Q and A about my Meal Plan

Question:

How far in advance do you plan your meals and how often do you try a new dish? Do you generally rotate the same dinners throughout the month? Thanks for sharing your meal plan with us! It does help! Now I just gotta figure out how to use Excel!

-Kimmy

Thanks Kimmy for your great questions!!! Yes, I generally rotate the same dinners through out the month. In Excel you can create a “workbook” and it has multiple “worksheets” in the “workbook” with tabs to access them. I have titled the tabs Meal Plan, Grocery List, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert and Snacks. About 2 years ago, I sat and entered all of our favorite breakfasts on the breakfast sheet, lunches on the lunch sheet and so on. So when I am making my meal plan, I click on the breakfast page and look at my options and then go back to the meal plan and enter breakfast items. Then I do the same with lunches, and dinner. I also look at the ads for the best deals, and my coupons.


After the meal plan is complete, I click to the worksheet titled “Grocery List” and I enter my list of groceries. I check my cupboard and fridge to verify what items I need. After everything is entered, I print the meal plan and grocery list. I put the plan on the fridge and I put the grocery list and coupons in a ziploc baggy (so I can see the coupons and list).


When I meal plan it is usually for the week. But as the seasons change, I love to pull out my recipes that represent that season and work them in. Do you collect recipes but then never make them? Taking a Saturday, when I have free time, to write down which ones I will try during the month helps me. So yes, I do try new recipes but I don't have an organized system for trying them. On the last day of February (last Saturday), I sat in my dining room for nearly 2 hours organizing all my spring recipes and getting them ready for March. I also had a few healthy recipe books from the library and was jotting down some new healthy recipes that I will incorporate. As I type out each week's meal plan, I will look at my monthly plan that I jotted down on scrap paper to remind me of meals I would like to incorporate.

And finally - do not feel the pressure to use excel. I learned this meal planning system off of the author and organizer Emilie Barnes. Her method is simply to use a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. So do not let the "excel spreadsheet" part scare you away. Excel is a great tool - but so is a pencil!!!

Have fun and do what works for you! The average woman will plan, shop, cook, and clean up over 1,000 meals in just one year. Find the system that works best for you and then tweak it and tweak it and tweak it until you find the one you enjoy and can do most efficiently with your resource of time and money.

Walk with the King!

http://www.womenlivingwell.org/