Saturday, July 12, 2008

Organizing Life Tips - Tip #1 - Make a Weekly Menu

Sure, this has nothing to do with cleaning. But, the Happy Slob mentality is all about simplifying your life, right? And one thing I find not only incredibly helpful with reducing stress - and reducing my bill at the supermarket! - is to sit down on Sunday nights and come up with a weekly menu or meal plan.

To simplify even further, you can have themes for each night, such as:

  • Monday: Breakfast for Supper Night
  • Tuesday: Soup & Sandwich Night
  • Wednesday: Try a New Recipe Night
  • Thursday: Dad's Night to Cook (Hurray!)
  • Friday: Homemade Pizza Night
  • Saturday: Eat out Night (Which is particularly easy to prepare...hehe)
  • Sunday: Proper Sit Down Dinner Night

With a theme in mind, you can create meal ideas for each day, and then make a grocery list that contains all the necessary ingredients.

Okay slobbos...what do YOU do to simplify meal planning?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find a recipe book and select a weeks worth of meals from it (sometimes two weeks) and then I buy everything I need for that time frame.
It simplifies things for me because it gives my family the freedom to choose a meal from the book and decide which one they'd like to eat that night. Whatever it is I have everything there already. :)

Anonymous said...

Meal Planning is always stressful if not organized.

There are new easy ways to organize your life with easy meal planning.

http://www.dinnerplanner.com

HappySlob said...

Mandy - I love your tips! I like doing something similar - making a meal plan for the week, but one we can be really flexible with. If we feel like curry one night - then curry it is! Having all the stuff on hand makes it really easy.

Anonymous said...

Why should Dad be the only person to "help"? At our house our 14yo cooks on Thursday nights. I have even made a notebook with detailed instructions on how to prepare dishes so that she is learning without my having to stand right next to her. (otherwise it doesn't really give me a break. "new recipes" give us time together in the kitchen at other times.