A Simple Way to Meal Plan

Every Sunday, I write out a plan for each meal of the coming week. If I have time to sit down and do it, I will just write it out in a notebook. I've tried the pretty printable calendars and the dry erase ones, but none of those were sustainable for my lazy meal planning habits.

Before we get any further, if you're looking for the newest, prettiest way to plan your meals, this isn't it. I'm sharing this with you because I have learned that the simplest way is the best way, in my case. You're probably not going to read any groundbreaking ideas you haven't heard of before. But, if simple and undecorative is your thing, this post may be for you.

So, anyway, notebook paper it is! Though sometimes (okay, most times) if I've put off meal planning until Monday morning before going to the store, I will do it on my phone, in bed. But the layout is still the same: Breakfast, Lunch, Supper. Here is a picture of both ways, if you need it.

Go ahead, you can laugh. I'm a simple gal, and I'm all about not making things any harder than they need to be. Pretty much all of my recipes have come from random Pinterest browsing. It's been this way since Kyle and I got married. There are SO many choices online and I don't think I have ever used an actual cookbook (though I do have a few collecting dust on top of my kitchen cabinets).

But over the last few weeks, meal planning stopped being fun. It became hard and it took forever for me to find any meals I wanted to make for supper. So, when I stumbled upon this idea on Pinterest, it changed the way I plan. It's a list of meal ideas divided into categories. I decided to try to pick one thing from each list, each week.

So we're on week three of this plan so I've chosen:

• Pork Enchiladas
• Ravioli
• Orange Chicken
• Herb Baked Chicken & Potatoes
• Tortilla Soup

I search for those recipes on Pinterest (sometimes I will add "healthy" to the search bar...) and save them all into a board called Current Meal Plan and can refer back to it each day to find the recipe I need.

Sidenote: If you celebrate any fun little "holidays," you may enjoy Sloppy Joe Day (Monday) and Ravioli Day (Wednesday)! Sometimes those days add some fun into my meal planning also.

So, as I'm writing the name of each recipe into each day's meal plan, I go through and write out the ingredients I need also, to prevent backtracking. To save time, I will usually program it into my phone as a grocery list, organized by aisle at the Kroger store where I shop. I'm sure other grocery stores have apps that tell you where each item is located also, (along with great coupons!) so if you don't have a Kroger, check for an app for your store. (I recently discovered HEB does this also!)

Then, the next day (Monday) is grocery shopping day! We pretty much always go on Mondays unless we are sick or out of town…or just too lazy to get moving. I will admit, I have yet to utilize grocery pickup or delivery just because I really like to pick out my own food; but it DOES sound amazing!

Now, full disclosure, I don't always stick to these meal plans. There are a lot of nights when I just don't feel like cooking and we end up having food delivered anyway. (If you've never used Door Dash, you're missing out!) But since we recently decided we wanted to pay off our insane amount of debt, we are trying to cut back on the fast food... but it's hard. They make it so easy!!!!! Haha!

But that's the very easy, simple process I prefer in regard to weekly meal planning. No bells, no whistles....much like me! I am curious to know how YOU meal plan though. Feel free to reach out and message me on my Facebook page, Lawson Lately; or you can click on the Contact Me tab at the top and message me that way. I love to talk about things like this and am always up for new suggestions, especially if it makes my life easier! :-)

Have a good week!