Wednesday, August 06, 2014

How I (fail to) Meal Plan

Last evening I was making my husband's day amazingly interesting by bemoaning the fact that I cannot (I use the word "fact" in this case kind of loosely.  Or maybe it's the word "cannot."  You be the judge) manage to meal plan in any way that really saves me time or frustration or money.

You guys.  When I designed my planner at the end of last year, I made sure to include an ENTIRE category every day dedicated to the listing of the food for the consumption.  True story.  Every day is divided into categories and one of my categories is "eatin."  Do you know how many times that box has been filled out ahead of time?

Three.

Three times from January 1st to August 5th have I planned the meals in advance.

Homemaking ultra fail.

So I decided that last night was the night that would all change because I was going to read every single word of this link that Cari sent me because apparently this lady plans her meals in advance and manages to feed her family of 6 on $329 per month.  Sure, her kids are younger and fewer than mine.  But even if I add another $100 on there, that would still be a LOT less than I'm spending right now.  Heck- add another TWO hundred bucks on there and we're still winning at the food budget.

Food is our absolute biggest expense annually.  Numero uno.

So.  I open the link.  I start reading.  I....sort of....get....ooooooh!  I should totally respond to this Firmoo email.  Hey, look. I can upload my face onto their site. 

I wish they were paying me to do this, man.  I love money.  Whoa.  Look at my eyeballs all over this screen.  Hah.  That looks weird.  I wonder how accurate....

No!  Focus!  Freezing of the meals ahead of time!  You can do this, dweej.

Yes, okay.  So which of these recipes looks good?  Hmmmmm, the picky peoples would probably eat this one.  Let me just write that down on....Instagram notification...pictures...cute babies.  Hey, Kelly likes all of Yesterday's Classics books.  Probably I should read more about that scene.  I mean, is it too much to ask to be able to....

STOP!  Write down some dang food names devilwoman!  It's not that hard.  Just pick up the pen and write the words in a little column.  That's all you have to do.  Okay?  Here.  I'll help you.  "pasta.  with.  meat.  sauce."  Did you write that?  Okay.  Next line.  "Slow.  Cooker.   Pulled.  P.....

What was that They Might be Giants song that people were talking about?  The one about the sun being a burning ball of gas or something?  Hey, someone shared the YouTube link on facebook....



Hah!  This is fun.  I better show it to the kids when...

Gah! You cannot serve burning helium for dinner!  THIS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD, BOROBIA.  Look alive, look alive.

And thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is exactly how that bizniss went down, right up until I looked at the clock and it said "you are going to want to die in the morning o'clock". And yet another opportunity to plan the meals slipped through my foolish, foolish fingers. Obvious moral: never take any time management or homemaking advice from me ever.  Never ever.  Nevereverever.

And thus ends post number 3 of 7 posts in 7 days and I'm really sorry if you started following my blog back when wholesome, good, life-improving things were being posted here.  Hopefully soon I can...oh, look! A new email!
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32 comments :

  1. Ohmygosh. You're stalking me. Or mind reading me. Or channeling my spirit animal. I've been trying to menu plan for about two weeks now...or two months...

    I finally got THIS week planned (after the first day of the week got pushed back about 5 times...) since school starts tomorrow and such. Which means there is a decent chance I'll plan next week semi successfully...and ZERO chance for the week after. Beause I always fall off the wagon on the third week. It's a thing.

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  2. I am also terrible at this. I go through meal planning spurts and then its like a month of...um we should just order pizza, bbq'd burgers again tonight ! Thank goodness for summer! I am going to read that link that Cari sent you. 336 a month is pretty amazing.

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  3. Why Does the Sun Shine? was one of my favorite songs from high school. I knew all the words although the one I loved was the older one and not this new, rocky, spiffy version. :)

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  4. Why not let your kids do this? You could start with a list of meals and the approximate price and have them plan and help shop and cook.

