A Beginners Guide to Simple and Efficient Meal Planning
A Beginners Guide to Simple and Efficient Meal Planning
Meal planning can save you a ton of time and money. Find out how you can implement this simple strategy.
Use SMART goals to plan and start your meal planning with ease!
In this printable guide, you will receive:
Beginners guide checklist,
Monthly planning worksheets,
Weekly planning worksheets,
and more!
These steps are all covered in this comprehensive checklist!
* Disclaimer * Some of the posted links are affiliate programs. By clicking these links, I may receive monetary compensation. This will not alter the price or change the buyer's experience.
Want to save hours of your time and dollars on your budget? Planning your meals is a well-known but massively under-appreciated hack. Batch your meal prep to shave off extra time!
How often do you just stare into the fridge? You’re hungry, but there’s “nothing” to eat. You pace around your kitchen, roaming from the refrigerator to the cupboard to the pantry over and over again. Grumbling and sighing to yourself, unable to make a decision. Finally, you pop a bag of popcorn for yourself and some chicken fingers for the kids.
It’s a couple of hours later, and you realize you are starving again. But now it’s too late to cook. You can’t just start rattling around in the kitchen. So, what are you going to do?
Do you order in? Do you drive to McDonald’s? This time you just make a bowl of cereal.
We need to break the cycle of spending hundreds of dollars monthly on fast food. It does nothing for your energy levels and depletes your bank account. Instead, we are going to make a plan, and we’re even going to save time and money just by doing it.
The best way to do this is to batch and plan our meals. Choose recipes with similar ingredients over the week to save money on groceries and avoid wasting ingredients.
Planning your weekly meals can be as simple or complicated as your cooking skill. If you enjoy cooking and do it all the time, you probably have a lot of great recipe ideas on hand. Plan out 5 to 7 meal ideas for the week and list all the ingredients you need.
If your culinary skills are somewhat lacking, you can also go on the web and look up some easy recipe ideas. There are tons of different ways to search. You can find five recipe ideas or even 30-minute recipe ideas. Whatever suits your time and budget restraints.
If you are coupling meal planning with budgeting, try to pick recipes with similar ingredients.
Buying fewer ingredients and learning new, creative ways to use them is fantastic for cutting costs. This can be fun, especially if you are adventurous and like to try new things.
Not only have you now committed to a menu for the week, but you also have your grocery list. Doing one grocery shop weekly will save you time from making multiple weekly trips to the store. It will also save you money from the impulse purchases you would rack up on these extra trips. A candy bar here, and a bottle of Soda there, add up over time, especially when trying to save.
From here, you have a couple of options: go grocery shopping, return and put your supplies away, or prepare your ingredients. Upon arriving home and unloading your groceries, decide if you want to advance to this second planning stage.
The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Meal Planning Checklist
Use SMART goals to plan and start meal planning with ease!
Preparing everything ahead of time will save you time daily.
Batching the prep time also might give you a little more flexibility regarding what you want to eat on which night. Having many prepped meals can also save time overall on cleaning and dishes since you won’t have as many each night. Just be sure to safely store the ingredients to avoid spoilage and cross-contamination. Freezing portions will give you extra flexibility when you do not have the time to cook.
If you have the time, you can cook and freeze portions for use throughout the week. This allows even more flexibility because you can just pop a serving in the microwave. Batch cook intricate meals like lasagna or shepherd’s pie that require you to make larger portions and freeze them.
Having one batch cooking night weekly, and stocking up, will save even more time and dishes day today. The only limitation to this process is having enough freezer space. This is also a great option if you just need a few emergency meals on hand for days you are super pressed for time. Having some meals frozen in the freezer can take the weight off.
Finding Harmony in Meal Planning with Motion
Sometimes, in the hustle of our daily lives, meal planning can feel less like a savvy life hack and more like a looming chore. I’ve been there—standing in the middle of the kitchen, overwhelmed by the chaos of managing work, family, and trying to keep my own cup filled. That’s why I turned to Motion.
With Motion, it’s like having a quiet companion in the kitchen, one who doesn’t mind sorting through the clutter of my schedule to help find those precious pockets of time. It’s not just about saving a few minutes here or there; it’s about creating moments where I can breathe easier, knowing that dinner is not just planned but practically prepared.
Motion helps me align my meal prep with my ever-changing daily rhythms. On days filled with back-to-back meetings and endless to-dos, Motion gently nudges me with reminders for the small tasks, like chopping veggies in the morning or marinating chicken during lunch. These tiny prompts make it possible to enjoy a homemade meal with my family, no matter how late my day runs.
And it’s not just about the mechanics of meal prep. Motion understands the ebb and flow of my energy throughout the week—encouraging me to tackle the more intricate jobs when I’m most energetic, and suggesting simpler tasks when my day drains my zest.
Embracing Motion has allowed me to transform what was once a stress point into a process that feels more like self-care. It’s about nourishing my body and soul, ensuring that even on the busiest days, I can look forward to a meal that brings comfort and connection.
I want to be transparent so that there are no misunderstandings. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission from any products linked in this post. This is not a sponsored post, and I was not asked to recommend these products. These are products that I genuinely love and want to share with my audience.