Easing into Meal Planning

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You’re tired of never knowing what’s for dinner, tired of spending extra money on food because nothing is in the fridge, and tired of eating pre-made, highly processed meals that don’t make you feel good. So you’re thinking about meal planning, but don’t know where to start.

You may have heard friends or family members talk about their meal plans, or maybe you did a Google or Pinterest search and were overwhelmed with the number of different methods and resources out there.

I’ve seen some methods that are quite detailed and seem pretty intense. Others want you to buy an app or even a subscription to dinner kits. Those options can be great, depending on your situation.

But if you’re a busy girl with an unpredictable schedule, you might not be ready to invest in a paid meal planning service. And you definitely don’t need a complicated, rigid system.

I get it. If you’re looking for a way to ease into meal planning without spending a lot of time or money, I’ve got just the plan for you. It’s simple, it’s flexible, it’s free, and it will take you less than half an hour per week.

Is meal planning worth it if you’re single, busy, or both?

Some meal planning systems seem to be built for stay-at-home moms with unlimited time for cooking. I’m a stay-at-home mom myself, but I still appreciate fast, healthy meals that my family will enjoy.

And I understand unpredictable schedules. If you’re staying late at school or work and coming home hungry to an empty refrigerator, I get it. Tortilla chips and salsa used to be my go-to meal on busy nights.

I remember buying vegetables at the grocery store, and then watching them rot in my fridge because, well, what am I going to do with a bunch of celery when it’s 7:30 pm and I need something to eat now, not in an hour?

At that time, I thought that a meal plan wouldn’t help me because I was so rarely home to cook. I didn’t want to buy a lot of food and have it go bad. I didn’t need a meal plan that would make my life more expensive and stressful than it already was.

But there is a way to make a simple meal plan that fits your life, even if it’s crazy. Even if you feel like you’re never home. And I promise that cooking real food- even if it’s only once a week- will save you money.

This meal plan is designed to be flexible. If you are home for dinner most nights of the week, but just don’t have much time to cook on weeknights (or whatever your schedule is), I’ve got you covered!

How to start a meal plan

Just read through the steps and choose which option fits your life best right now. Don’t pick a plan based on your ideal life or what you think your schedule will be a month from now.

It’s easy to change your meal planning slightly to fit a different schedule down the road. For now, stick with something you KNOW will work.

If you can only plan one week at a time, that’s fine. If you have no clue what you’ll be doing on the weekend, I’ll show you how to plan for that too.

The key is to start slowly. If you try to take on too much at once, you will probably end up overwhelmed and just give up on meal planning altogether.

Ready? Grab a pen and some paper to jot down ideas, and let’s get started!

Make a Meal Planning Cheatsheet

What’s the first thing you need to do when you’re ready to start a meal plan? Think about the kinds of meals you like to eat. Take out your pen and paper, and start making a list of meals you like.

These should be meals you have cooked yourself, or have helped someone else cook. That way, you know you can actually make them! It’s okay to start with boxed mac’n’cheese if that’s where you’re at. You don’t need to know how to cook from scratch to start meal planning.

Don’t write down your favorite fancy restaurant dish that you’ve been meaning to try. We’ll get to that later! Try to come up with a list of 15 familiar meals that you like. (If you’re really having trouble with this, you can start with 8-10, and fill in the gaps later.)

Since you’re just starting out, stick to suppers only: main dishes in particular. You can worry about side dishes later, once you get the hang of this meal planning thing.

This list will become your cheatsheet or master list for meal planning. It will come in handy when you find yourself staring at your meal plan with no ideas- or on those weeks when you didn’t even make a meal plan because your schedule was so crazy.

Organizing your list

If you wish, you can organize your master list of meals into categories. I find it helpful to organize them by the main meat or protein in the meal. This is especially helpful for when you buy meat/seafood/other protein on sale and then don’t know what to do with it!