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  5. I totally can't do it eiter. It does save money, it does save time, it does make it easier... and yet, I just cannot commit. (sigh)

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  6. I have struggled with the same thing for a long time! I finally decided to hold myself accountable and start a blog where I post our weekly meal plan. Hopefully the work I do can save other folks some time. Feel free to check out the blog and steal some plans!!
    Makingmealtime.com

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  7. Meal planning has been my new year's resolution for the last...three years? (That and standing up straight, something else that's been impossible for me.) I appreciate that meal planning would be nice to our budget, but I care more about it as a time saver...but then it takes me 1.5 anguishing hours to meal plan, and I know that if Abe Lincoln has six hours to cut down a tree then he'd spend an hour sharpening his saw blah blah blah, but I just. don't. have. the. patience.

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  8. I use plated.com. It's been a lifesaver. The food is sent right to my doorstep and I don't have to go shopping and end up wasting money on things I don't need (ie. junk food I buy when I'm hungry). You can get $30 off your first order and free shipping with promo code 2bbd4e

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  9. Oy vey. I too am a non-planner. But lately I've started doing a little something different, maybe one could call it "meal planning hacks"? All I know is that it looks like I'm planning when I'm not and we haven't bought takeout pizza for a while.
    So I was reading a blogger's lasagna recipe one day and she made the point, "if your gonna make one, you might as well make four!" And I thought, that makes sense. So I made four lasagnas that night, and boom, I had three nights out of the next month "planned." I di the same another night with shepherd's pie, and then another night, I made enough meatballs to feed China, or at least my family for four meals. So not only did I cook those three nights in total, I had a total of 9 additional nights out of the next months "planned". About this time, I read about cooking a couple whole chickens in the crockpot overnight, de boning then the next day, throwing the bones back in with more water and making good broth while putting all the cooked shredded chicken into meal sized portions for the freezer. I can't tell you how convenient it is to have cooked shredded chicken on hand. It's really convenient. So anyways, those are some of my hacks that have kept us eating at home. And dude, you have big girls. I KNOW if they Han handle making all the yums you've shown on your blog, they can make lasagna or meatballs. You can call it home ec and there you go, homeschooling AND dinner! Ok, I'll stop commenting now.

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  10. "you are going to want to die on the morning o'clock" ... ahahahahahaha I frequently encounter this time, especially when it's late at night and I can't put down a good book!

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  11. OK, so I read that lady's post and let me just tell you… I used to be able to do that before I had teenagers. Seriously. It's not just that she has fewer kids, it's that she has littler kids than you, Dwija. And you think, "Well, it's not like my big kids are giant eating machines!" That's true, but her oldest is only 6 so all four of her kids are still little kids. There is a shift that happens usually between 9 & 10 years old where they start eating less like little kids and more like adults. Have you ever noticed how most restaurant's kid's menus are for under 10? There is a reason for that and it's not just to make you spend more on your meal. So, with that being said, the other thing is that she prepares everything for a month. That's great, if you can do it, but my brain is better as working on smaller chunks at a time. What we came up with that worked well for us for a good long while was a two week menu rotation. Yes, it means that every second Monday, you are eating the same thing, but my kids didn't seem to mind. It was very freeing to me to have the menu already made up and yet, not have to do it weekly. Just a thought.

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    1. And you totally need to get your big girls in on the process. My kids love it when I say, "Hey, it's spaghetti tonight… you guys know what to do!" One starts the pasta, one makes the sauce and one fixes a salad. Boom… dinner's ready!

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  12. Hahaha! This is so great. But, not. And, I say not, only because I am the exact same way when it comes to meal planning. Although, I haven't gotten as far as you on the effort. Anytime I work up to getting to the point of trying, my brain trails off. Maybe some day. I know our finances would appreciate it.

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    1. OH, and I don't think it helps that both my young boys eat like their grown father. God help me when they are older!

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  13. Work on making a meal plan for one week, then another, until you have two weekly plans. But keep them in a permanent place like Google docs. Once you have the two weeks planned, you can just keep reusing that plan. I don't know about you, but if my family is eating the same meal only once every two weeks, that's still enough variety.

    I leave Sunday's dinner open for using up what's in the fridge so that's really only six dinners to plan for a week. Breakfast planning is usually easy because we tend to eat the same few things. Lunches are "snack trays" of lunchmeat, nuts, fruits, etc most days so they don't need to be planned. And like the comments say above, have the older people in the house pick one dinner and you'll be planned in no time.

