I am a big proponent of menu planning. I have seen the benefits of planning on our budget, and on the decrease in waste that we have from our fridge. With a family of seven and only one income, we really have to be careful about how and what we buy.

I started out doing a weekly menu plan. Some weeks I get busy or forget, or due to budget constraints I can’t go shopping like I would like to, and it really takes a toll on our family. I am not one who can just whip things up without planning. My husband is excellent at that, but after a long day at work, cooking is often the last thing he wants to have to think about when he gets home. SO I feel like a failure, he feels frustrated at having that responsiblity back in his court, the kids feel our stress, and it’s just not all around a good thing. (NOTE – my husband almost NEVER complains about having to cook. EVER. He’s awesome. I just assume that after a long day, it’s the last thing he wants to do!)

After menu planning weeks, I decided to tackle monthly menu planning. Monthly menu planning offers even more benefits if you can do it. First of all, you can buy a lot more items in bulk. Second, you can do “Freezer Cooking” days, which allow you to have meals ready to go, that all you have to do is pull them out and cook them in the oven. I don’t know about you, but for me, having a day where I can do the bare minimum, and still have a hot, home-cooked meal for my family is an absolute WIN. I also feel better when we’re using more natural, local, organic-if-affordable ingredients. I used to be “Queen of the Box Mix”, as my husband termed me. Almost everything I cooked was processed, convenient, and full of chemicals. I don’t want that for my family anymore. We all enjoy healthier, less manufactured foods in our diet.

Ok, back to my process.

So here are my steps:
1.) Download an editable monthly calendar. (I do this because I like to do everything on my computer. If you like physically writing it out, then just print a calendar and write on that, or take a calendar you already have. Whatever.) I use Calendars that work.

2.) Create an index of meals you like to cook, or your family likes to eat. Even if you can only think of one or two things initially, as you plan and try new things, add them to the list. Life As Mom has a great form you can print out for this. Again, I keep mine on my computer in an excel file, because that’s where I do all of my planning.

3.) For additional inspiration, search (Google!) menu plans online. There are a lot of great sites that have meal ideas. I use Orgjunkie.com quite a bit, as she has a weekly feature, Menu Plan Monday, which has literally hundreds of people linking their weekly menu plans. I use this for ideas and inspiration, and have actually found several blogs I like to read for things other than their menu plans! You can really use any menu site for this though. When I started, I used Allrecipes a lot, and Food.com. You could use food network – whatever looks good!

4.) Finally, I look at the grocery ads for the week. I don’t get the newspaper, so I look at them online. I just went through and created a folder in my favorites for all the local grocery stores. Sometimes, depending on what is on sale, I’ll alter what I intend to make. Granted – you can only look at what’s there for the week you’re in, but once you start shopping for a menu plan, you’ll find that certain thing tend to go on sale at certain times, and you can plan for that.

5.) Most importantly, give yourself grace. There are some weeks where we follow my menu plan pretty closely, and there are other weeks when it gets thrown out, because I don’t feel like cooking or we didn’t get to the store, and then Hubs steps in and makes what he feels like cooking. Sometimes life gets in the way, and we’re just too busy, or we just want to go out! It’s not the end of the world if you plan a meal and it doesn’t happen when you expected it to.

The side effect of my menu planning has been my ability to pay a lot more attention to prices on different ingredients, and knowing when I should or shouldn’t buy something. Yes, I will go to 4 different stores, if it means I can get better deals on something. I also try to be better about watching as they scan the items, because it is inevitable that something won’t ring up right when it’s on sale. It’s a pain, but I generally do go back and make them fix it and give me the correct price – even if that means making them ring up $3 to put back on my card! LOL.

I am hoping to start doing “Once a month cooking”, which allows me to put up meals in the freezer to alleviate some of the day-to-day hassle of cooking, and to start making some of my own baking mixes. You know, aside from the fact that it is better for us financially, I really think my husband and kids like the food better when I’ve had a chance to plan out the menus and think through our meals. (Plus, I generally try new recipes on sites that have ratings so I can tell what other people thought of the recipe before I try it!)

So that’s my process. If you’re already menu planning, how do you do it?

(Oh, I forgot my step #6. Have a back-up plan. There are times when my meal doesn’t turn out like I had hoped. Frozen pizza, mac n cheese, and spaghetti have saved the day on numerous occasions!)