How to Streamline Your Menu Planning

You know the drill. If you want to save money and time at the grocery store, you have to do some menu planning. Even if you use your spare time over a lunch break, menu planning can seem like such an arduous task that you want to give up in frustration. Here are a few tips to help streamline the process and make menu planning a little less painful.

Catalog Your Favorites
Menu planning takes time because it's taxing on your memory. Trying to recall exactly which meals every member of your family enjoys can be difficult, especially if you have finicky kids or picky husbands. Wouldn't it be easier if you had a list to choose from? For the next month, keep a running list on the refrigerator of meals your family enjoys. Every time you think of a new one, add it to the list. Look through your favorite cook books to remind you of old beloved recipes that you haven't made in a while, and add those to the list as well. When you start menu planning, you can use this list to give you ideas so that you're not having the same meals over and over again. It's variety in menu planning that will help keep you away from the fast food drive thru.

Have An Experimental Night
When menu planning, you may find that even after cataloging your family favorites, there aren't that many to choose from. And if you have a family that insists on variety, this can make menu planning seem like agony. Streamline this process by choosing one night out of the week to experiment with a new recipe. Every week, you can decide whether or not to add your new recipe to your catalog of favorites, or pitch it in the trash. After a few months, you'll have far more recipes to choose from when menu planning.

Post an Actual Menu Schedule
Since you've taken the time to do the menu planning, why not show it off? By keeping it on the fridge, the whole family can see what's for dinner at a glance. This will also help remind you what to thaw the night before. Furthermore, it will allow you to cruise on auto-control. Since your menu planning is already done, you won't have to put any thought into what to cook for the rest of the week. Just look and cook!

Use your Menu Planning As a Grocery List
It seems obvious that once you've done your menu planning, you'll know what to buy at the grocery store. But that's not always the case. If you've restricted your menu planning to dinner, you won't have any idea what you should be buying for snacks or other meals throughout the day. Here's where using your computer for menu planning comes in handy. When menu planning, make a table or spreadsheet that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and dessert. Go ahead and fill in the breakfast, lunch, snack and desert boxes in advance. Those aren't likely to change from week to week. Then print it out, use it to write a more complete grocery list, and post it on the fridge. You'll never have to hear 'Mom, I'm hungry. What can I eat?' again. (This may also have the added bonus of reminding your family of foods that you keep stocked in the fridge or pantry that aren't readily visible, like produce or raisins.)

Using these tips, the process of menu planning should get easier every time you do it. You and your family can enjoy substantial savings in time and money, all with fewer complaints at the dinner table. So, get menu planning and good luck!