How To Make A Meal Plan That Works For Your Family

The average American will spend $2,625 each year at restaurants; this doesn’t even include the amount spent on unused groceries!

Whether you are trying to cut back on eating out or just pay less overall, meal planning can help you save time and money each night.

Meal planning can help your family eat healthier, save money, and even learn to enjoy eating at home.

If you’ve tried meal planning before with little success than you might not be meal planning for your family right now.

Meal planning is not a one size fits all situation, and you’ll likely have to tweak and make something that works for your family.

So I’ll share my best tips to make a meal plan that works for your family so you can get back to saving money.

With these easy family meal planning ideas, you’ll learn to easily determine how to make a meal plan that works with your family and your schedule.

Plus,  with these busy family meal planning tips, you’ll figure out the best schedule to make your meal planning work.

If you want to know how to make a meal plan that works for your family, I’m going to show you how!

Figure Out How Many Meals You Need

Before you start flipping through your cookbooks, you need to figure out how many meals you’re going to make each week.

If you are meal planning for a family, then you will need to count meals per person even if you are going to be eating the same thing.

This number will help make a meal plan that works for you.

This will help you figure out how many meals you need to plan for each week.

These easy family meal planning ideas will help you get organized from the start because you’ll know how much food you’ll need to make, chicken breasts to thaw and cook, and how many pounds of hamburger to use.

What Meals Do You Eat Often?

Make a list of the meals that you and your family eat the most. Pizza, spaghetti, grilled chicken?

What makes up a typical week in your household?

It might be sandwiches, Taco Tuesdays, frozen pizza Fridays. and pasta casseroles each week, what you want to be making is not important here. But this information will help make a meal plan that works and fits your family.

Once you have this information, planning the rest of your meals is going to be easy!

How Long Does Food Last?

Now that you know how many meals you are making and what your family is eating often, it’s time to figure out how long the food in your house will last.

Ask yourself what items you buy frequently, and how often they last in your home?

Does a loaf of bread last just one week?

Will bags of salad last you multiple meals? Or will your family eat the whole thing in only one night?

Once you know how long your food will last, you can plan and change your mindset.

You’ll look at that bag of salad and think to yourself that is two lunch salads for two adults or one dinner side salad for the entire family.

Knowing this information will help build a meal plan that works for you and your family.

Make A Realistic Meal Plan

Now that you have a better understanding of what and how much your family eats, it’s time to start putting together a meal plan.

When you are making a meal plan, the rule of thumb should be to make one new recipe each week.

The rest of your meals should be things you have made before or make often.

Example:

• Mondays: Spaghetti & Salad
• Tuesdays: Taco’s/Burritos/Tostadas
• Wednesdays: Grilled Chicken & sides
• Thursdays: Sheet Pan Dinner with veggies
• Fridays: Pizza
• Saturdays: CrockPot dish
• Sundays: CrockPot dish

Your meals should also be realistic with your time restraints.

If you only have a few minutes to make something for dinner, a meal that takes hours to make is not practical. This is where the busy family meal planning happens.

Look at your schedule before you create your meal plan to help you better plan your meals.

Baseball on Tuesday.
Bible study on Wednesday.
Baseball on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Well if you are the sole taxi driver to your kiddos, then it’s time to assess how your meal planning will fit your schedule. It’s these busy family meal planning tips that will help you continue to meal plan so that you are successful.

Utilize your Crockpot or Instapot to help in your meal planning process. These kitchen appliances can turn a meal plan into a meal plan that works.

Whether it’s carting the crockpot with you to eat out of the back of your van or making cold chicken salad wraps, you can make a meal plan that works with a little bit of creativity.

Write It Down

After you’ve made your meal plan, write it down in a place where the whole family can see it. I keep a list on my fridge for easy reference.

You can even take it a step further and make notes of when you need to take specific items out of the freezer to defrost if required, or when to start making dinner.

Keep this in a written and central place will help you stick to your meal plan. Your family will never have to ask what’s for dinner, and you’ll know exactly what to make each night.

Meal planning isn’t as hard as it sounds and you can build a meal plan that works for you.

If you follow these steps, you’ll be able to put together a meal plan your family will look forward to every night and be able to stick to in the long run.

There is no such thing as a one size fits all style of meal planning, each family’s meal plan will be unique!

Your family meal plan will not be the same as mine, and our meal plans may look very different.

So I hoped you have learned from my best tips to make a meal plan that works for your family so you can get back to saving money.

With these easy family meal planning ideas, you’ll learn to easily determine how to make a meal plan that works with your family and your schedule.

Plus, with these busy family meal planning tips, you’ll figure out the best schedule to make your meal planning work.

Find what works well for your family, and stick with it!

YOUR TURN: What is the biggest part of a meal plan that works for your family? Let me know in the comments below!

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