Or you could organize by type of dish. What exactly do I mean by that? Soups, casseroles, one pot/skillet meals, slow cooker meals, etc. This can help you plan for busy days when you don’t have time to cook, as well as days when you will have an hour or two before supper time.

For example, chicken tortilla soup could be listed under “Chicken” or “Soups.” Italian sausage & peppers could go under “Sausage” or “Skillet Suppers.” You get the idea.

You can find both options for categorizing your meal planning cheatsheet in my free downloadable meal planning pages!

All right. Now that you have your cheatsheet started, you’re ready to make your first meal plan!

You might be saying, “Wait! How’s this cheatsheet supposed to help if it only contains eight meals?”

Don’t worry. You’ll add to it as you cook different meals and find things you like. It’s meant to be a resource you can look back at and adjust over time.

Plan out one week of meals

STEP 1: Grab a sheet of paper

Or a notebook, or my printable meal planning pages. If you’re making your own meal planner, write down the days of the week, with space below or beside each one.

Some people do better visualizing their schedules with a monthly grid or calendar. (There’s one all ready for you in my pack of printable resources!)

If you go this route, don’t feel like you need to fill out the entire month all at once. You can still plan week-by-week, and just keep the schedule organized by month.

TIP: I keep my meal plans in a notebook or binder because I find it helpful to refer back to previous weeks or months when I need inspiration.

I can easily come up with a week’s worth of meals this way- without even opening a cookbook! Who wouldn’t want a quick and easy way to plan meals in less than five minutes per week?

Of course, when you’re just starting out with this, it will take a while before you have enough variation in meals to help with dinner ideas.

STEP 2: Decide which day you will go grocery shopping

This doesn’t have to be the same day every week. Just make sure you plan enough meals to last you until the next grocery shopping trip.

I usually include grocery shopping day in my weekly meal plan, because it tends to be one of my busiest days. I need to have that day’s supper planned in advance, even if it’s going to be leftovers.

For example, if I normally shop on Wednesdays, my meal plans run from Thursday to the next Wednesday.

If you shop on your day off and have plenty of time to cook that day, you might prefer to start your meal plan with shopping day. That’s fine too.

STEP 3: Plan around your schedule and what you already have

Now that you’ve determined when you’ll go grocery shopping, think about your schedule for the next week.

Which days do you have time to cook supper? Which days will you be out for 8-10 hours, but have time to throw something in the slow cooker before you leave? Are there days when you’ll have absolutely no time and need to plan leftovers?

What about special occasions? Is there a holiday or birthday coming up this week? Date night or dinner at your mother’s house? Write it down so you don’t plan too many meals.

If you only see one or two days in the next week where you’ll be able to cook in the evening, that’s okay. Just make sure to cook extra on those days, so you’ll have leftovers to eat later.

TIP: Cook extra on days when you have a little more time than usual. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy; just make a big batch of spaghetti or soup, and you just created an extra meal or two!

Now look in your fridge and freezer. Is there anything you need to use up quickly? Take a peek in your pantry. Do you have a lot of rice or canned tomatoes?

Keep these items in mind as you come up with meals for the week. Starting with what you already have prevents waste and helps you save money.

STEP 4: Start filling in your planner!

It’s finally time to fill in that meal plan! If you haven’t cooked much, stick to simple meals for now. I don’t want you to give up on meal planning when it’s actually the cooking which is the problem!

Look over your meal planning cheatsheet. Based on what you found in your fridge and pantry, do you have most of the ingredients to make a meal or two on the list?

If so, great! Write those meals down on your meal planner. Make sure you put the meals on days when you will actually be able to cook them.

If your fridge is mostly empty, not to worry. You must do a good job of using up what you buy!

Assign leftovers or 10-minute meals to your busiest days. Examples of these speedy suppers include: bean & cheese quesadillas, scrambled eggs with veggies and/or bacon, chicken or taco salad, BLTs or other hearty sandwiches, and canned or frozen (thawed) soups.

