One of the easiest ways to save money and stick with a budget when raising children is to start meal planning. You can easily plan out a week of food for the entire family and end up saving quite a bit of cash. If you’re looking for some easy to follow meal planning tips for families, then you’ve come to the right place. Today I am sharing the best meal planning tips for families to help you save money and get your weekly meals organized to alleviate stress.
Make a Master List
You will know best what meals work great for your family and what meals are not so popular. Create a master list of 10-20 meal ideas that your family will enjoy. This master list will be your go-to whenever you start to make up that weekly meal plan. It helps save time and stress involved with prepping for your weekly family meals.
Save Easy Recipes
While you will want the master list of meal ideas that have worked for your family in the past, consider looking up new easy recipes. When you add a few more new meal ideas that cost less and are easy to whip up, you’re helping to use meal planning to the best of its abilities. This will save you time and money which is usually the sole purpose of learning how to master meal planning.
My Favorite Of All Meal Planning Tips – Plan to Eat
I use Plan to Eat and absolutely love it! Click my referral link here to learn more about it. It’s an app that saves all my recipes so easily (just a few clicks if I’m saving a recipe from a blog or a recipe website), it automatically creates a shopping list that I can click off as I shop (or find that I already have that item on hand at home), and I can easily add additional items as I think of them through the week so they’re already on my list when I’m ready to shop. My husband introduced it to me a few years ago and it has been life changing. If I don’t know what I want for the week, I pull up the app and add them to my week with a few clicks and my store list is ready. It does cost a little after the free trial but it saves us so much where we eat out less and do less grabbing whatever while we walk around the store that it easily pays for itself within the first month of using it. Of all my meal planning tips, this is the best! Plan to Eat, check it out. 🙂
Consider Meal Prep Sunday
There are many meal options online for families who are perfectly okay with taking Sunday to meal prep. You can use your meal planning menu to have homemade frozen meals. You will need gallon size freezer storage bags, the ingredients for each meal and room in your freezer if you try to cut corners with this method of creating meals ahead on Sundays.
Predict the Meal Mood
Sure this may sound silly but if you think about, it makes sense. Your family may not be in the mood for hearty soup recipe at dinner time if the weather has been warm all day long. I’m really bad about wanting a hearty soup in the middle of summer and it never goes over well with my family. (I should try a cold soup but the idea of one doesn’t sit well with me. One day, I’ll try one, one day!) Consider what each day holds for weather patterns and prepare your meal plan for the week based on the appropriate weather patterns. This ensures you make lighter meals on warmer days and heartier meals on colder days. (Like this Crock Pot White Chicken Chili Recipe)
This Chocolate Silk Pie is always right no matter the outdoor temperature! 🙂
Use a Calendar
Whether it’s a white erase board calendar or one that you have for use in your purse, you will need to keep a calendar that organizes the meal planning for each week. This will help you stay on track and prepare properly each day for whatever is on your meal plan agenda for the day. Having a family calendar on the wall with your meal plan is even better to keep everyone in the loop.
The last few tips I have to lend to you when it comes to meal planning for families is to always use a grocery list when you head to the grocery store. You will want to ensure you stay on track and on a budget when it comes to meal planning success.
Leave a Reply