Menu Planning: Start today!

The easiest thing you can do right now to lower your stress level, save money, and eat healthier is to start menu planning.  Before I started planning out all of my family's meals, I would often resort to drive through or delivery dinners when I was too tired or uninspired to figure out something to cook after work.  Now I am saving time and money by shopping less often, and avoiding those costly drive through meals. 

It's really easy to get started menu planning, and I know you wont regret it.  Just follow these easy steps:

1. Make a list of all of your family's favorite meals.  I started with dinners only, and added in breakfast, lunch, and snacks later on once I had the hang of menu planning.
2. Choose 7 meals from your list and write them down on your planner, calendar, or a piece of paper with the days of the week written out.
3. Repeat for as many weeks as you can in a single sitting.  I have found that it's way easier to stick to menu planning if you do it all at once rather than having to do it once a week.
4.  Cook, eat, and repeat!  Save all your menu plans and rotate them throughout the year.  I have 4 two week menus that I rotate on a regular basis since we mostly eat the same 20 or so meals on a regular basis.

Check out my Etsy shop, Neon Kiss, for some super cute polka dot menu planning pages.  I like to print my menus out in case I space out and forget what I'm supposed to be making during the week, and to help me remember to defrost meat the night before I need to use it. These colorful pages make me happy to look at every day.