It’s Thursday afternoon, approaching 5 o’clock. You just got everyone home from work and school, and the kids are whining, reaching for cookies and asking, “what’s for dinnerrrrr??”
You’re frantically looking in the fridge. You have some random bell peppers that looked fun at one point. Some yogurt, some string cheese. You look in the freezer and there’s a frozen pizza. (ugh, I don’t want frozen pizza again).
“Hey babe, can you watch the kids? I’m just gonna run to the store and get some stuff real quick!”
(or….)
“Wanna just do doordash again?” 😔
Did you know you don’t have to live like this?!
Thinking on your feet in the middle of a busy week is not fun. It takes WAY too much energy when you don’t have it. I know; I’ve been there.
Here is your solution to this: Meal Planning.
I’ve been working on this issue at my house for a few years now. And last week, I hosted a few workshops at the library to exchange tips. Here’s a summary for you!
Meal Planning can mean different things to everyone. Here’s my process:
- Every Sunday morning, Matt and I sit down at the kitchen table and pick 4-5 meals to make for dinner next week. I used to do this alone, but now it’s a family affair; we invite our kids to pick meals they want to help make too! The key here is that this meal planning session is a regular, weekly, scheduled event. It’s on our calendar. Otherwise, we’re just back to winging it. (And of course, you can plan breakfast and lunch out too! We’re minimalist over here and eat the same thing for breakfast every day.)
- We type up the meals in a note on my phone (it’s now a shared note with Matt so we can both access it, thanks to a great tip from someone who attended a workshop!). This note also has a running list of other groceries we’ve thought of throughout the week. Later, I order all the groceries we need to cook the meals for the week, plus other staples/regular items.
- On the same Meal Planning note on my phone, I have a huge list of all the things I can cook. When we’re feeling uninspired and bored, we just look through it while we’re meal planning. This reduces the amount of energy it takes to come up with *fresh* ideas (and gives agency to all other family members when they get to choose off the list!).
This meal planning process takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes each week, depending on how we’re vibin’ and if we want to research new recipes to try. Now, instead of spending precious weeknight time on a last-minute trip to the store, or instead of staving off everyone with youtube junk while you wait for the doordash guy to FREAKING GET HERE, you can spend that time cooking healthy meals with your family.
If you can get used to spending a little bit of time thinking ahead, then it’s just execution during the week. No more thinking on the fly. Decision fatigue is our worst enemy these days.
At the workshop, we brainstormed LOTS of other great tips. I’ll be sharing more tips about this soon, so make sure to SIGN UP FOR EMAILS below and keep an eye out 😉
With love,
Jen