for menu themes and meal planning - here's what my list looks like (notice we do leftovers 2-3 times during the week):

Next week we'll be plugging it all into a calendar (freebie printable). 

Excited about meal planning?  There's a sale through Sunday (the 19th) in the shop on the Meal Planning Kit - it's marked down to $6 from $12!  That's 50% off!  Four meal planning documents to help you get started and follow through with planning your meals.