Since I know a little about meal planning I have been asked numerous times to share my weekly menu template. I have put together a bare-bones template for you to print and/or download. I will continue to revise this to be more aesthetically pleasing. I will also have available soon bi-weekly and monthly menu templates. You can access the weekly menu template here. Please let me know (in comment section or via contact form or email) what you would like added to this template or what you think needs to be changed!

I hope this helps.

Thanks again, Laura, for being willing to be interviewed! What a blessing you are.

If you would, please fill out my demographics survey. Thanks muchly! Without further ado here is my menu plan for this week:

Monday -

B – Oatmeal

L – Sandwiches

D – Pumpkin Soup

Tuesday -

B – Chocolate Chip Muffins

L – Sandwiches

D – Bean & Cornbread Casserole

Wednesday -

B – Oatmeal

L – Breakfast Tacos

D – Taco Pinwheel

Thursday -

B – Banana Muffins (IF we can get some bananas in the house. My kids seem to devour them as soon as they get home)

L – Sandwiches

D – Fiesta Chicken (only I will change this and make it in the crockpot)

Friday -

B – Oatmeal

L – Sausage & Cheese Turnovers

D – Vegetarian Chili

Saturday -

B – Daddy makes French Toast

L – Sandwiches

D – Pizza

Make sure to stop over to visit Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie!

*I highly recommend you read parts one, two, and three of this Menu Planning How-To’s Series before continuing.*

Okay. So we have covered Why menu planning is a good idea, various ways How menu planning can be achieved, and the many different resources available to Help you menu plan. Today we will be discussing how shopping factors in to meal planning.

First off, shopping willy-nilly at the grocery store without a list is a bad idea. Having some idea of what you need and writing it down on paper will not only save you a headache as you browse the aisles, you will save lots of moolah as well. Below I will share some shopping tips and how to organize a shopping trip while you are in the process of meal planning.

Tips to keep in mind

• Do not go to the grocery store either hungry or tired. This is often talked about and well known but yes, it does bear repeating. If you are hungry while walking about a building packed with food you will buy stuff you don’t need. Your cart will suddenly be carrying all kinds of packaged snacks and things you might not normally buy. As for the tired part, you are less likely to stick to your list if you aren’t energized and are bogged down by fatigue. I go shopping by myself early in the morning after breakfast. The plus to this is that there are less people at the stores during this time.
• Shop by aisle. We’ll go more into this later on but this tip will save you a lot of time.
• Don’t forget a pen or pencil to cross things off of your list. You will see easily what is left for you to pick up and you’ll be encouraged by seeing that you are getting something done.
• If you are not the one who will be shopping (say, for instance, you are sending your husband to the grocery store) make your shopping list easily understood by that person. For instance, if I write down three cans diced tomatoes, I’ll know in my mind that I want the large cans. My husband won’t know that so I make sure to write down the ounces needed when I make a shopping list that he will be using.
• Leave the cold stuff for last. In my grocery store the produce is the first thing you see when you walk into the store. Then there are the frozen food sections. I start on the aisles just past those, such as the coffee and tea aisle, and work my way to the back of the store where the dairy items are. Then I go back to the store and pick up any frozen items or produce before I head to check-out. This ensures that my cold items are not thawing or warming up while I am getting other things.
• If you use coupons or price match with flyers, keep those readily available for you to look at. I suggest a clipboard with your shopping list and flyers and coupons attached. You will have everything ready at check out. Digging around in a cluttered purse after shopping to find crinkled up coupons and the like makes for an unhappy check-out experience. (Ask me how I know!) Of course, there are many ladies out there who have couponing down to a science and so they may offer other suggestions on how to better do this. As I have said before I do not coupon or price match myself.
• When putting grocery and non-grocery items on the conveyor built, group them together. Cold stuff together, boxes together, canned goods together, personal items together, and cleaning products together. Anything fragile such as eggs or bread needs to go at the end so that you can place those on top without getting ruined.

