#Meal planning two weeks sheet how to

Joanna could choose recipes from websites, cookbooks, apps, or old favorites she knows by heart. In Joanna’s case, she doesn’t have a lot of leftover produce because she’s followed her meal plan well this past week. Our favorite way to do this is to start by making a list of everything that needs to be used from the fridge, and potentially the freezer and pantry as well. We’ll schedule all that in, and so far Joanna’s meal plan looks like this:įrom here, Joanna will choose meals she’d like to cook this week. Joanna’s not going to plan exactly what to put in the kids’ lunchboxes each day because she follows a school lunch formula to keep things easy - but she will need to remember to add lunchbox ingredients to her grocery list. The kids bring a lunchbox to school, except on Fridays (pizza day!), when they buy lunch at school. We’ll make this distinction in our meal plan by labeling Joanna’s meals with a J, Darren’s with a D, and the kids’ with a K.ĭarren buys lunch at work, while Joanna prefers to bring lunch from home - usually leftovers from the night before. To keep things simple and prepless, we’ll decide now that they’ll have granola for breakfast those two days. Joanna goes to the gym on Monday and Wednesday mornings and grabs a smoothie afterward on the way to work, so she’ll only need to plan breakfasts those days for the others in the household. She also knows that the family goes out to lunch with Joanna’s parents every Sunday. Joanna’s family always gets takeout on Friday nights, so we’ll go ahead and write that into our meal plan. Today is Sunday, so let’s get started! Step 1: Add what you know She meal plans and grocery shops on Sunday for the week of Monday through the following Sunday. Joanna and her husband both work full-time and the kids are in school, which she’ll need to take into account in her planning. Joanna does all the meal planning for her household, which includes her, her husband Darren, and their two kids. In our example, we’re going to meal plan for a fictitious woman named Joanna. But take it one step at a time, and soon you’ll have a complete plan for your family to follow all week long, which you can then use as a meal planning template to make meal planning even easier going forward.

If creating a meal plan feels overwhelming or anxiety-inducing, you’re not alone.

Our hope is that by showing a realistic meal plan (no, our plan doesn’t include cooking 7 nights a week!), we’ll inspire you to see that meal planning doesn’t have to be hard - and your plan doesn’t have to fall apart if anything unexpected happens.

This meal plan for a family of 4 is fairly simple, but does take into account some of the variation and complexity that families have to plan for each week.

#Meal planning two weeks sheet how to

That’s why we thought it would be so useful to share a meal plan example where we take you through step by step and demonstrate how to create a meal plan. But reading tips for meal planning is one thing - actually creating a plan from scratch every week is another entirely. Meal planning helps people waste less food, save money, eat healthier, and stress less during the week. Learning to meal plan for a week is a fantastic skill that will serve you for the rest of your life.