As many of us are getting back into the routine of back to school (and perhaps a more regular return to the office), we are talking about meal planning on today's instalment of Let's Look.
I posted some tips for meal planning a few years ago here. Most of that still holds true today so you can click over there too.
Last year I started planning meals by the month rather than by the week. I found it was just as easy to think ahead for the entire month. I also started keeping each month's plan saved so I have a whole year of meal plans in my Google Doc. I figured, why reinvent the wheel each month particularly when we tend to eat the same types of food by season - cleaner, plant based meals in January, BBQ and fresh vegetables in the summer, squash/pumpkin and hearty meals in the fall, and of course all of the Christmas treats in December.
I will then review my plan on Saturday or Sunday and then put in a grocery order at Loblaws.
September isn't actually a good month to share with you, we are going away for a week so it's only a partial plan. Instead I will share October of 2020 which will be a good basis for next month. We only do pizza every other week now (this is how we do Pizza Night), and we try to do local take out at least once a week too, so that will be one change, but I don't see an issue with much else!
October
As for breakfasts and lunches, I consider those when I do my grocery order - I like to have eggs and spelt toast, oatmeal, or shakes. For lunches, I typically take leftovers or a salad. I used to take lots of food to work and eat all the time, but since I've been working from home, I realized I wasn't that hungry so I may bring a piece of fruit or have a small square of dark chocolate, but mostly I don't bring many snacks.
That's a GREAT idea to save your meal plans and re-use them. I should totally do that! I just meal plan with a pen and paper so my old plans go to scrap paper instead. Ooops!
ReplyDeleteI tried meal planning for a whole month a few years ago, but at that time it didn't work for us. Now that my son is starting school and we have a thousand more events and activities going on, I might have to try it again! That's smart to keep all your meals on a Google Doc. I write all my meals in my planner so I can look back and see what we ate, but this would be way easier to see at a glance!
ReplyDeletenotfancyjustlife.blogspot.com
What a great idea to save your meals and reuse the next year, love that so much because you are right we tend to eat the same/similar type meals based on season. Definitely going to do this for our family too!
ReplyDeleteI have been keeping each of my monthly meal plans on the blog so I can do the same thing next year; just pull most of our ideas and recycle them so I can cut meal planning time even further.
ReplyDelete