Meal Planning Tip #3 - Duel Purpose Meal Planning Sheet

Traditional meal planning sheets didn't work well for me because I have never had any interest in assigning meals to every day of a week. I just needed a list of what I had bought ingredients to make that week. But then I would forget to prep ingredients ahead of time or to start early enough on a harder meal. So, I decided on a compromise. It's not really complicated, but has helped me out SO MUCH! I just took a traditional meal planning list template and changed the shopping list area to a dinner list. Super simple, but changed everything for me. Now I didn't have a list of the meals I bought ingredients for in a separate place from a list of what I'm having what day. I don't like assigning meals a week a head, but I do like assigning them for the next day or two.

Here's an example of the list I'm currently using. It's temporarily drawn out with Frixion pens on a reusable notebook. Once I get a chance, it will be drawn with permanent markers so I can wipe it clean every week as I plan out new meals.

I write all the meals I bought food for on the right side of the page. As they get assigned to days, I mark them off. If for some reason we don't end up eating a meal on the assigned day, I rewrite it on the meal list. This also allows me to easily shop from stores more than once a week and just keep adding meals to the list as we get them. I can easily erase the week and keep using the same meal list until it gets to the end. Then I erase the first items, write whatever meals I have left up there, and erase the rest of the list. It's very easy to use it as a revolving list.