How to create a shopping list while making your menu plan.

• There are two ways I generally go about this. I either write out the list as I plug in each meal for my meal plan, or I make up the entire meal plan and then look at each day and write down needed ingredients. Personally I find it easier and faster to make up the menu plan at one time and then to move on to the shopping list and do that separately. Otherwise I have two things going on at once and I feel bogged down and easily get discouraged.
• If you haven’t done so it would be wise to keep a pad of paper on the fridge help up by a magnet to write down items as you think of them before meal planning time. If I see I am low on something I add it before I actually run out. I rarely run out of items at the last minute. Also, if my husband calls me on his way home from work and asks if I need anything at the store, I can easily look at my running list and let him know. Works great and saves me quite a few headaches. When you are finished making your shopping list from your new meal plan, make sure to add whatever you still need from the fridge list.
• When writing up your shopping list group items together in two categories: food and non-food. I shop at a major supermarket and most non-food items are kept separately from the food items. I generally get paper items and anything we don’t eat before I actually starting putting groceries into my cart. Keep any cleaning supplies away from food so that there is no contamination to what you are going to put into your mouth.
• When making this shopping list be sure that you are thinking ahead. Look around your home. If you have half a package of toilet paper you may think you have enough to last till the next shopping trip, but more than likely you will run out. Go ahead and purchase whatever you are getting low on if you are financially able. Remember, less trips to the grocery store for last-minute items means less spending of your hard-earned dollars.
• Make an extra copy or two of your shopping list. There have been a few times when I have either spilled something on my list making it unreadable or have lost it entirely. Because I make extra copies and also keep a copy on my computer I don’t need to panic.

What have I missed? How do you shop? What tips do you have? I hope this has helped somewhat and will give some basic ideas as to how making a shopping list and how shopping at the grocery store can save money and time.

On Friday I will be sharing an interview Laura from Organizing Junkie! Stay tuned!

Photo credits: iboy_daniel, BruceTurner,

*If you have not already, I suggest you read Part One and Part Two of this Menu Planning How To series.*

So we have covered the Why’s of meal planning as well as the How’s. Now let’s move on to some great resources one could use when menu planning.

Organization -

Donna Young’s shopping lists and menu planners

Organizing Junkie’s Free Weekly Menu Planning Template and Grocery List Template

Organized Home’s Pantry Inventory

Recipes -

Group Recipes – I love this site!

Menu Plan Monday – This meme is perfect for checking out the menu plan’s of other gals. If you are having a hard time coming up with meal ideas this is a great way for getting some inspiration!

Simply Recipes

Stolen Moments Cooking

Sales/Coupons

Grocery Guide

Coupon Mom

Money Saving Mom

Coupons.com

Software *Note: I have not used any of these software. Please purchase at your own risk* -

Cook’n

EzyEating

Master Cook

Services -

Stolen Moments Cooking – This service, run by my dear friend Kate, provides you meal plans for a reasonable cost. That way you are able to still benefit from saving money at the grocery store without needing the time to actually sit down and organize it. She will plan for a full menu (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) or just dinners. She also takes into account food allergies, budget, etc.

Photo credits djayo, nosheep, yananine, lollyknit,

*If you are considering starting to menu plan then I encourage you to read the first post in this Menu Planning How-To series.*

If you ask those who utilize menu planning into their lives you will probably find that each person goes about it differently. However I find that there are three basic steps that are generally followed and so I will share those with you.

Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly

This particular method is the one I employ most often. When I started out using the menu planning way of organizing I did one week at a time and just dinners. This gave me a sufficient jumping off point and eased me into learning something new. It was easily manageable and I did not feel overwhelmed. If you need to start even smaller – say, three days at a time – that is a great starting place. Whatever you feel you can do will help. The importance comes from just starting! Pretty soon you’ll be moving on to bi-weekly and monthly and planning breakfasts, lunches, and snacks as well.

