Meals on a Budget

The Importance of a Meal Plan- Simple Advice for Stress Free Dinners

Nothing is more frustrating than getting ready to make dinner and discovering that you are all out of a needed ingredient.  An unplanned trip to the store is time consuming and frustrating.  Often the missing ingredient results in ordering pizza or having cold cereal for dinner.  Planning the weekly Meals in advance can help you to prepare and avoid these meal preparation disasters. 

Meal planning will not only help in the creation of a grocery list, it will also help you to create meals that utilize items on sale that week.  Learning to use sale items in your weekly meals can result in a much smaller weekly food budget.  Each week as you plan your meals, use the grocery store ads as a guide and inspiration.  Find ways to use sale items in your plan.

Creating a meal plan will also help you to use leftovers and purchased food more effectively.  Think of clever ways to reuse extra food.  Consider having leftovers one night a week or making a soup using leftover meats and vegetables.  Think of the items that you have available and find ways to use these items in your weekly plans.

Another hidden benefit of creating a weekly menu is that everyone will know what will be ready for each meal.  You will no longer need to answer the dreaded question, “What’s for dinner?”  Meal plans make planning ahead easy and keep everyone informed.

Creating a basic plan is simple.  Simply use a sheet of paper to write a meal idea for each day of the week.  Consider listing the items needed by each meal to make planning your grocery list simple.  Meal plans do not need to be complex to be effective.  Some choose to create a standard plan for the month and then to reuse it all year.  Others rotate weekly meal plans on a regular basis.  Find the method that works best for you and your family.

A meal plan will help you to plan your shopping list, prepare for dinner and keep everyone informed.  Meal plans are simple timesaving tools that make dinnertime much less stressful.

About the Author

Aside from cooking meals for her family, Sammi grows her own vegetables to cook with. She uses plant supports to stake up her fall vegetable garden and keep it healthy!

Meal Planning

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