Check out this video—I’m about to walk you through my simple meal planning system!
The full plan and your free downloads are below.
🎶 Baby you can do it, take your time, do it right! 🎶
Step 1: Theme your nights.
To eliminate decision fatigue, give each night of the week a general meal theme or category. For example, maybe Sunday is always casserole night or Friday is always pizza night. When I’m picking my themes, I only plan to cook up to four nights a week (plus one night where I’m making something that involves easy assembly instead of actual cooking, like sandwiches). The rest of the nights are for leftovers. I call this my Cook Four, No More rule because, honestly, cooking any more than that is just doing too much.
Step 2: Know your numbers.
Okay, so you have your general themes. Before you decide which specific recipes you’ll make that week, you need to know how much money you can spend on food. That number is your guide: It will determine the recipes you pick, the stores you shop at, and the brands you buy. I keep track of all that in my monthly budget (I use Ramsey’s budgeting app, EveryDollar) so I can easily see what I’m working with and not get too crazy in the grocery store.
Step 3: Choose your meals.
Now that you know your numbers, you can pick which recipe you’re going to make for each theme that week. For example, you already know Sunday is casserole night. Which casserole are you making? I like to go for easy recipes with simple ingredients that can be used in multiple different meals. And to save money and avoid wasting food I already have, I always take inventory of what's in my pantry and fridge and try to find recipes that use those ingredients.
Step 4: Put it into action.
This is the fun part. I’ve planned out a dinner calendar with a whole week of meals based on what a typical week looks like for my family, featuring some of my favorite time-tested, kid-approved dishes. So if you want to take some of the thinking out of dinner, follow my example week! (Recipes are designed for a family of four—modify to fit your family as needed.) I also made you a grocery list with all the ingredients you’ll need to make this full week of meals.
Go hit that download button and enjoy! 👇
You’ll find all the recipes featured in my example week (plus more resources) on the next page. 👉