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Family meal planning can be hard when you have a busy schedule and lifestyle. Did you know the same calendar you use to plan those busy weeks can also help with your family meal planning?
We’ve all been there at one point.
Your week is full of dentist and doctor’s appointments muddled in between full (or half) days at work and your children’s after school activities. The days pass by and before you know it, you realize you have accumulated almost 70 dollars in fast food and take out (true story over here).
While I can’t help you with the kids, the appointments, and the job, I can help you with the 70 dollar food bill.
What if I told you that one of the secrets to strategic family meal planning (besides carving out time to create one), is in that handy dandy monthly calendar you use to plan your busy days?
Having a calendar can help your meal planning in two ways:
It can help eliminate a high food bill by working in tandem with your plan.
- Before you start the meal planning process, take a look at your busy calendar. Write down any of the days where you suspect being busy due to appointments, school activities, and the like.
- Assign an easy meal for that day. Some examples can be hot dogs, frozen pizza, a home cooked meal from the freezer, soup and sandwiches, left overs from the evening before, etc. These meals aren’t the healthiest, however, they are healthier than trips to the drive-thru. All that matters is that you have something written down for that particular day. If you have it in your budget, you can also assign going out to eat for one evening. However, only do this if you have the money and try not to do it more then once every few weeks.
It also helps with meal planning organization.
- If you aren’t the type to have separate calendars floating around for separate topics (family, work, etc..), you can easily place the meals you have set aside for your busy days on the calendar itself.
- A paper calendar/planner works just fine for this. However, others prefer digital calendars such as cozi.com or google calendar.
- If you love the combination of digital and paper and are an online entrepreneur, you will enjoy using the Purposeful Business Planner (affiliate link) from Lesley Clavijo. It’s personally my favorite and even has a meal planning and grocery list section!
- Doing this not only eliminates confusion, but also helps keep your family meal planning organized and in one spot
Whether you are looking to cut down on your food bill or to help with organization, calendars can make a huge difference in the world of meal planning!
Happy planning 🙂
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Libby, I love ALL your recipes & do a lot of experimental cooking with success with them. I just want you to know the ONLY thing I do with my tablet is email. I am too old to learn all those other hi-tech ways of communication, — at my age they scare me. Keep those great recipes coming ! ! ! Thanks, Judy
Hi Judy 🙂 Thank you so much for the compliment! I’m so happy to hear that you are enjoying the recipes! For meal planning, you don’t need any of the hi-tech apps or gadgets. Just a regular old pen and paper will do. That is actually the way I do it 😉