Meal Planning - Part 2

Writing Your Meal Plan & Grocery List

*Before you begin you will need to decide at what intervals you would like to grocery shop, and how much each shop you can spend.  I personally go to the store once a week.  Smaller shops are more easily planned for my family.  

Steps to Writing Your Meal Plan:

1.  Leftovers

2.  Decide on Meals

3.  Figure Costs

4.  Write Grocery List

Leftovers:

     This is the easiest step.  Simply decide what day you want to eat leftovers, or peanut butter & jelly, or whatever else you may have around the home that is easy to make.  I like to make this day Wednesday.  Some people like it at the end of the week, or on shopping day.  

Decide on Meals:

     I like to plan this step with family around, but I don’t always.  I usually ask for any special requests and try to fulfill those, and I also usually include one day with a super cheap meal, like hot dogs or soup.  

     Having my recipe book nearby I find is also very helpful, as I can add variety more easily.  You will also want to take into consideration meals that you can make last two days.  For example: spaghetti and meatballs one day and the following day meatball subs with the leftover sauce and meatballs.

Figure Costs:

     To figure the costs you will need to decide what of your meals you already have.  For example I have tomato paste already if I were to want to have spaghetti and meatballs.  I would not need to add that into my costs.  

     Once you have figured out what you have, you will need to grab a calculator or a note pad and pen and figure out about how much everything left for ingredients will cost.  If you have an staples for your household like flour or sugar that you are out of you will also need to add them to your list.  Your total will be an estimate unless you are able to find out exactly how much things are at your grocery store.  

     The idea of this step is to make sure your meals don’t go over your budget.  If you don’t keep a budget you could skip this step.  If you find that your meal plan does go over budget you can go back and change a meal that might cost more to one that is more affordable, or plan to decrease the amount of meat and increase the amount of vegetables.  

Write Grocery List:

     Now that you have your completed meal plan that stays within your budget and your needed staples you can finalize your list.  I like to use the “Got Milk” app for Android to keep my grocery list.  It was a nice replacement to a cheap note pad.  

*Once your grocery list is complete you can take your list and a calculator to the store to get your groceries.  

You can download a printable copy to print on 8.5 X 11in paper HERE.