What is the biggest time waster in your house? Is it cleaning? Is it laundry? Maybe it’s planning family time? In my house the biggest time waster is mealtime prep. Let me elaborate…
There have been many times where I would walk back and forth from my refrigerator, pantry, and deep freeze for an hour before deciding on some “quick” meal to make because now we are all Hangry and tired. Now you don’t know chaos until you have had a run in with 2 hungry tired preschoolers, and finally getting dinner in at 8 pm was just awful.
After doing this for a while, finally I said Enough! I needed to plan ahead so I could know what to make for dinner on which days. I could go to the store beforehand and be completely prepared when it came to mealtimes. Yay! No more cranky kids!
In the early days I would only plan out dinner since the kids pretty much free grazed all day, then when they went to school, there was no need to plan anything other than dinner.
Now things are different as the eating plan I have been following on and off requires me to eat every 3 hours or so. Having a full day of meals and snacks planned out or even prepped ahead of time really keeps me accountable. I stay accountable to meal times and making healthier choices as I’m not frantically searching for something to stop my stomach from rumbling.
In the beginning of my planning I would just write the meals down on a sheet of notebook paper. Later I used a printable monthly calendar and planned a week at a time. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of this before but I have made these weekly menu planners to help make mealtime more manageable. They come in eight color schemes and are priced at $2 each and $10 for the 8-pack. All are available in the store. https://jonestn.myshopify.com/products/weekly-menu-planners
Meal planning not only saves time, saves money, and saves your sanity, but it also is considered self care. Making sure your needs are met by planning ahead to the next meal or group of meals, you are showing how much you care for yourself. Some of us like the surprise every evening, but most of us are planning meals well beforehand.
We do have nights (like birthdays and other celebrations) where we eat out and the birthday person chooses dinner. Of course these are planner meals out, but we don’t know what they are until we are looking at menus. I like to call these planned spontaneity. I hope you all enjoy these great little planners.
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