How I Meal Plan for a Month (without tons of waste or stress!)

Meal planning has become a buzzword in the last few years for various reasons.
On a diet? Meal plan.
On a budget? Meal plan.
Trying to eat in more? Meal plan.
Hate grocery shopping? Meal plan.

While everyone seems to agree that meal planning will change your food habits, they seem to always miss out on the "How to Meal Plan Without Losing Your Mind" section. I tried and failed many times at meal planning. I tried where every Monday was meatless, Tuesdays were tacos, etc but that felt too boring and rigid for me. I've also tried weeks full of new and exciting recipes, but this left me with ingredients that I would never use again and by the time the next month came around I wouldn't even remember some of the dishes. I tried a month's worth of freezer crockpot meals but they were lackluster. I tried using cheat sheets, other people's plans, and even their shopping lists but it just wasn't working. Overall, meal planning felt like a chore and I was not loving it, then something clicked and I thought, DUH all I really need it some staple recipes and a good planner and I'll be alright---just kidding, it didn't go quite that smoothly and I'm still tweaking but I have found a solid start to my own personal planning. Here is how I plan my meals for a month to simplify shopping and cooking in an already hectic lifestyle.

The first thing I would recommend doing is getting a planner or a calendar to mark up with meals. I searched high and low for what I thought was my ideal planner before finding one that I really like. Previously I had been using a calendar and for all intents and purposes, I could have kept up with just the calendar, but I'm really happy with what I got. It includes a monthly page with a list on the side, plus weekly breakdowns. I am not a phone calendar person currently, so I like writing down all of our family things in this planner too. I got my planner from Walmart but I did notice some really cute ones at TJ Maxx, Target, and Amazon. I felt like I was looking for something really simple so this "Simplified Planner" is awesome. It even includes a decluttering checklist in the beginning and reminders on each calendar page of one thing to clean/declutter this month.

I use the planner to list a few new recipes to try each month (think about 2 per week) and fill in weeknights with meals. Why don't I do weekends? I figure on weekends we might go out or want to try a recipe that involves more time/skill than most weeknights allow. We also tend to have leftovers from the week for weekend lunches. My weeknight meals are simple as can be, I utilize my Instapot and air fryer or one-pan meals as often as I can. Then I go to town filling in easy meals mixed in with the new ones until I have a month that looks good. I make sure to allow for "Smorg" or "E.Z.T" meals (smorg, short for smorgasbord, like leftover night, and E.Z.T. short for easy tea-- the Aussie word for dinner is tea!) I also try to link up recipes that will use the same ingredients, especially produce. For example, if I need half a head of cabbage for a stir fry, I'll plan a soup to use the other half. Or I'll make a big pot of rice for the week to use for curry, stuffed peppers, and jambalaya.

From my monthly plan, I make shopping lists on my handy dandy Post Its (I'm Post It obsessed) and stick them on the page for each week. This means I won't be shuffling through recipes or Pinterest trying to find ingredients for the recipes I want to try when it comes to shopping day. The last thing I do is check my pantry and freezer for things on my list I might already have, sometimes I surprise myself here and get to mark things off my list before I even leave the house! Then I hit the shops, luckily my husband does not like shopping and is eager to watch the kids while I go, so I usually fly solo. I am a HUGE fan of Aldi and try to do most of my shopping there. It is a smaller store and I know exactly where everything is so it is usually easy for me to get it done quickly. The only problem with Aldi is there "Here this week, gone the next" policy on some items means sometimes they won't have what I need. Usually, after Aldi, I will head over to Woodmans to get whatever I missed, plus dog food (we use Freshpet, something Aldi doesn't carry!).

After I get everything home and unpacked the meals go pretty smoothly. I write out meals on a whiteboard on our fridge and then follow it pretty strictly. I keep all the recipes that I have physical copies of in a handy drawer to pull out as needed. There are nights where something will come up and we'll end up having eggs on toast or another unplanned E.Z.T. but since meal planning like this, these occurrences are much rarer (in fact, I have to PLAN a breakfast for dinner night or EZTs). While my planning is not foolproof and I often have to mark up my calendar page with changes or additions if there is something on sale (like corned meat this month for St Patty's Day), planning like this has been a huge help for us. A few more tips for you:

•  If you don't like busy stores, try shopping in the evening, around 7 or 8, it always seems better at this time
• If you want to earn a little money back while shopping, try a rebate app as well, like Ibotta. You get small rebates back on items you are already purchasing simply by scanning the UPC and capturing your receipt. You can use the credits you earn for gift cards (I always get amazon ones, because who can't use those?!) Here is a link to get started, you'll get a bonus for signing up through this link (I will as well, so, thanks!) https://ibotta.onelink.me/iUfE/8cc13c64
• If you don't like shopping at all, ordering groceries online is a great tool. I've found while I don't have as many impulse buys, it is more expensive than instore shopping, the best example I have is the dog food that we buy is $12.50 in-store, but $14.39 online. I also have been disappointed previously with substitutions or lack thereof. Not to say that online shopping is bad,  I just use it very sparingly if I'm in a pinch. 
• If you find recipes you like, jot them down again on your calendar for next month and make it again! It's also nice to have a staple recipe and switch proteins, for example, chicken stir fry, again with tofu and again with shrimp. 
• If you are making a meal that has freezer potential, double it then and there and make for next month too. I do this with lasagnas, soups, shepherd's pie, etc and it makes an easy meal next time. BUT make sure you keep an itinerary of what is in your freezer already, nothing worse than finding a meatloaf in your freezer from last year in all its freezer-burnt glory.

Hope this helps your meal planning, I know I wish I had read some more realistic planning tips before I started. But, I also know that everyone plans a little different and some people might like tacos every Tuesday. You do your own plan and make it work!