6 Meal Planning Ideas to Overcome Bad Meal Habits!

In the spirit of full disclosure and transparency, I have to admit upfront that this blog post on meal planning ideas will be more a case of “do what I say” than “do as I do”. And to be more accurate, it will be more of “do what Cassandra Aarssen says” than “do as I do”.  If you are wondering who Cassandra Aarssen is, she is the author of Cluttered Mess to Organized Success Workbook, which has a great and helpful chapter on meal planning ideas.  As for the “do as I say, not as I do” stuff above, we will get to that in a bit.

The Importance of Meal Planning

In her great book, Aarssen believes that of all the organizing systems that we create in our homes, that meal planning is the one that can save us the most time and money.

She introduces the importance of meal planning by describing her reluctance to engage in it for so long:

“Actually, it wasn’t reluctance as much as forgetfulness. I had the best intentions of weekly meal planning, but I would either forget about it completely, or I wouldn’t plan properly. Either way, almost every night was a frantic hustle to get dinner on the table, and I hated every minute of it. I don’t love cooking at the best of times, so throwing meals together with little to no planning never ended well.” ¹

I am sure many of us can relate!

By having meals planned out in advance, cooking can seem like less of a chore and become more fun.  Plus, you save a lot of money, eat healthier and will get less complaints about what you make for dinner. Sounds like a win-win-win, right?

Let’s now take a look at a few of the most common bad habits that inhibit good meal planning and then some meal planning ideas that Aarssen suggests to overcome them.

6 Bad Meal Habits and the 6 Meal Planning Ideas to Overcome Them

(1)  Waiting until the last minute to decide what to make

The first bad habit is one that many of us are guilty of and that is waiting until the last minute to decide what to make for dinner.  The problem is that not only that you may not have everything you need, but that you also aren’t involving your family in the dinner decision making process.

Instead, try the first of her meal planning ideas:

Aarssen recommends democratizing the process by having the whole family involved in selecting the meals for the upcoming week.

As she explains:

“By involving your family in meal planning and letting everyone pick one meal per week, you make dinner time much more enjoyable for everyone.” ¹

(2)  Only buying enough stuff for a few meals at a time

The problem with buying groceries every few days is that it results in your only having enough food to make a few meals at a time. Then what inevitably happens is that life gets busy and you end up resorting to convenient fast food.  This can not only get expensive quick, but it can also be extremely unhealthy!

Instead, try the second of her meal planning ideas:

To combat this bad habit, Aarssen recommends:

“When meal planning, plan the ENTIRE WEEK at one time. Of course, you can still schedule in the occasional fast food dinner or pizza night, but when you have a full seven days of meals planned in advance, you never have to worry about having nothing for dinner. Once you have your meals planned, make your grocery shopping list and include everything you will need for the full seven days of meals.” ¹

 (3)  Your meal plan is not visible

Forgetting what you have planned for your weekly meals totally defeats the purpose of meal planning.  And this can be a common problem if your meal plan is not visible.

Instead, try the third of her meal planning ideas:

To avoid this problem, Aarssen suggests you write your meal plan in two locations.

(1)  The first is on a piece of paper that you can bring with you when you go shopping, along with your grocery list. This will help you adjust things based on what is available at the grocery store or perhaps if there is a sale or if you have coupons.

(2)  The second is somewhere in your kitchen on a menu board. This is a great idea for two reasons – it helps remind you to take stuff out if necessary and it also stops the kids from annoying you with their incessant “what’s for dinner Mom/Dad?”

(4)  Making the same boring meals over and over again

Another problem with waiting until the last minute is that it makes it hard to come up with dinner ideas.  This means that you will end up making the same boring meals over and over again.

Instead, try the fourth of her meal planning ideas:

The idea here is to create a “master meal list” that you can keep adding to over time.  This makes it easier to select meals that you may not have thought of otherwise.

Because as Aarssen points out:

“Choosing from an actual paper list is so much easier than trying to make a mental one.” ¹

(5)  Not shopping your home

Another bad habit that many of us fall into is not shopping our own home.  In other words, many times we have a freezer full of food but nothing to eat for dinner. You may have stuff in the freezer like frozen meat but have nothing to pair it with or be missing key ingredients needed to prepare it.

Instead, try the fifth of her meal planning ideas:

To prevent this from happening, Aarssen suggests two things to make sure we don’t waste food:

(1)  Shop your freezer, fridge, and pantry for stuff you already have and then see if you can work it into your weekly meal plan as you create your grocery list.

(2)  If for example you have 5 people in your family and each person gets to pick a meal that means you will have two days left. Perhaps on those two days, you see what you can pull together for an interesting hodgepodge of whatever is leftover.

(6)  Failing to organize your recipes

The last bad habit that she discusses is not having your recipes organized which results in not being able to find what you need when you need it.

Instead, try the sixth of her meal planning ideas:

Her suggestion here is to take an hour and make yourself a recipe binder.  This will ensure that all your recipes are categorized in one place and easy to find. This will also help you free up space by having all the recipes you use in one place meaning you can give away those space-eating cookbooks that you never use.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do!

The reason I said “do what Cassandra Aarssen says” than “do as I do” in the intro is because I don’t do exactly what Aarssen suggests in her 6 meal planning ideas.

You see, I take the whole “eat to live rather than live to eat” to an extremely quirky level.

Oh, I do meal plan in advance and I do only shop once a week.  But there is no need for me to shop my home and there is no need for recipes.

However, my meals are boring, and they are certainly not visible.

That is because I eat the same stuff all the time – eggs, oatmeal, chicken, sweet potatoes and vegetables!

Am I quirky? Definitely.

Do I suffer from decision fatigue? Absolutely not!

Until next time, use these great meal planning ideas from Cassandra Aarssen, you are welcome to come over for dinner any time – that is if you are ok with chicken and sweet potatoes, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use it Or Lose It

The 6 meal planning ideas we discussed above are:

(1)  Democratize the process by having the whole family involved in selecting the meals for the upcoming week.
(2)  Plan the entire week at one time.
(3)  Write your meal plan on a piece of paper you can take with you as well as on a menu board in the kitchen where everyone can see it.
(4)  Create a ‘master meal list’ you can add to over time that you can use to help come up with meal ideas.
(5)  Shop your home!
(6)  Make a recipe binder to organize your recipes.

When to Use It

Use these meal plannings ideas to help save time and money on a weekly/daily basis.

What Do You Think?

What do you think of these meal planning ideas? Do you have any other meal planning ideas that you use? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

¹ Cluttered Mess to Organized Success Workbook: Declutter and Organize your Home and Life with Over 100 Checklists and Worksheets by Cassandra Aarssen