Meal Planning by Theme- Save Time, Money, and a Little Waistline!

Meal planning is easier when a theme is assigned to each day of the week. Keeping it general, knowing there is always room to deviate when needed, will keep this fun and helpful! There are many advantages to planning your meals each week:

• Save money by sticking with a list and having a map of what items are needed to execute the plan in the grocery store, along with not eating out because you are down to the wire on time each evening. "Failure to plan is planning to fail" 
• Get in shape and save a little waistline, if you know what I mean. It's a lot easier to eat healthy when you have prepped your meals and snacks ahead of time.
• Save time by preparing everything once a week. Over a week's time this will add up to more time to do other (more exciting) things throughout the week... or just grab a few more relaxing moments in the evening. 

The biggest thing is to KEEP IT SIMPLE! You can always add as you go through the weeks to come, but for planning purposes, stick with just one new recipe each week so you will stick with the planning part... you don't have to be Betty Crocker to pull this off :-)

Here is an example of the Theme Schedule I use:

http://rockstarmomlife.blogspot.com/2014/01/meal-planning-by-theme.html#.UtFzZdJDveI

Assigning each day a 'Mexican Monday' or 'Soup and Salad Saturday' will narrow in on the choices while maintaining a good nutritional balance each week. I see it as a helpful outline to an otherwise daunting task.

Make a list of the most used meals each week and start there. Use the easiest meals on the busiest nights. consider all activities and family obligations while doing this. I have a summer meal plan which is different than my school year meal plan due to different schedules. 

I also leave Sunday's wide open to try any new recipe I may have found through the week. This keeps recipe shopping to a manageable task and not as overwhelming. I encourage each of my 3 kids to find one new recipe to try each month... then I, myself, am only really having to find ONE recipe each MONTH! Pretty cool!!

They each get a chance to cook with me weekly but can not weasel out of the one recipe each month. So even if cooking is not their 'thing' they still have to do it once a month. Let's face it, I'm not always going to be there to cook for them so they need to figure it out :-)

Here is a copy of my MONTH at a glance meals:

http://rockstarmomlife.blogspot.com/2014/01/meal-planning-by-theme.html#.UtFzZdJDveI

This is a whole month of fairly balanced meals! I also have a master grocery list based on the items assigned to each week. I check off the items I already have on hand and take the rest of the list to the grocery store! 

Now try your own:

http://rockstarmomlife.blogspot.com/2014/01/meal-planning-by-theme.html#.UtFzZdJDveI

Hopefully this is a helpful tool to reduce the stress in your busy week!

for other helpful resources and FREE printables visit my blog at 

http://rockstarmomlife.blogspot.com/p/resources.html#.UtF1QtJDveI