Over the course of the past few weeks, you’ve seen countless pictures of my yummy meals, Farmer’s Market hauls, and juices. If you’re a dedicated reader and keep coming back for more, then you might remember me talking about my goal to meal plan! I am determined to do this in hopes of saving money and decreasing the amount of food we throw away. I have been planning for only one week in advance, with the week beginning on Sunday. I plan for only 5 dinner meals for the week. This gives us two days to take into consideration for “date” dinner nights or an abundance of left overs that aren’t consumed for lunch. Having only 5 planned has worked well for us since there is only two in the household. Plus, there is always plenty for lunch for me and breakfast normally just takes care of itself as long as I have the normal staples in the house: eggs, skim or almond milk, whole wheat bread, fruit, and oatmeal. As I said, it’s just PJ and I {and the furkids + foster furkid} so even with my personal busy schedule, cooking dinner during the week is not a big deal for me therefore I don’t do any cooking ahead at the beginning of the week. For those of you with kids though, that might be a good idea!

How do I meal plan?

Well, I’m so glad you asked. I’ve been meal planning for the past three weeks now, so the following steps are what have worked for me so far!

Beginning Wednesday and to be completed by Friday evening:
1. Review the sales paper to see what seafood or meats are on sale. {Publix sales ad is released for the new sales on Wednesday.} My meal ideas and new recipes that I want to try are based on what’s for sale that week.

2. Gather meal ideas & any new recipes to try after talking with PJ to get his input on what he’d like to have or try for dinner. {I pin a lot of things as I come across them through blog reading & the Fitfluential community so after reviewing my “Recipe Book” for ideas, Pinterest is my first stop to look for new recipes to try.}

3. Compose meals and shopping lists! I use two different apps on the iPhone/iPad to stay organized. {I’ll share the two apps and some screen shots at the end of this post.}

Saturday
Go shopping! The Farmers Market is always my first stop to gather any fresh veggies & fruits needed for the week. I also get eggs and cheese as needed. Then we shop for the remaining list at either Publix or Kroger.

Sunday
The beginning of the week of yummy recipes!! I should mention that I do not assign a specific recipe to a specific day. With just us two, I find it much easier to decide the day of or the night before because we based on what we’re “feeling” or “craving”. This works out great especially for those days that PJ would rather go out to eat!

There you have it folks! It’s not hard at all and rarely takes up any additional time! {Well, for my schedule anyways.} If you meal plan or are wanting to try it out, then you’ll also want to check out this cool linky party for the month of October! What better way to start of your menu planning skills with joining in on a menu planning challenge? {Hosted by Mommy Run Fast and Fitness, Health and Happiness}

Every Sunday we’ll link up and share our weekly meal plans and/or recipes. Plus there will be weekly prizes! Yay! Interested? Go here to join in the challenge! -> Menu Planning Challenge Sign Up

I use the Wunderlist app to list the meals for the week. Since the planning overlaps two different weeks, I keep two lists; one for the current week that we’re using for meals, and one for the next week when I start planning. Here are my meals planned for this week:

I use Evernote to house the recipes for the upcoming week and draft the shopping list. Evernote rocks because you can add check mark boxes!

Here are the NEW recipes that I plan on trying out this week!

• Coconut Chicken Tacos
• Herb Crusted Pork Chops
• Crockpot Santa Fe Chicken

Are you meal planning yet??

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad