Meal Planning Tips

Meal planning, cooking and cleaning up the kitchen can be extremely time consuming and irritating if you’re not organized. That is why a lot of people go out to eat a lot and buy a lot of packaged meals. Obviously, a disorganized kitchen is hard to work in, but I am talking about a whole way of thinking about your meal planning.

I was talking to my mom one day on the phone. It was about noon on a Saturday and I was making spaghetti. I had just gotten back from grocery shopping (I usually avoid Saturday morning grocery shopping but I wanted to go and made it fun by going to 3 stores, only buying what was on my list and getting fantastic deals).

She was kind of complaining how they had just had lunch and now she had to start thinking about dinner. My parents are retired. They have a number of interests and stay fairly active but they don’t have jobs that are a huge time commitment. My mom is 68, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, everyone would like to simplify their meal planning.

My parents go out to eat a lot. I always thought they liked to do it for the enjoyment of going outbut now I realize that it is much simpler for her, for anyone. She is tired of meal planning, preparing meals, grocery shopping, coming up with something good and cleaning up after wards.

It sounds good to say to prepare most of your meals at home. They say you will save money and have better nutrition, but the hard part is actually doing it. I think that my mom would enjoy herself more if she made some of her meals up beforehand like I do for work. I make my lunch for the next day while I am making dinner. I did call her up and suggested that to her.

One day, I started my dinner at 7:40 p.m. and then started back to work on this website by 8:00 p.m. So it took me 20 minutes to prepare and eat my dinner. I also packed my lunch for the next day and washed the dishes. My dinner consisted of a can of New England clam chowder, a grilled cheese sandwich, a lettuce salad and a glass of milk. My lunch for the next day included a ham and cheese sandwich, yogurt, apple and a couple of cookies. I did the dishes by hand and placed them on a towel to air dry.

As you can see these were not gourmet meals, but they are nourishing, satisfying and tasty. Some days I prepare a more elaborate dinner but sometimes having a quick dinner that is easy to prepare is want is needed. That day I was busy.

I left work at 3:40 p.m., drove to my ex-wife’s house to pick up my son for his soccer practice and got him to practice at 4:45 pm. I didn’t have to pick him up till 5:45 pm, so I had an hour to kill. I went to the half price bookstore for half an hour then to the coffee shop for another half hour or so.

When I dropped him off my ex wife wanted to go over some papers. So I didn’t leave her house until 7:00 pm. I dropped off a DVD at the video store and checked out some rabbits at the pet store next to the video store. My daughter wants a rabbit and I wanted to learn about them so that I can have some reasons not to get one. When I got home I changed into some leisure clothes and put a load of laundry in and got upstairs at 7:40 p.m. to make dinner.

The reason for the long story is to show you just because you are busy it doesn’t mean you can’t throw together a quick, satisfying meal and make a lunch for the next day. The way to have those quick dinners is by doing your meal planning up front.

I purposely plan to have the makings for these quick meals. I also eat basically the same lunch each day so buying the makings and preparing my lunches is very quick and easy.

These quick meals work into my schedule. Wednesdays I usually take my son to hockey practice or I will have both kids for a few hours in the evening. I like a quick easy meal while I do my chores around the house and get ready for the weekend. Mondays are usually a heavy weightlifting workout. I need a really good meal like a steak and a large salad afterwards. Tuesdays and Thursdays I will usually have a good meal. Fridays, if I am planning on going out later at night I will want a pizza or at least a meat meal. The weekends are less planned.

One Sunday a month will be a big cooking day. I will put a roast in the slow cooker. I will also make a large chicken meal. I’ll get both these meals started in the morning. I’ll have the chicken for lunch and freeze some for later meals. I’ll have the roast for dinner and freeze the rest for later. I will also set some in the refrigerator to have later that week.

By meal planning this way I get a lot of the work done early. I have frozen meals in the freezer; I have quick type meals always on hand.

I shop the sales when I am at the store. I know the low prices on the food I am always buying so I know what is a good deal. Since I am getting good deals on most of the food I am buying at the store, I don’t mind paying more for some things I really want such as a good steak. I still haven’t got to the point of buying the best steak. I really want to accomplish my other goals first. Eventually I would like to be at the point where I didn’t look at the prices of groceries as much. For now, meal planning partly based on price is what I do.

Eating this way works into my mindset of a totally organized life of simplicity and achieving my goals. I just don’t want to spend too much time in preparing meals, eating and cleaning up afterwards. By meal planning, I get the good meals, easy kitchen cleanup, inexpensive food and more free time.

My kitchen is set up just the way I want it. I put all the plates, glasses, utensils, pots and pans away in the same place. I put the food away in the same place. Once you have it organized the way you want it, it is much simpler to keep it that way. Basically you should set up the kitchen so that it very easy to clean up and put things away. The easy part is the cooking. The hard part is the putting away after you are done. You want to make the cleanup and putting away the easy part.

Your kitchen set up should be natural. You should have it set up so that a guest would naturally know where to look for glasses, plates, utensils and cookware.

Meal planning will make your life so much simpler and easier. You will love the extra time.

Go Back to Home Page.

Go Back to Meal Planning (Top of This Page).