First off you will want some method to keeping track what your menu plan will be. I have used various ways to write down my menu plan. I have done it on paper and computer. Various excel templates have come and gone though I am currently working on making one that will fit me perfectly. Starting with a pad of paper and a pencil is probably best at first. *By the way, using a pencil while menu planning is best. Inevitably you will want to change something and it looks much better if you aren’t crossing things out.* Make a line for each day.

Next you will will want to look at your calendar. If you go planning willy-nilly you might forget that Tuesday night Uncle Joe is coming over for his birthday dinner or that Thursday night you have a date with you husband. Mark those on your note pad.

Fill in what you want for dinner each night. To help you out you could make each day a theme: Mondays are Mexican, Tuesday is soups/chilis, Wednesday is Italian, etc. This will help you out when you get stuck on what to make that night.

Easy peasy, huh?

Rotating Menu Plan

Save your menu plans when you are done with them. Put them in a ziplock baggie or set them in a file folder. When you have enough of these saved up you can pull them out and use them. It is not necessary to make a new menu for every week when you can just swap them out for older menu plans.

Again, easy peasy.

Based on what’s in pantry, coupons, on sale, or in season

I can’t speak too much on making a menu plan based on coupons or whats on sale. However there have been times when money was tight and I was forced to make dinners based on what I already had on hand. You don’t have to do this just because you are strapped for cash; it is also a good idea to be as resourceful as possible with what you have already purchased.

This is especially easy to do if you have an inventory on the doors of your freezer/fridge and pantry. You can easily see what you have and plan meals based on those ingredients. If you don’t use an inventory then just go through your food items and write them down. Base your menu on those items and you will probably be surprised at how much you already have that will make complete meals. This would also be a good time toss or giveaway items that you won’t use or have expired.

You can also base your meals on store sales and coupons but as I said above I do not have experience with that. You can easily google for more info.

I hope you have found this post helpful. If you have any questions feel free to ask! The next in this menu planning series will be all about resources you can use to help you plan!  See you then.

Photo credits: quacktaculous, net_efekt, ellievanhoutte

Why Menu Plan?

There are many reasons why someone would choose to plan their menus.  In this first installment of my menu planning series I will go over the three top reasons and share why I personally use a menu plan in our home.

Best use of resources

I think many people would be stunned at how much usable foodstuffs they already have in their pantries.  Some have even blogged about making menus based on what they already have.  People buy grocery items with the best of intentions, store them in their pantries, then forget about them.  Why?  Because they have no plan, no set action on how to use those items.  Making a menu plan gets rid of this problem because you buy groceries with a purpose and you know exactly when and how you will use them.

Monetary reasons

This is the main reason why I started menu planning in the first place.  The first few years of my and Mr. Incredible’s marriage were financially rough.  We had a baby, were single income and he was graduating.  All in one year.  It was tough and emotionally draining and I would never want to go through that again.  At the same time, I learned a lot about finances and how every little bit counts.  I did not really know how to cook or run a household when I got married.  Buying groceries was an event that intimidated me because I didn’t really know what to buy.  We went to the grocery store a lot because I’d run out of items or need something for dinner that night.  It also forced us to eat out more than I would like to admit.

In order to combat these problems I decided to get organized. I would make a menu plan for one week and shop accordingly.  I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning but it ended up saving us quite a lot of money.

Organization

This one may seem obvious, but really it is forgotten in many homes.  With no idea what you will be cooking you are generally going to be stressed out come dinner time. Using a well-planned out menu plan and having the necessary ingredients available to you when you need them eliminates the meal time “blahs.” You waste less food and have control over how your day will go. You will be less likely to run to the nearest fast-food joint because you don’t know what to make for dinner. Simple planning goes a long way.

The rest of this Menu Planning – How To will cover:

• Different Ways to Menu Plan
• Menu Planning Resources
• Shopping
• An interview with a really great lady! (I promise! You all know and love her)

Photo credits: mailsparky, sritenou, joakiml, oskay