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  14. Bahahahaha! This is SO me! Nailed it! It's like you're in my head!

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  15. If you aren't already in the meal planning groove, don't even try to go to that country where they can feed a family of 25 only using coupons and sublet freezer space to the local coroners office. Destined to fail. Do the worksheets from Like Mother Like Daughter, at least the master list, where you sit them all down and brainstorm food they already know and love. Then you have a master menu to inspire you so your weekly plan is not spaghetti burgers tacos spaghetti burgers pizza spaghetti burgers... And nobody says you have to do a week. I usually do five days at a time because that's the max I can shop for at once (milk freshness limit). Meal planning makes me feel so dern matronly, but it's actually totally worth it, because figuring out what to cook is the worst part of feeding a family. (Ah, laziness, also a good reason to breastfeed and cloth diaper...) rant over!

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  16. There are definitely places in life where you can stream lime and simplify but it is impossible to stream lie and simplify in all areas of your life. Right? Or is that just me? Because there just isn't time (or motivation) to be that organized! I have been wanting to do meal planning for a while too and have decided that it really doesn't get me down to have to scramble to make meals. The money aspect, yeah, that could be better managed but I would rather buy whats on sale and then try and make it work rather than schedule first. I don't know...meal plans come after schooling plans.and housework plans, and outing plans, and errand plans... and I still don't have those done... wah, woh. :)

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  17. I use Pinterest. I have a board calling "Meal Plan," and I browse through all of my Pinterest recipes (after taking a quick look through the fridge/pantry to see what ingredients we have on hand) and pin the ones that seem possible. (I have a board for crockpot recipes, one for main dishes, one called "Kid-Tested, Mother Approved" for easy recipes that I know my kids have liked, etc.)

    Then I make a list based on what ingredients are needed that we don't already have.During the week I can just reference my board to see what meals I have ingredients for and go from there.

    I've also found it's easier for me to pin individual recipes to my Freezer Cooking pinterest board instead of the zillion posts that say, "40 freezer meals in 3 hours!" or whatnot. Those posts are rarely helpful for me because of my picky eaters -- chances are they won't like 3/5ths of the meals posted. But I pin the individual recipes that I'm fairly sure they'll like and go from there.

    Occasionally I'm tempted to sign up for a service like emeals.com or savingdinner.com, but again there's the picky eater problem.

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  18. What I did was have my guys write a list of their five favorite meals. Then I made double of the meal and froze the other half. Before you know it, I had two weeks worth of meals in the freezer that they would eat. Score!

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    1. I agree with Mary! That was how we came up with our menu rotation. We sat down and asked everyone what meals they liked best.

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  19. emeals darlin. EMEALS. Lemme know if you wanna coupon code.

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  20. I feel you - our grocery budget is second only to our mortgage in terms of monthly expense. And I have teenage boys. I don't "meal plan" per se - but I do shop on a budget. There is SO much information out on the internet in terms of recipes, etc., that I don't feel the need to really plan ahead. I have started shopping in the pantry method, where I keep numerous "standard" ingredients on hand. When I use something up, it immediately goes on the grocery list, and then I "shop" from the pantry. The grocery shopping is to replace what I take from the pantry to replace something used up from the fridge or the cabinet, etc. That way I don't run out. I buy whatever meat is on sale that week, and that's what we eat. I can pretty much always find a recipe online that uses ingredients that I have on hand. Then I also have some staple meals that I make every week or so because they are favorites, make everyone happy and everyone will eat it. Still working cutting the budget, but this has helped.

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  21. I try every month to "spend no money" on food. And then my husband and I are like... JUST KIDDING we love food too much! I need to read that article because I think there's no way we could spend that little and we only have a family of 4. sigh.... all the sighs....

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  22. Hahahahaha... yes. I was having a bona-fide anxiety attack earlier this week about meal planning! I'm glad one doesn't have to "qualify" for the position of mother (tho' maybe one should?? I dunno. I'd be fired, I think, if that were the case). Part of my problem with meal planning is that I have a hang-up about left-overs. I won't eat, or cook with, food that is not fresh. Not a cost efficient way to do things, I know, but I bet there's some sort of ancient cavemannish wisdom behind it. And for me, a really, really strong sense of smell (and sight) plays into it too.

