![]() You can pick and choose, then make your own plan. If you like to have a little more control over your menu, try these free whole food meal plans from The Better Mom. All you need to do is print, buy the ingredients, and prep your meals. I’m also a big fan of these freezer to slow cooker meal plans. She has even created a freezer meal plan that’s absolutely amazing! If you want to save money and time, you’ll love these meal plans. One is meal plans for special diets like gluten-free or organic. She puts together the shopping list, recipes, and everything for you. Plus there is no need to! Hundreds of bloggers are out there creating family meal plans for you! Don’t reinvent the wheel.Įrin from $5 Dinners has amazing meal plans. I love to sit on Pinterest and search for amazing meals, but the truth is, I don’t have time to be doing that. Cheat as often as possible as you meal plan for your family.įor me, thinking of things to cook is sometimes the biggest struggle. If we lived like we were an hour away from the store every day, how would that change our grocery budget and our time spent shopping? I think we can both agree that it would be wonderful. If we don’t buy it then, we aren’t eating it. We always do the shopping on the way into town. There is a local store but you pay $8 for a loaf of bread because they have to haul it in through the mountains. Their house is so far from town that it’s a 50 minute drive to a regular grocery store. When we go out to my family’s house in the summer, I am always reminded of this truth. This is a HUGE waste of time, not to mention money. I find that when I don’t take the time to plan meals, I go to the store several times in one week. If you think about dinner the day you need it, you are likely to have to get super creative or even go to the store. And here is the trick: The earlier you make the plan, the more time you save. Somewhere along the way, you are going to have to make a plan. I can assure you that dinner won’t magically appear on the table at 6pm. Seriously, this will save you enough time to get a pedicure every single week or change a dirty diaper. Once you force yourself to think about this in advance, it will become habit. Or when we have tacos, I’ll use the same ingredients to make a Mexican casserole for the freezer. We might have spaghetti one night and I’ll use the same ingredients to make a spaghetti bake for the freezer. Once you are in the kitchen, make use of the time! By the way, did you know that you can brown hamburger in the crockpot?Īnother thing I have had great success with is using the same ingredients to make a second (but different) meal. I’ve also been known to use ground beef for hamburgers on the grill and still throw on an extra pound to brown. I can easily freeze the other sets so we have a quick meal on hand. Whenever I brown ground beef, I always do at least 2-3 batches. To feed the whole family, I simply take out 2-3.Īnother option would be to cook meat for a second meal while you have it going. I buy 2 cup Ziploc containers for this because I can easily take out smaller portions (for lunch or when only a few of us are home). Making soup? Freeze a second batch while you are at it. If you are making spaghetti sauce, double the batch and freeze one. You can either eat it later that week or freeze it if you are picky about eating the same thing twice. You could add an extra chicken breast and cover lunch the next day. So I figured we could both use the reminder, eh? Meal planning for families Rarely (if ever) make just one meal.īefore you prepare a meal, try to think of a way to use this meal at least one more time. I realized that I had abandoned some really strong secrets for getting this job done. I just have more money now, so I’ve started eating out more. My circumstances haven’t actually changed. ![]() As I was pondering my goals for this year, I thought back to the days when eating out absolutely could not happen. Often, I find myself thinking through how much money I could make if I keep working and just run through the $5 Hot Now drive-thru later. At the end of the day, it’s easy to convince myself that Chipotle will make me happy. ![]() So why do I still do it? I’m guessing it’s for the same reasons you do. ![]()
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