Meal Planning – Do You Plan Meals?

What is meal planning? Meal planning is exactly what it sounds like. Meal planning is the process of planning you menu for a certain period of time, such as a week, two weeks or even a month.

Why do meal planning? There are tons of reasons for doing meal planning:

– Knowing Exactly What To Cook. How many times did you need to cook dinner, only to realize that you had no clue what to cook for dinner that day? So you had to spend a lot of time on just figure out what to cook for dinner, BEFORE you even started cooking.

Meal planning eliminates this problem completely. When you plan, you know exactly what you are going to be cooking, so you will not have to try to figure out what to cook right before you need to make dinner.

– Saving Money On Groceries. Do you go to the grocery store and buy a lot of extra things because you just don’t know what you will be cooking? When you buy too many things and don’t use them, they end up in the trash. That means that you wasted your money – you spent money on groceries that you didn’t use.

With meal planning you know exactly what you are going to cook before you go grocery shopping. This means you can create a grocery list with the items that you need, and only buy the groceries that you need. This means that you will spend less money on your groceries and will use what you buy.

– Eating Healthier. When you plan what you are going to be cooking in advance, you have time to make decisions about including healthier food in your diet.

When you plan your meals in advance, you are going to be able to include green vegetables, salads and healthier main dishes and side dishes in your menus. This means that you are going to cook healthier foods and eat healthier foods.

– Spending Less Time At The Grocery Store. Do you spend a lot of time at the grocery store, because by the time you get to the grocery store you have no clue what to buy? Do you walk up and down the aisles, thinking about what you can possibly cook for dinner?

Not so with meal planning. When you do meal planning, you come to the grocery store with your grocery list. When you have a grocery list, it is much easier to buy groceries, and you don’t have to spend a lot of time at the store, just thinking about what to buy.

– Spending Less Time On Cooking. Does it take you a while to figure out what to cook? And then, does it take a while to cook, because you need to figure out how to cook?

With meal planning you plan your meals and find recipes in advance, so that by the time you need to cook you have all the ingredients and you have the recipes, so that all you need to do is to cook.

– Producing Less Waste. Do you buy groceries, only to throw them out later, when they go bad?

If you find that your groceries go bad, because you don’t get a chance to use them before they spoil, then you definitely need to plan your meals. With meal planning, you only buy groceries you need, and then you use them in cooking, thus having less waste.

Do you do meal planning? Share in the comments!

Here is an example of meal planning for one dinner. Here is the sample dinner menu:

To create a grocery list, look at each recipe, and find out what groceries you will need to make this dinner. Let’s assume that salt, black pepper, oil and vinegar are pantry items. Of course, if you have more items on hand, such as onions or paprika, remove those from the grocery list. Here is the grocery list:

More tips for meal planning:

– Meal Planning: Creating Your Meal Plan

– Three Meal Plans: Chinese Food Meal Plan, Vegetarian Meal Plan, Pasta Meal Plan