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  23. Hahahahaha... I love this! So relieved I'm not the only one with a short online attention span. Ever see the dog in the movie, "Up"?http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fy-CBs0XNlM

    " Squirrel!"

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  24. Oh my gosh your writing is hilarious and it makes me smile all day.

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  25. Must have been on the same wavelength because I really, truly decided to get meals under control this week for once! And then I got distracted looking at cute menu-planning pdf's...

    For me, meal planning is kind of fun. It's meal DOING that I hate.

    To complicate meals in our house, my 12-year-old is now officially eating like a teenager and I can't go to the store often enough to keep the kid fed. Fifteen minutes after dinner he's in the kitchen looking for a snack! Good thing he knows how to make his own box of mac-n-cheese! ;-)



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  26. You are in my brain. Or on my internet. Both of which are creepy, Borobia, so cut it out.

    I am no meal planning wizard, so take this with a whole 5 lb. bag of salt, but my planning looks something like this.
    What are the foods my kids like and will eat?
    Plan 6 nights a week (1 night for leftovers/eating out) using those foods.
    Vary the ingredients enough that hubby and I don't throw our own tantrums.
    Rinse and repeat.

    Maybe this is terrible. I don't know. I just know that I don';t have to think very hard and that food doesn't really get wasted anymore, because I'm not buying the fancy things that I'll either never get around to making or will make but no one eats.

    Final thought: food is sustenance. It *should* be a big part of our budget. I read somewhere that 50 years ago people spent a much higher percentage of their salaries on food. Now we try to go cheap (which isn't always bad, but sometimes is) and the sacrifice is in quality.

    Aaaaaaand now I just looked at the clock and it's "five past i-am-so-screwed."

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  27. My meal planning has taken on different forms over the years. I used to just write 7 or 8 meals on the board, shop for all of them, then decide the night before which one of those we would have (mostly so I would have the meat thawed).

    We have moved to a monthly system with a calendar that looks like the one on the link, but nowhere near as detailed. I definitely do NOT plan breakfasts or lunch (everybody fend for yourself), and I build in a lot of leftover days. Which is easier for us since we only have 3 mouths total. I schedule days for my husband to cook, and I schedule in dinners out. I have a "recipe repertoire" that I just pull our favorites from. I've never been able to consistently do the freezing and bulk cooking and blah blah blah. I only do mayyybe 2 new recipes a month, if even that. Stick to what you know, y'know?

    Best of luck. And for what it's worth, as long as you're eating dinner together as a family with actual food on the table, who really cares if it was planned out? Your kids seem healthy to me.

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  28. I use a site called "Plan to Eat" (www.plantoeat.com) and LOVE it! Meal planning is hard work and I have never been so successful at it as I am now, with the help of this site. They offer a 30-day free trial (which is how I got hooked) which makes it easy to try without any obligation. And no I don't get compensated for this lol, I am just one happy customer since it has made my life so much easier! :-) I highly recommend.

    Goodness I don't know how Cari can spend so little on her big family...I'd be so interested to know how she does that (I follow her blog too but don't recall if she did a post on this). I spend far more on our family of 3 (grown son + 2 dogs), but then again we live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, so I try not to feel too badly about it (and we buy whole, real, organic food as much as possible). I do know we spend less with meal planning and shopping once per week. I usually plan more meals than we need for the week, and that way I always have a backup meal just in case we eat more than usual (and then have no leftovers), etc. I don't remember how much the site costs per year (or there is a monthly plan too) but I know that it is WELL worth it.

    Hope this helps! Btw, your blog is at the very top of my favourites list (and I am subscribed to A LOT of blogs). :-)

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  29. Dwija, I know you are super busy, what with your newborn, family, life, etc. But, if you get a moment, please take 3 minutes to read a post I just wrote which was partially inspired by this post of yours. I have found that a few simple steps make me way more successful getting meals on the table and way less stressed come dinner time. Meal planning can be super intense but I don't think it has to be. I hope this helps!
    http://www.makingmealtime.com/blog/2014/8/12/5-steps-to-stress-free-meal-planning

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