Day 5: Meal Planning

One of the hardest things I find about being a wife and mother is planning my meals for dinner each night. There is a huge part of me that says, “Oh crap, they need to eat AGAIN”! I hope I am not the only one who feels that way. But whether I feel that way or not my family needs to eat and I find it my responsibility to not only make it happen but to find new ideas and try to be healthy while doing it. Those may seem like the hard parts but the truly hard part is finding meals my picky family will like. I start on payday or shortly before searching my cookbook binder and Pinterest for new and loved recipes. This is what my binder looks like.

 

Nothing fancy as you can see, just a regular 3 ring binder. I have typed up a lot of my recipes and added picture to each recipe also. Then I section them off in categories such as, Deserts, Crock Pot, Chicken, Beef, Soups, Breads & Muffins, and so on.

  

I try to shop only once every two weeks when we get paid. It is a hassle to shop more than that and I save money by shopping all at once. So after I choose a recipe I write the needed ingredients on my shopping list according to the store I will need to get it at. I limit my shopping to two stores at a time, with multiple children that is all I can handle.

As you can see nothing fancy here!

I plan out 6-8 meals for a two week time period, you can always do more that is just what I do . With 6-8 meals for 14 days we have a few days in there for left overs and for quick dinner nights when we have other activities going on. Again I do nothing fancy but post the meal list on my refrigerator so I don’t forget the meals I have planned and then I can cross them off when I make them!



Next week I will share with you some of my recipes for the week. We are going to be trying several new recipes so I will let you know how they go!
 Enjoy your weekend, Bonnie!
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