Free February Menu Planner Printables & 5 menu planning tips for newbies

5 menu planning tips for newbies

The best way to stay on track with your menu planning is to make it as pain free as possible. If you do fall off the planning wagon please stay away from the overburdening guilt that will try to latch on to your super hero conscience, and just hop right back on. Here are a few tips for newbies that I like to share with people so that we can make the process as “underwhelming” as possible. 

Step 1. Plan once a month. The quickest way to “give up” or “quit” menu planning is to spend hours on end planning the perfect menu. You do not need the perfect menu; no does your family, in most cases, expect the “perfect meal”. If they are anything like the typical family they will just appreciate a meal together.

Step 2. The easiest way to plan a months’ worth of dinners is to first decide how many hot meals you would like to cook each week. For example I cook 5 dinners a week and EVERY Wednesday and Saturday are leftovers or sandwiches. Whichever comes first? 

Step 3. I create a menu that I duplicate each and every month. For example, for our family this is how it goes. Same theme, different recipes. Everyone Sunday is a crockpot meal, Monday – Soup or salad depending on the time of the year, Tuesday – Ethnic food (tacos, lasagna, Greek soup etc.), Wednesday – Leftovers, Thursday – Breakfast for dinner, Friday – Pizza (A different homemade pizza each week), and lastly Saturday leftovers. 

Step 4. Print out your meal planner, grab a hot cup of tea or coffee, a pen and open to Pinterest or Google. Now, what you need to decide is the type of meals you would like to make for your family. You might want down home meals, Diet meals, low-carb meals, paleo meals etc. Then you need to Google the type of meal you are looking for. For me, I look for Low-Carb crock pot meals. Then I copy and paste the recipes into a word doc and print it. When all my recipes are compiled I place the list near my monthly meal planner.

Step 5. If you are ambitious enough you could decide to preplan a grocery list based on the meals you’ve listed on your plan. That way, when items come up for sale through the month you already know what ingredients you are looking for and potentially can save quite a bit of money by planning ahead. 

Please Enjoy these Free Printables  

Be inspired to Plan 

Kristin 

     Click Here Menu 1

Click Here Menu 2

Click Here Menu 3