10 Tips to Making Meal Planning Easy!!

Ever found the stress of the kitchen affecting your balanced parenting skills? Planning your meals will reduce a lot of that stress. It will mean a more organised week and a budget that doesn’t get blown by food every week!

I don’t know about you but at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is think about what I can cook with what I’ve got in the cupboard. Unless I’ve just been shopping I find it very hard to be inspired.I also find that I will often do my next weekly or fortnightly shop and there are still items in the cupboard from last time that I didn’t even touch and vegetables in my fridge gone rotten because I didn’t use them.

Here are 10 Tips to Making Meal Planning Easy
1. Make a list of all your families favourite meals.
2. Choose 7 or 14 of them depending on whether you do a weekly or fortnightly shop. Don't forget to include the occasional desert if like sweets, your breakfast, lunch and snacks
3. List all the ingredients you will need to make your meals
4. Do a cupboard check and cross off from your list what you already have
5. Do your shop and buy in bulk when you can.
6. Only buy what is on your list
7. Don't shop for 'extra's' in between shops if you can help it
8. After shop, prepare and chop up vege's or meat portions into their right sizes and freeze them in snap lock bags. If particular meat needs to be marinated then freeze it in its sauce. How good will that taste!
9. Make sure you have clearly marked storage containers in your pantry to put all your packet goods so you don't end with half opened sugar, flour, macaroni spilling all over your shelves! And being forgotten behind the weetbix and left unused!
10. Have your list of meals ready up on the fridge so you can choose what you feel like for that night (if you're like me and my hubby, we hate being told what to eat every night by a list but a choice of any 7 meals is good!)

If you don't feel like putting all that thought and effort into planning for your week so that meals will run smoothly and 4 - 6pm isn't chaotic then check out Menu-In-A-Box. It's done all the hard work for you including shopping lists and countless meal ideas that are not only easy and budget conscious but take into account what little kids will love too! There is heaps more in the Menu-In-A-Box than just menu's so check it out and make your meal planning a whole lot easier!