Sometimes (okay a lot of the time) I over think a solution. I’ve tried tons of meal planning options, ideas and websites and some worked…sort of. But I have allergies and I was always modifying every recipe and we often missed having our favorite meals.
One day while begging everyone in the family for input on what to have for dinner, I realized I was making this too hard. I knew I was going to get the exact same answers from my kids as always; pizza, mac and cheese, stir fry. I knew that they wouldn’t agree and that someone would be angry. I needed to stop asking them, but then where would I get ideas for dinner? And it dawned on me; a list. Why didn’t I just have a list of our favorite meals? And why not just use that to meal plan?
So over the next few weeks I paid attention to the meals everyone was excited about eating and wrote them down. I ended up with a list of about 15 absolute favorites and another 15 that everyone enjoyed. That’s a whole month worth of meal ideas! Perfect! I decided to create a page to put in my planner so that it was easy to know where my list was. Now I refer to that list often especially while meal planning.
I will cover meal planning and grocery shopping in my next post, but I wanted to share my list page. I also made spaces for writing down our favorite sides and salads.
Sometimes the hardest part is just not knowing. I hope this will encourage you to make a list and save yourself from ever having to wonder what’s for dinner? If you want to follow along with how I meal plan and grocery shop, write out your own list of about 30 meals.
The page below is sized to fit in a classic Happy Planner, but you can also print it and just keep it on a fridge or with your recipes.
