5 Steps to Meal Planning Sans Madness

I like to create long range plans and develop strategic systems, and this is how I manage to keep my life together.  However, a micro-manager I am not.  For this reason, and perhaps others "meal-planning" has been uninviting to me.  I also get daunted with the extensive worksheets I often seen associated with this task.

So here are my "official" 5 step plan to meal planning when you have ADD.

Step 1:  Enlist a partner.  Luckily for me, the boyfriend volunteered and well actually sort of initiated this whole thing to begin with (yea, he seems pretty great so far).  Anyway, if you don't have one of those bf things handy, and your serious about meal planning - then find a friend to swap recipes with and keep you accountable.

Step 2:  Pick a day of the week to plan (and stick to it).  We choose Sundays.

Step 3: Sit down on that day and generate meals for each day of the week.  We only plan the dinners, but then make sure to cook meals that provide us with leftovers for future take-to-work lunches.  We write these meals on a piece of paper (actually it's a "large" post-it note) that goes on the fridge.  It's easy and it works great.  We try to come up with meals based on the food on hand, but sometimes additional purchases are necessary.      

Our very fancy meal plan

Step 4: If necessary, create a shopping list based on meal plan.  Usually I only have to grab a few additional things.  Also on my shopping list are basics like eggs for breakfast, coffee creamer (oh yes!), and basic breakfast and lunch items.  I also pay attention to coupons for sales on produce, or discounts on items I like to have stocked.  I try my best to incorporate sale items into weekly meals. 

Step 5: Enjoy your meals. 

See - easy!

One more thing, this was perhaps easier for me because I already had a few systems in place to make it happen.  A stockpile of basic ingredients - frozen meat, frozen veggies, pasta, beans and more.  Familiarity with a lot of basic (but usually delicious) recipes that easily be modified to accommodate current ingredients (hopefully - I can talk more about this later).  However, it's key to note that those systems were just the framework and  I've observed that taking the time to make a conscious meal list each week has a)reduced wasted groceries b)reduced ill-planned fast food runs and oddly enough c)increased a balanced diet.  All of which can be cost-saving, the last of these being of the long range nature.