This post series comes out once a month and it takes a peek into different areas of our home, relationship and life.

This month’s topic for Let’s Look is taking a peek at how we Meal Plan!

In case you missed them, here are my previous Let’s Look posts:

• Let’s Look: Outdoor Organization
• Let’s Look: Fridge & Pantry
• Let’s Look: Perfect Night In
• Let’s Look: Love Language
• Let’s Look: Coffee Bar Area

I’ve written a post before on how I meal-plan and not much has changed. Check out this post to get all the details.

Taking the time to meal-plan every week is life giving to me. I’ve meal-planned consistently for several years now. It’s just something I take the time to do each week. But hey, if you dread it, try meal-planning for the month that way you only have to do it once. However you can be consistent is the right path for you. Meal-planning helps me save money, waste less food, lowers my stress knowing what we are having for dinner each night and I’m a planner so it gives me a sense of peace.

These are the items I use to help me meal-plan and display our weekly meals.

Meal-Planner

I use this meal-planner to schedule our weekly meals and it has a perforated grocery list for the week by category that I take to the grocery store with me.

Simplified Planner

I always have my daily planner out with me when I meal plan so I can see what we have going on that week. Do I need to have a slow-cooker meal, does it need to be simple due to evening kid sports practices, what are our social plans, etc. I also write in what we are having for dinner each night in my planner. I may need to take note of needing to defrost meat, or write in when I need to marinade a meat earlier in the day, if it’s a busy night I will write in to meal prep to save time later in the evening. I also document recipes for my blog so I note that down too.

Magnet Menu

My kids always want to know whats for dinner. This fridge magnet menu helps me to not repeat myself 3588934 times a day answering what’s for dinner, lol. I also like how Jason and Luke can add an item that needs to be added to the grocery list for the following week. In the note section, I like to add an inspirational quote or a personal message relating to an event that week. It’s a way for the family to feel special, be inspired and sets the tone for a good week.

Chalk Markers

These are the chalk markers I use to write on the magnet fridge meal-planner.

My Process

• I give myself a couple of days to get the following week planned out with meals. Typically, it happens on either Saturday or Sunday based on our schedules. I go grocery shopping each week on Tuesday’s.
• I take out my daily planner, my meal-planner, and at the moment I print the weekly menu from FASTER WAY TO FAT LOSS to see where I can incorporate some of their meal options.
• I gather ideas from my recipe binders (printed recipes that we have tried & approved), cookbooks, pinterest, FWTFL, blogs, online cookbooks, and google.
• It depends on the week, sometimes I can figure out our weekly plan fast and sometimes it takes more effort and those times I usually need a break and to come back after a little bit.
• Before figuring out the meals, I like to look in our fridge & pantry and see if we are low on any staples and add those to the grocery list.
• I look to see what do we have in our freezer, is their a soup I can defrost for a busy night or protein that I can use in a meal.
• What ingredients do I already have on hand that can work…know what you have before starting to construct your weekly meal-plan.
• You can come up with a meal schedule, for example, Monday and Tuesday’s we eat low-carb, then Friday or Saturday is family fun night and we have pizza or In n Out. Then I try to change things up so we have a variety, for example, ground beef or turkey, fish, pork, salad, a bowl, breakfast for dinner, etc.
• Once I figure out the meal I’m going to make, I assess do we have all the ingredients or do I need to add them to the grocery list.
• When I finish meal-planning I add it all to the magnet meal-planner that goes on our fridge

**If you want to see what our family is eating each week, I take a picture of our magnet meal-plan and I put it on my IG stories. Come follow along with my on the IG @momwithaplan_ **

I hope you found how I meal plan to be helpful to you. It’s really about figuring out a system that works well for you and your family. What I do changes with the season of life we are in. Jason and I used to cook a lot together when we both had office jobs and before kids. I’m now the main chef because I’m a stay at home parent. Jason still bbq’s and smokes meat, and helps with holiday cooking. When he isn’t in a demanding job anymore I look forward to cooking more often again with him. I also like including the kids in the planning and cooking too so that they can contribute and know what does into meal-planning. I like to think I’m prepping them to be good husbands for their future wives some day 🙂

Next month I will be showing you are holiday decor storage…I’m definitely looking forward to showing how how I organize it!