The question that most people dread.... what's for dinner? What if you could easily solve that problem and save yourself some stress by simply doing some meal planning? Meal planning is a great way to save time, save money, and help reduce waste to help the environment.
So, wondering how to start to meal plan? It's actually pretty simple. First, you'll want to grab a piece of scrap paper and create a weekly list of the days of the week.... Monday.... Tuesday.... Wednesday... you get the idea. Now, under each day of the week, you'll want to make room for breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas.
Monday
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Before you start to write down all the delicious meals you would love to have throughout the week, you're going to want to go through your fridge, pantry, and freezer to see if you have any food that you need to use up that is close to expiring or going bad to avoid food waste and your hard earned money going down the drain. Make sure to use up those leftovers! Check your produce! Do not let that food go to waste! If you have some items that are close to expiring, make sure to incorporate those items into your meal plan.
Next, to stretch your dollar a bit further, make sure to check out your local store's sales and make some of your meals based on those sale items if you can and save yourself a bit of money in the process.
Another bonus of meal planning is less trips to the grocery store helping to save on gas and time and also helping out the environment. Meal planning can also help to cut back on the amount of times you end of picking up food from a restaurant to eat at home, which can help save money and less waste from the to-go containers (helping the environment). Finally, when you meal plan you will probably find yourself making some healthier meal choices, which is always a bonus.
Taking a little bit of time at the beginning of the week (or weekend) to make a meal plan can save you time, stress, and money.... and help to reduce food waste to help the environment! So, be sure to grab a piece of scrap paper and a writing utensil of some sort and start planning!