Menu Planning for the Week

Menu planning is the art of planning your menu ahead of time. With the right skills, you can plan for a day, a week, or even a month. There are many advantages of menu planning and that's why thousands of parents like to plan their meals so that kids can get a healthy diet. Some benefits of menu planning are saving of time and money, healthy eating, and less wastage of food.

1. Visit your favorite recipe book and collect all the recipes you like. Plan the weekly menu in such a way that kids get to eat a variety of meals and you get to try different recipes. You can also look online, but it is best to have a favorite book. If you don't have a favorite recipe book - make one. Take clippings from newspapers and magazines and combine them to form a great recipe booklet.
2. Before you do menu planning, look at the calendar and check if there are any plans for the week. Are you going to eat out this Friday? If yes, then make sure you adjust the Friday plan accordingly. With weekly planning, you can easily estimate the groceries you will need for the week. Now write the plan. Make a tabular format and plan the entire menu for the week: 3 meals and 2 snacks for each day. You can leave some fields blank to give room to flexibility. Let's say you are craving for a dish and it is not included in the plan, make it on the 'blank field' day.
3. Make a grocery list. When you make a solid list for the entire week, you know exactly what to buy, and so you don't give in to impulsive buying. Also, since you buy groceries for the entire week, you don't have to make many trips to the store. Thus it saves your time and money. And if you are doing menu planning on budget, make sure you write down the cost of each item on the list as well. This will help you plan your spending. Try to use coupons or discounted products whenever you can.

Menu planning isn't very difficult. Just sit down this Sunday and plan a weekly menu. But if you find that you are out of recipes or ideas, you don't have to worry. There are many menu planning services that can help you out. They provide their own recipes and special plans depending upon the needs of your family. For example, they have gluten-free, sugar-free, and other special meal plans.

Editor's Note: Ruthie began her meal planning journey in 2005 with the birth of her first child. Since then, the self-confessed kitchen problem-solver has worked hard to piece together hundreds of fresh recipes, countless time saving tips and delicious, budget friendly menu planning program. The result is a membership site packed full of these things and more.