The Top Strategies You Must Know for Successful Meal Planning

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Coach Kim No comments

Standing in the kitchen racking your brain for what you can prepare for dinner; taking yet another trip back to the store to get all the ingredients you need for a dish; making poor choices because you’ve just run out of time. Do any (or all!) of these scenarios sound familiar? We’ve all been there, but what if there was a way to avoid all of this? Meal planning can help you with all of this and more. Check out these top strategies to help you become a master of meal planning in no time!

Give Yourself Enough Time. Meal planning will ultimately save you a great deal of time, but you will need to invest a little bit of time at the beginning of each week (or month, depending on how far in advance you like to plan) to develop your plan. In time, you will become more proficient at planning, but give yourself about an hour in the beginning.
Account for Your Budget. It’s easy to come up with lofty and elaborate ideas for recipes, but unfortunately most of us can’t neglect our budgets when planning meals. Avoid this pitfall by looking over recipes to make sure they don’t call for any overly expensive ingredients before including them in your plan. Take into account what is on sale, what’s in season, and what you may have coupons for as well.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel. If you like the idea of meal planning, but are at a loss of where to begin do a quick search on the internet to see what meal plans others have already created. Plenty of meal plans are available for free; just print them out and then alter them to fit your needs and tastes. Piece together a few plans to give you plenty of options!
Round Up Your Resources. Set yourself up for success by gathering everything you need for meal planning before you start. A few must-have items you’ll likely need include a notebook or calendar, weekly circulars, any coupons you hope to use, cookbooks, and a computer or tablet for any web-based recipes you may want to reference.
Save Your Plans. Don’t toss your plans at the end of each week or month! Instead, file them away in a folder or binder. Later you can go back and repeat an entire plan or part of a plan!