3 Easy Things You Can Do TODAY To Start Meal Planning

Getting my house decluttered and organized feels like an all or nothing sort of thing. Either I’m rage cleaning and throwing everything away or we’re living like the folks on Hoarders. However, I’ve recently learned that’s ridiculous and I need to take things slow to develop good habits. The same is true for meal planning. Here are 3 easy things you can do today to start meal planning!

Prefer video content? Here is my Facebook Live where I discuss this in under 7 minutes! Be sure to check out my Facebook page to get more video meal planning tips every week. Start meal planning today!

Download My FREE Guide

If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably already done this. Reprint it or pull it up on your phone. If you’re new, welcome! Grab your copy of my free meal planning guide here and either print it off or pull it up on your phone. It is a golden free resource. Read it over and let the strategy sink in. Here are the main points:

• ▪ Meal planning is just getting dinner on the table. You don’t have to be a gourmet chef or ultra-healthy eater to meal plan. It’s not about the meals, it’s about the planning.
• ▪ Use help from the store. Everyone meal plans differently but her at Undomestic Mom, we believe taking a little help from the store helps get dinner om the table with less stress and that’s what matters.
• ▪ Don’t over plan. No one is going to be successful if they plan to cook every night of the year. It’s just not sustainable. My guide gives you practical tips that get dinner on the table without cooking night after night.

Plan 3 Meals

Today, right now if possible, pull up your Notes app or grab a scrap of paper and plan three meals you will make or serve. I don’t care if it’s boxed mac & cheese, Chipotle and dinner at your mothers. Write them down on the days they will most likely happen. You now have half the week planned. Slow and steady wins the race Boo!

Getting in the habit of writing down your dinners ahead of time is the focus here. In my house, we eat take-out! We eat at friends houses. We eat boxed mac & cheese. However, I feel guilt free doing it and I throw out a lot less food because I planned it out. That’s the objection of meal planning.

My guide that you just downloaded will help give you ideas of the sort of meals you can easily plan. It’s not rocket science, it’s just simple enough to work and has worked for me for over 10 years. Just like Michael Scott says, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings:)

Make a Quick Grocery List

Okay, you see the three meals you just wrote down? Next, in your notes app or your scrap of paper and write down the ingredients you will need to make those three meals. Maybe you wrote down my Broccoli Alfredo Pasta so you write down heavy cream, Parmesan, frozen broccoli, penne and mozzarella cheese. Then you remember you have an extra box of penne in the pantry so you cross it off. Boom. One down. It’s that easy.

This should take no more than five minutes. Just quickly write down what you’ll need and if you aren’t sure, guess. When you get home you can check recipes and the pantry for clarification. Again, don’t overthink it, just do it.

That’s It!

Those are the 3 easy things you can do today to start meal planning. How simple is that? Now you have some meals planned and a list made. Maybe you’re about to put an order into Instacart so you throw your ingredients in there. Maybe you planned on stopping at the store on the way home so you take the extra ten minutes to grab the list of ingredients you wrote out. Maybe you text it to your husband or teenager and have them grab them. Whatever the case may be, you now have three dinners ready to go this week. Doesn’t that feel like relief??