Everyone knows that when you plan ahead, you are more effective and successful. When it comes to planning meals in advance, if you take a few minutes before you shop, you can save a lot of time in the kitchen and a lot of money at the checkout.
Here are some simple steps you can take to plan some meals and save some money:
1. Before you go to the store, buy your favorite cookbook or ask yourself or your family what your favorite foods are.
2. Take out a sheet of paper. At the bottom of the sheet of paper, list at least 10-20 meals that your family likes and that you can prepare in the next few weeks. At the top of the sheet of paper, as you write down a meal, make a list of the items you need for that meal that you don’t have on hand. When you are done, you will have a food list at the bottom of the paper and a list of products to buy at the top of the paper. Take this sheet of paper to the store and buy the items on the list.
3. When you get home from shopping and have put everything away, put the bottom half of your list on the refrigerator. This will be your meal planner. Every morning or every day when you get home from work, just look at the list and decide what you want to fix. If you look at the list in the morning and decide what to do, you can take any item out of the freezer to thaw when you’re ready to cook.
This system only takes a few minutes to write, and yet it can reduce so much stress. When you look at the list, you know you have everything you need to prepare any of those meals. You save money at the grocery store because you buy just what you need to prepare many meals. Planning meals ahead saves you money at the grocery store, and this system makes it even easier because it takes so little time and produces long-lasting benefits.