Meal calendars, a pillar to your meal planning journey, will make grocery shopping and meal prep a breeze. The meals you have been writing down in your journal will come in very handy when creating your meal calendar. (Refer to  Tip #2 – Meal Journals) You can plan by the week or by the month and include all of your daily meals or just dinners. If this is your first journey into meal calendars you may want to start with a week at a time so you can tweak and make changes as you find out what does and does not work for your family.

There are lots of calendar templates online that you can download or you can create your own. There are even apps you can use to create your meal planner and populate your shopping list automatically. Don’t worry too much though about finding the perfect calendar, you can always change and update as you go. You can also just write it down in your meal journal notebook.

The first thing to consider is what nights are your busy nights? For those nights you will want to plan quick easy meals like crock pot meals that can be prepped ahead or meals that require very little prep time. Save the big, labor intensive meals for days off! We do not want to try and fit your life around this meal calendar; we want to work the calendar around your busy life. As you are determining which days will have more or less dinner prep time, make notes right on your calendar. If Sunday is your big family meal day and Mondays are busy on the go days, than leftovers can be your friend!

Scheduling your grocery shopping is also an important factor in creating your calendar. If you prefer to go shopping once at the beginning of the week you will need to keep in mind the shelf life of your groceries and schedule meals earlier in the week if the ingredients will not keep. If you plan to shop two or more times throughout the week, than this may not be a factor for you.

Now we will start assigning specific meals to each day. Keep in mind what items you may already have in your fridge/pantry that may need to be used soon. Go through your meal journal and select a recipe for each day of the week. Be aware of any leftovers each meal will create and don’t be afraid to schedule a day just for leftovers. Make sure you choose meals that fit in your available prep time, based on the notes you made earlier. If you have an especially busy day you can even pick a meal that can be prepped the night before! New recipes can be exciting, but don’t schedule too many in one week or you may be overwhelmed with prep time or results that are not ideal.

Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? A whole week (or more) of meals planned so no more “What’s for dinner” days! The only step left is to create your shopping list. Go through each recipe and write down any ingredients you will need. Make sure to check your pantry for items you may already have. If there are items you can buy in bulk and freeze or save for later, make a note. Once you have you list done for the whole week you can even go online to look for coupons and sales on everything you will need, saving even more money!

Find easy meals, Freezer meal workshops, recipes, and more at www.johnhenrys/net. And remember that with our fast UPS shipping you can get your meats for the week delivered to your door in no time! Watch for our next tip “Creating Theme Nights” coming soon!