Easy Meal Planning Tips for Busy Moms

“Without a plan, you should plan to fail.”

This is especially true when it comes to staying on track with your grocery bill. We’ve all been there, strolling through the grocery store with no plan, just vibes. Then you make it home and realize that although you spent $300, you have practically no meals. So you return to the store and get what you were missing while saying bye-bye to your budget for the month. Meal planning as a mom is hard. Not only are you planning meals for your self, you have to take into account the palates of every member in your house. These easy meal planning tips will take your process from Non-existent to functional. And to be honest, functional is all that’s needed to make a huge impact on your mental load and of course, your wallet.

Want to save money on food? Plan your meals.

When we were on our journey to becoming debt-free, our grocery budget was extremely tight. I’m talking $50 per week for my family (at that time) of 3. I learned a lot about successfully budgeting while still being able to eat great meals. It really came down to one thing; planning.

Here, I will be sharing my tried and true method of meal planning for my family and how we stick to our budget each week. But before we get started, I want to say that there are some items I always keep on hand, which help keep my weekly budget low. You can find out more about my staple pantry items here.

How to Meal Plan for a Family:

First things first. I always start by cleaning out my fridge. I do this for a few reasons:

1. I can take inventory of what I have so I don’t buy duplicates. I can’t tell you how many times I went to put away groceries and noticed we already had that item. I could have used that money towards a different family favorite.

2. To free up space. I hate bringing home new groceries that can’t fit inside the fridge because the old, expired groceries are taking up too much room- spring mix I am looking at you! This also gives me an opportunity to inspect the expiration dates of our refrigerated condiments, etc. so I can replace them if needed. Again, we don’t want to buy duplicates, so spend the time and take the inventory!

3. Once the fridge is cleaned out and any spills are cleaned up, I move on to the pantry and freezer. I look through my pantry, freezer, and deep freezer and take inventory of what we already have on hand. I also note any potential meals that can be made that week from these items. Generally, we can find at least one meal’s worth of ingredients on hand.

When I really want to stretch our budget, I check my preferred grocery stores to review their sales.

Meal planning based on sales helps me maximize my grocery budget. Let’s be real, the food costs are astronomical right now and every cent makes a difference. So by reviewing the sales in advance across our favorite stores, I can compare and see which store we will shop at that week. I have not made it to the level where I stop at multiple stores to buy different things. This mama does not have that kinda time, but it may result in a few extra dollars saved and be worth it.

Now that I know what’s on hand, and what’s on sale, I can make an informed menu for the week.

The final and most important thing when creating our meal plan for the week is cooking food the entire family enjoys. And the best way I do that is to keep a list of all the meals my family loves. You can’t maximize your grocery budget if you are throwing away food because no one wants to eat it. Now, if your family loves to make a meal, but you find it cumbersome to make, put an asterisk by it to make it for special occasions (or nights you actually have the energy). 90% of the meals on our list are the meals I can make with my eyes closed, and remember, no meal is too small. Lots of breakfast for dinner, pasta dishes, and our favorite, southern beans and rice.

I track my family’s favorite meals on an excel spreadsheet. Now, I’m normally a pen-and-paper girl, but I’ve found that this is one thing that has been more efficient to manage electronically. I can easily make changes and updates without always having to re-print. This also helps me easily link to the recipe (if needed) and save trees and ink without having to print them out.

I then add a few of our favorite meals to the menu. For increased variety, I try to look for recipes that are similar in ingredients but offer a new twist. This will help expose my kids to new flavors through familiarity, and save money because I can use the same ingredients for different meals.

If the new meal was a hit, add it onto your spreadsheet along with any notes, such as “decrease spice level” or “my 5-year-old loved it deconstructed and my toddler ate it as-is! This will come in handy the next time you want to prepare this meal.

My Non-Traditional Meal Prep Process

I don’t meal prep. I ingredient prep, and there’s a difference. Meal prepping generally includes cooking all of your meals in advance for the week. This allows you to just warm and go throughout the week. This may work for some, but as someone who loves fresh meals most nights out of the week, and who is prone to changing their mind about what to eat, it is not an efficient use of my time. Ingredient prepping allows me to prep specific items that will be ready to use but keeps the possibility of creating a different meal with the same ingredients open. It also allows me to rearrange when I want to eat the meal. I may have spaghetti planned, but based on our schedule, baked chicken and rice would work better that night. So I make that instead and move spaghetti to the baked chicken’s old spot.

How to Ingredient Prep:

1. Wash and prepare produce. I store most of our prepped produce in large mason jars which helps keep them fresh longer. This also allows me to clearly see what we have, which reduces waste.
2. Pre-cook rice, pasta, and any other grains you’ll be using this week.
3. We prefer to cook and eat our seafood first, so I do not prep seafood in advance. However, shred any rotisserie chicken you will add to recipes, and you can even cook ground beef in one-pound increments and freeze it.

By following these simple steps weekly, I have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year on food. Before, so much of our food budget literally went into the trash because we would waste it all. Now, with this intentional meal planning method, our food waste is much lower and we spend less time each week deciding what to eat.