Menu Planning

Do any of you do menu planning? I’ve done this off and on for the last several years, even before I had kids. I’ve found that the times that I do, it makes my life a lot easier. Otherwise, it gets to be 5:00 and I’m looking in the fridge trying to figure out what I can put together for supper. It helps me in grocery shopping as well, because I can plan around what I have in my pantry and what I need to buy. Generally, I try to stick with meals that use mostly ingredients I tend to have on hand. If I see something on sale, then I’ll plan out a few meals using those items.

I do a half a month planning at a time. That’s what I’ve found works best for me, but most people I know do a week at a time.

I don’t know about you, but I love looking at other people’s menu plans to get ideas for my own. I’ve shared some of my plan for the second half of October below. Later on, we want to share some menu plans for other moms in MOPS as well, so if this is something you do and you’re willing to share, let me know.

A couple things to note with how I do my plan:

• We mainly do leftovers for lunch, so that’s why there’s not a lot of lunch items listed.
• Breakfast is something I’ve just recently started to try and plan for (rather than just doing cereal all the time), so I’m only planning out a few days a week for now.
• I have a hard time thinking of side items, so my plan is usually just the main dish for supper, and then I figure out a vegetable, fruit, or bread to go with it.
• My plan is pretty flexible, especially since when my husband is gone (and he travels a lot for work), I tend not to cook very much. The leftovers last a lot longer when he’s gone, and my kids can be happy with bread and jelly and fruit for lunch if I don’t have anything else to give them.
• If I don’t make something on the list (and there are quite a few of these below, due to Jon traveling and sick kids who didn’t want to eat), I just move it to the next menu plan.

So do you plan your menus? What’s on plan for this week? (For another take of how menu plans can be helpful, check out this post on MoneySavingMom.com.)

Breakfast
Amish baked oatmeal
Banana muffins & yogurt
Scones
Blueberry smoothies & toast
Apple pie slow cooker oatmeal
Cereal
Yogurt & Fruit

Lunch
Stew
Grilled cheese sandwiches & fruit
Cheese & crackers, fruit
Tuna sandwiches, fruit & carrots

Supper
Waffles
Shepherd's Pie
Steak & vegetable kabobs
Pizza (ordered out)
Baked potatoes & toppings
Vegetable beef soup & bread
Mexican Lasagna
Garbage Potatoes
Chicken Pot Pie
Goulash
Cheeseburger soup
Cheesy Potatoes
Pancakes

-Mindy