Menu planning

(updated 3/5/17)

One of the best ways to save at the grocery store is to have a list. Even better, have a menu for the week and then make a list from it. We try our best to make a menu on Saturday nights and go grocery shopping on Sundays. I admit, though, we do go through spurts of time when we are not as good at this!

We came up with a plan of types of dinner meals we like to have in a week and I made a form to record it all on. A typical week for us includes:

• meat leftovers or a meat meal, soy, eggs or beans (we choose 2 of these)
• Mexican
• pasta
• salmon

The other two nights are Shabbos. Sometimes these categories mix as we like to have salmon pasta sometimes and pizza (which really doesn’t fall in any of these categories).

Menu planning limits trips to the store, helps decrease the time in staring in the refrigerator wondering what we will eat, and saves us money. My husband also likes to cook in the mornings, so our evenings can start sooner and we can not eat so late.

I also created a form for our grocery list. It is broken up into categories that match the aisles of the grocery store. This helps cut down on shopping time and backtracking in the store. Click on the files below to get my grocery list form and menu planning forms. The second menu form was one we used when we were eating on the Whole 30 plan and had more restrictions on what we could eat. Edit them as you wish for the types of meals you like! We now use a hybrid of the two, trying to have a pasta or Mexican meal once a week and focusing on proteins and veggies the rest of the week.

• Menu for Week form
• Menu for week with lunches
• Grocery List form

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