Meal Planning: Easy…NOT easy

Making a meal plan is NOT easy.

So much life just distracts you.  For me, sitting as quietly as possible in a room without anyone else and zero music playing…only dogs licking themselves off and on bothering me… it took me an HOUR.

I wanted to use what was IN my cupboards, fridge and freezer.

Here’s what I came up with.

I ran it by Randy to see if he wanted to make any changes. We had eggs so he decided to switch out breakfasts a few times.

I created my grocery shopping list and because I know what/where items are in the grocery store I organized it to be super efficient in that task.  This is a bonus as a Vegan Chef – I know where the odd things are.

HERE IS MY PLAN FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS IN PDF FORM

Life began to happen and we almost fell off within 2 days. 

I began baking and creating the dishes that we would have.  The house smelled great.  This was only possible because I am not working right now. REALITY CHECK.

Randy began to look for my beat up planning paper to ask what we’d be having for dinner which inspired me to stick to the plan.

Our grocery shopping for WEEK 1 was about $68.  Again, I had resources in my kitchen but I was pretty stoked to only spend that much for a full week of meals ALL HOME COOKED, packed with flavor, low on salt and always enough for LEFTOVERS!

I also planned out my exercise and the pet’s meals (we are all dining on the ritz).  The $68 INCLUDED their 7 days, 2 meals a day. 

WHAT I LEARNED

1. You need TIME to plan and execute a meal plan.
2. It is important to have a dessert (in our house).  You can make them with less junk in them – with lots of flavors. 
3. It is cheaper to plan meals and cook.
4. Once we got rolling it was easier.  It’s not EASY yet (and I’m going to be working again…which means a lot of cooking on days off).  I’ve got Week 2 planned out and I’m excited to make that chocolate cake (vegan of course).
   

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