How to Plan Easy, Healthy Meals on a Budget

Many busy mothers struggle with preparing easy, healthy, tasty meals on the table without breaking the bank. It may seem like overwhelming to accomplish all of these things at once but if you follow these steps, you will save time, money and hassle.

The first part of meal planning is to make a chart. I like to take a simple piece of paper, and write the days of the week down the left hand side of the page. After I do that, I pull out my calendar and take a look at what I have planned for each day of the week. This helps me determine the amount of time I will have to prep for each meal. For instance, on Mondays I usually leave the house at 1pm for my 2nd childs ballet class, then we have other activities for the rest of the children and we don't get home until around 6pm. I know that on these busy days, I will need a meal in the crockpot. There are other days that are more convenient for leftovers. So, I'll write little notations next to each day of the week such as "leftovers" or "crock pot" or "sandwich."

Once I have my schedule figured out, I can begin to think about what I have on hand. There are times when I have a lb of chicken breast, a couple lbs of ground beef, or a roast in the deep freezer. I then make more notations next to each day of the week, designating each package of meat or poultry to various days. Obviously there are weeks when I have nothing on hand and in that case I skip this part.

So, now my days look something like this "Monday- crockpot-chicken" "Tuesday- pork tenderloin" and so on. Some days have no notations written next to them. It all depends on my schedule and what is in the deep freezer.

Next, I take a look at sales ads, my stash of coupons, and other pantry items I have on sale to see what kinds of recipes I can make with sale items or things I have on hand. I make a list of sale items I'd like to buy and keep a mental note of what I found in my pantry that can be used. My method for couponing is a little too involved to be included in this article, but I will point you to www.couponmom.com for ways to combine coupons with sales and save hundreds of dollars. It is very easy to get grocery items for little money and sometimes you can get things free if you combine coupons and sales for maximum savings.

Once I match up the sale ads to my coupons and take a mental inventory of the pantry (I just poke around for a few minutes to see what I have), I begin to come up with recipe ideas for each night of the week taking into consideration the notations that I made when I started. Sometimes I like to stick with family favorites, but frequently I browse recipe websites to come up with something new. www.allrecipes.com is my favorite.

As I'm planning my meals, I write the name of the recipe and the source (either a website or a book and page number) next to each meal so that I can remember where to find the recipe when it's time to prepare dinner. I also add the ingredients that I will need to buy to the shopping list I made when I evaluated the sale ads.

Once this is all finished, I have my budget menu that is planned around my busy life and I have a shopping list that won't break the bank!