There are some inquiries about my meal-planning system. What I do works for me. It’s not a perfect system. If it were, I’d have a homemade meal on the table for my family every single night. But it works. I’ve been doing this for years. I just created a document, which has two weeks’ worth per page.

Then I print them out every couple weeks (and cut it in half, of course). This little piece of paper stays close to me (by our computer, in my wallet, in the kitchen) most of the time.

This is a look at my current week’s sheet. (Happens to be today’s picture for Project 365, too.) What you see here is an on-going shopping list so that when I run my errands I’m never wondering, “Now what did I need here?” The list doubles-up as my meal planner for the week. I simply listed the days of the week, with a note of “what’s going on” for each day. This helps me map out what the week looks like in the context of dinners. Will we be home to eat as a family? Is David on-call? (If so, I don’t cook.) Do we have company for dinner? Will I be busy right before dinner (crock pot day!)? You get the idea.

So first, I map out the week at the bottom. I put an * by the days I know I am planning to make dinner. Then I plug in some meal ideas on those days and build my grocery list from there. Whenever something comes to mind of what I need to get at Costco, Target, or other stores, I add that to the list.

In case this might be helpful to you, click on this file to download the pdf to your computer: meals.pdf