STEP 5: Fill in the gaps

You probably still have a few blank spaces to fill. Gather some recipes for inspiration. But before you go grab all 18 of your cookbooks and look up your Pinterest recipe boards, hold on for a minute!

Trying to make a meal plan with too many recipes to choose from is a waste of time and energy. Even if you’re not a novice cook, it’s just overwhelming to look through hundreds of recipes and try to choose from among them.

If you’re like me, you might end up getting distracted and merely flipping through cookbooks or scrolling through recipes on your phone. Before you know it, you’ve wasted an hour and there’s still nothing on your meal plan.

When I make my meal plans, I limit myself to one or two cookbooks, or a Pinterest board full of recipes I want to try.

This way, you will actually use your cookbooks instead of just admiring the pretty pictures! You’ll also find out which books contain recipes that work for you, and which ones aren’t really that useful.

As a general rule of thumb, I don’t schedule more than one or maybe two new recipes per week. New recipes can stress me out, especially if there are a lot of other things going on. You can read more reasons why in this article on cooking simply.

Okay. You have a cheatsheet, you know what ingredients are in your kitchen, and you’ve grabbed a cookbook or Pinterest board for additional ideas. You should be able to come up with meals for a week pretty quickly.

TIP: As you fill in your meal plan, write down the location of the recipe.

If it’s in a cookbook, use an abbreviation for the title and list the page number. I would write “ACF 96” for a recipe on page 96 of the book, “A Continual Feast.” I’ve included little boxes in the upper right corners of your meal planner just for this purpose!

STEP 6: Make a shopping list

Once you’ve filled it out, don’t stop quite yet. There’s one more quick step. Grab your grocery list and write down all the ingredients you need to prepare these meals.

Remember to check your pantry and refrigerator to see what you already have! As you continue meal planning, this will get easier as you learn to stock up on common ingredients.

That’s it! You’re done! Congratulations on completing your first meal plan! Now you’re all set to make a week’s worth of meals that fit your schedule, and you know what ingredients you need to buy and how much time you need each day to cook.

Moving Forward

We focused on planning suppers for this first week’s meal plan. You probably want to eat more than once a day, though. I suggest that for this first week, just stick to what you’ve been doing. If that’s grabbing breakfast or lunch from the cafe close to work, so be it. Start slow, remember?

If you’re using my weekly meal planner, you have spaces to fill in breakfasts and lunches in addition to dinners. You don’t need to use these sections at first, or ever if you don’t want to.

I will occasionally plan special breakfast or brunch dishes, but other than that, it feels kind of silly to write “eggs & toast” or “oatmeal” every day. I know some people really like to plan all their meals, and that’s why I included the extra spaces.

If you don’t want to use them, try my monthly meal planner. That page only has one box for each day, so it’s better suited for dinner planning only.

Review your progress

Every week or so, it’s good to review your meal plan and write down what you actually ate that day if it differed from what’s written there. Life doesn’t always go as planned, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t stick to your meal plan all the time.

Some weeks I’ll make all the meals I had planned, just not on the days I had planned them. Other weeks, our actual menu will look totally different than what was written down. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve crossed out my planned meal and written “pizza” quite a few times!

Meal planning isn’t going to work if you make a plan but don’t stick to it and don’t track what you’re eating instead. If you do track what you’re eating, it can help you plan better.

Are you grabbing takeout because you’re too tired to cook after work? Maybe you need to plan really simple meals like a jar of pasta sauce and frozen meatballs, or meals that can be frozen and reheated, or slow cooker meals that can be prepped in the morning.

Periodically reviewing your intended meal plan and comparing it to reality will help you to become a better meal planner. Even if it starts out pretty rocky. Just remember that a meal plan is a tool to help you, not a standard of perfection that makes you feel guilty if you don’t follow it exactly.

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I hope these tips and resources are helpful. My goal is to equip you to start a successful meal plan that will save you money, time, and energy.

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