Meal Planning

So, I'm the grocery shopper in the family. I know I can be a little OCD in a lot of areas and this is probably one of them. I have a notepad that hangs on the refrigerator. On the right hand side of the notepad is our 'running' list of items that we need.

Then the night before I grocery shop, I write the day of the week on the left side of that notepad. From there, I comb through my recipe books or 3-ring binders of printed recipes to decide what I will be making for each of the meals. Since the recipe is right there in front of me, I can then add any ingredients that I know I don't have to my 'running' list of items on the right side.

Now, in a perfect world, I would cook each of those meals on their perspective day of the week... haha... my world is so far from perfect it isn't even funny!! However, this paper is a great guideline! If one of my days turns upside down and I don't have time to cook the meal I had planned, I can either pick a more simpler meal to cook from the week or we may decide to go out to eat. I will then circle the meal I'm not making and 'throw' it to the next weeks meal planning.

If you haven't tried something like this yet, you might want to see how it works for you! Here's a pic of what my notepad looks like after I've gone grocery shopping...