Menu Planning

It seems like whenever I play Menu Plan Monday which is most weeks I get comments on my menu planning. Somehow I think people got the idea I was super organized and on top of everything.......yeah, maybe not!

But before I became a stay at home mom I was a business woman that had to be super-organized to succeed, which I did. I became the spreadsheet queen. Just because I left the business world does not mean I left behind the tools that I could adapt to serve my family well! So I made up my menu plan worksheet in excel.

Half of each page looks like this:


I print two to a page, and print about 10 copies at time, hole punch them, and put them in my home keeping journal. Filling out the bottom one first and cutting it off so that there are no loose pages to get lost!

So here is what I do each week for my menu plan.

I plan out our meals aiming for the following.

1. Healthy, inexpensive meals
2. Ideally most things are in my pantry and freezer so that I can use my grocery money to shop the sales of things we use all the time! (Or use things that are on sale! My goal is to have nothing on my grocery bill that was not on sale or reduced, except for milk)
   
3. I move forward meals from the previous week that we did not make (I do this as I go along through the week).
   
4. I copy forward the repeating Saturday - we only have one car, so if I was not able to take the car on Thursday we do our shopping Saturday morning as a family.
   
5. I carry forward all the baking we did not do and try to have 3-4 items under each category so I have lots to choose from when we bake and Mr. Pear can request stuff that sounds good to him.
6. Sunday is family day, and our day of rest, so I try to keep all the meals easy, and have supper be straight out of the freezer.
7. Saturday morning is family breakfast morning - we started this when Mr. Pear was commuting 80 miles each way to work as a special treat, and we love it, so we are keeping that.
8. Plan a slow cooker meal for errand running day and if we are going to be out most of Saturday then Saturday too.
9. Check out our family calendar for nights that need quick meals or something special. (I will note these in advance on my chart if I know about them.)
   
10. On Kitchen day be making supper for us and a meal for the freezer (two sets of meals if it needs some stock up help!)
11. If I see meals that I want to try I write them on the upcoming weeks so that when I get to the next week I have the chart partially filled in!
12. I don't worry if the weekday breakfast plan is the same every week (cereal and fruit M,W,F and yogurt and granola T, T - it is hot here, who wants a hot breakfast!)
13. At the end of the week I have started transferring the recipes that worked great onto a set of lists that are marked weekend breakfast, breakfast, lunch. weekend lunch, supper, slow cooker (crock pot), freezer, bread, cookies, muffins. This way whey I have no ideas I can scan the lists to pick from!
14. I keep a freezer inventory list to choose from, so I update that each week too.
15. Be sure to include where to find the recipe on the chart and on the lists, including the page !
16. Plan a special family meal to start the week on Monday (nothing labor intensive, just a nice treat, like our spaghetti!)
    

When I am all done I cut it off or remove it from the binder, and post it on the fridge!

While this seems like a lot of steps, it is actually a bunch of little things that I keep in mind, and with my menus always in the kitchen I can work on them whenever I have a spare moment! Or whenever I come across something that sounds good to me!

This method definitely helps me save money and be organized! It is great to see the week's plan at a glance and to easily consult it to see if I need to take anything out the night before, and what I can do in the morning to be a bit ahead of things come supper time!

How do you plan your menu? What tricks do you have to make it easier for you?

P.S. Feel free to help yourself to our chart if you think it would help you!