8 Tips for Planning a Weekly Dinner Menu

Some of the many benefits of planning a weekly menu include saving time and money, as well as eating healthier meals. Planning your weekly meals in advance also saves on stress because you don't have to worry about what to fix for dinner each night - you will already know and have all of the ingredients on hand. Here are some ideas to help you get into the "groove" of menu planning:

1. Start by making a list of your family's favorite meals. Then browse through cookbooks and online recipe sites (such as www.busymomsrecipes.com) to find ideas for a variety of meals your family might enjoy based on their tastes and dietary restrictions. The longer your list of dinner ideas, the better variety your family can enjoy.

2. Consider a daily theme: Mondays are pasta; Tuesdays are chicken; Wednesdays are something easy in the crockpot; Thursdays are a new recipe; etc.

3. Get the family involved by assigning each member a day to pick a meal. Even if your five-year-old chooses spaghetti each and every Monday, who cares? He'll have a vested interested in the meal planning, as will the others.

4. Take an inventory of the pantry, fridge, and freezer to see what foods you already have on hand and plan meals around what is available or needs to be used up first. For example, if you have some bacon and/or eggs that will expire soon, plan on making a simple Quiche Lorraine or having breakfast for dinner.

5. Pull out the newspaper's weekly store flyers and coupons so that you can plan budget-friendly menus around current sales. This strategy is great for make-ahead meals. If the ground beef is on sale, buy it in bulk and freeze some of it in one-pound portions or hamburger patties. Cook the remaining ground beef to be frozen and used later in tacos or spaghetti recipes.

6. Jot down the meal plans on a calendar so that you can see what days coincide with different activities. If Susie has soccer practice on Tuesday or you attend church on Wednesdays, this may affect what you plan on serving for dinner that night. My husband also appreciates this because then he knows what not to eat for lunch on a particular day. For example, if I'm having grilled salmon for dinner, he knows not to order a fish sandwich for lunch.

7. Keep track of your weekly menus so that you can simply repeat them when necessary. Once you have a couple of month's worth of menus, you can rotate them without your family getting tired of the meals.

8. Create a shopping list based on your weekly menu plan and stick to it!

For more great tips and articles for today's busy women, visit the Busy Moms Tips blog at: www.busymomstips.com.