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How often do you find yourself staring into the fridge wondering what you should throw together for dinner?
Or anxiously trying to put together a grocery list with no insirpation, just to say f it and going to the store to just grab whatever you see and make it a problem for “future you”?
That used to be me. I used to put no thought into the meal planning or grocery shopping. I’d just grab whatever and hope for the best. Then I realized a few things.
One: We were spending (and WASTING) way too much money.
Two: I was wasting time trying to figure out what to eat.
& Three: We were eating out way too often because of it!
That’s when I realized I really needed to make a change. And today we’re going to talk about those tips for meal planning for busy moms so that you can get a bit more intentional in the kitchen like I have.
If you’ve been following along the last couple weeks, you’ve probably noticed the trend of productivity posts.
That is because I am HERE for you mama, and I have heard what you are looking for. It’s not just because it’s the start of the year.
I have been asked over and over again through comments and messages about just how I get all of this crap done. Twins, school, starting a business, running a home, and now going back to work on top of it all.
So I have been dedicating one topic a week with regard to my personal tips for time management for busy moms and here we are at week four and so far, I have been getting some great feedback from you guys.
Many of you have signed up for that free seven day email course you saw at the top of this page, and I am so happy that my little tips are helping you guys succeed and really take control of your lives.
After you’re done reading about my tips for meal planning for busy moms, go ahead and search “time management” and browse through my other topics covered so far. We have talked about overall tips for time management for busy moms, how to create a killer to do list, how to find the time for yourself (and actually enjoy it) and a few other topics!
And don’t be afraid to leave a comment asking for more. I would love to answer your time mangement questions in an upcoming blog post.
Wow, I went a little off track there. Okay. Back to diving into my tips for meal planning for busy moms just like YOU!
Okay so, what IS meal planning?
Well, it is NOT meal prepping.
I hate meal prepping.
I always try it, like I’ll get in some mood where I think it’ll be awesome and save me time and money and blah blah.
But then it ends up taking more time and costing more money. Why? Because I can’t eat the same thing all the time. And frankly, I need options. I can’t just stand in the kitchen on Sunday after grocery shopping and prep everything for the week and expect myself to still want what I had prepped for Tuesday ON Tuesday. Or something comes up, life happens. And we end up eating out anyways.
And it turns out to be a waste.
Now maybe if I had a huge freezer meal prepping would work better because I could just freeze everything but I don’t. I don’t have the space for that. Most of my friends and family don’t either!
I do not like meal prepping. It doesn’t give me any extra time, and costs me money.
So, that is where meal planning comes in. And I LOVE meal planning.
Meal planning is the ultimate time and money saving hack because it is flexible, and will ultimately work with your family. You’re not prepping a batch of soup or chili to last you a few days that you already know you’re going to get sick of.
No, instead you are intentionally planning out your meals around the clock.
I always start with dinners and go from there.
I have a post here all about my themed week night dinners that I usually go by when meal planning, just to streamline the task even more.
Themed meals are things like “taco tuesday” “meatless monday”. You get the idea.
But you don’t have to go that far to make meal planning beneficial for your family.
Start with thinking about your dinners. Sit down and write them out. What can you make with what you have? What sale items at your favorite store can go with what you have to make some great meals? Okay.
Now which meals will have left overs? Can you shove those left overs into the “lunch” category?
For example, I plan on having a breakfast scramble one night. Well I know I won’t be using up all of the ground pork I am purchasing for that dinner, so I can then pencil that pork in to be used for a few mornings of breakfast for myself and the twins.
I will write out seven differet dinner ideas based on what we have and what sounds good for the week after browsing the Fred Meyer ad. Then I will write out at least 3-4 breakfast ideas and 3-4 lunch ideas.
From there, I craft the grocery list with what exactly I will need to buy to make all of the meals happen. Plus those things we need every week like eggs, milk, butter and bread.
Then after grocery shopping, I’ll slap the list up on the fridge and there you have it.
All of your meals for the week, right in front of your face.
Another tip I want to share with regard to meal planning for busy moms is to not get caught up in it either.
The whole point of meal planning is to be easy and flexible. So I might have written Sunday- Breakfast scramble. But we might end up eating that Thursday night. Or it might get pushed off and become a Saturday morning breakfast.
The main goal here is to know what meals you have, and be able to quickly glance and go okay. We’re having tortellini and salad tonight let’s get this started instead of the kids screaming and you pounding your head into the fridge wondering wtf to make next.
I hope these tips for meal planning for busy moms were useful for you, and that you put them into action with this weeks shopping trip!
I would love to hear how it goes!
Feel free to shoot me a message, or tag me on Instagram.
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