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7 Steps To Plan Your Meals for the Week | Meal Planning [Episode 304]
I’ve been meal planning for years in pretty much the same way. I’ve put my process into seven steps for today’s episode.
As my 6-year-old said when she sat next to me while I edited this episode, “Mom, just because it works for you doesn’t mean it will work for anyone else.” She’s 100% right.
But I hope that seeing my exact process will give you some inspiration and a starting place to figure out a meal planning system that works for you.
My 7-Step Weekly Meal Planning System:
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Determine what stores you shop for groceries at. What is the schedule for ads?
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Look at the weekly ads. What is on sale that you can use in your meal plan?
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If you have themed nights, pick that first (e.g., Pizza nights on Friday)
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Look at your calendar and figure out what meals need to be fast/simple. What needs to be prepped ahead in a crockpot or Instapot? What nights do you have to cook more (maybe a bulk recipe to have leftovers for lunch)?
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Fill in with your favorites. I pick maybe one or two new recipes each week, but no more than that. Have favorite sources where you go to look for new recipes. I use Faithful Plateful’s website and cookbooks the most frequently. I use Mealboard to collect recipes we like.
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Currently, I’m creating a meal binder that has our favorites broken down into different categories: quick and easy breakfast, lunch, dinner, road trip food, and having people over for dinner. Then, topical rotations based on ingredients: lentil meals, quinoa meals, beans, tofu, etc. (Once I have this finished, I’ll give access to it to members of my Simplify to Soar Club)
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Keep track of my meals in the Thriving in Motherhood Planner for the week. Sometimes, I treat it like a list of seven meals that we have ingredients for, and then I pick what sounds best each night. But at this point, I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what type of day we are going to have and sticking to what I wrote.
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