The Importance of Meal Planning
Meal planning is a vital part of the map to grocery shopping. It is the second most important step in saving money on groceries with the first being a grocery budget. If you haven’t created a budget yet for your grocery shopping, we recommend you check out our blog “Creating A Grocery Budget” first.
Now that you have your grocery budget in place, meal planning helps ensure that you stay within your budget by being able to know ahead of time how much your weekly groceries are going to cost. You can find out where to get your groceries the cheapest by submitting your grocery list to us, Saving Groceries, and we’ll tell you who are the top three cheapest grocery retailers in your area according to your grocery list. Also, it saves you money on groceries because your meals are planned so there’s less of a chance of popping into a fast-food restaurant for dinner. You continue to save money on groceries by no longer rebuying things you already have in your fridge or pantry because you have your meals planned out. Take inventory weekly of the items you currently have and use those up first before buying more.
Another reason meal planning is important is that it saves you time during the week because your meals were already planned. No more wondering what is for dinner – it’s already planned out. If you are noticing you have leftovers still and want to use those up before they go bad, you can always push your meals back into the next week and save that planned postponed meal idea for the following week. Instead of spending excess time in the grocery store trying to figure out what you and/or your family will eat, you can save that time by meal planning.
Meal Planning Tips
A way to save time when you are meal planning is to have two recipe folders. One recipe folder is for recipes you already have tried whether you love them or not and the other is for recipes you want to try. Divide the recipe binder for the recipes you’ve already tried by:
appetizers
breakfast
chicken
beef
pork
vegetarian (or other diet preferences)
dessert
meals on the go
recipes we didn’t like
and miscellaneous
The other recipe folder label “Want-To-Try” Recipe binder. In this folder, you will stick recipes you have found on Pinterest or cookbooks or other food blogger websites that you want to try. You can additionally label and sort them with the same categories listed above from the tried-and-true binder.
Meal plan on a day that works best for you. If Sunday afternoon works better than Monday night, then meal plan on Sunday. You know your schedule and maybe that means meal planning in the nooks and crannies of your week like in the car pickup line at your children’s school or in the car before you head into work for the day. Just make sure you have a scheduled day of the week that you have to have the weekly meals ready by. For example, if you plan to pick-up or go in person or have your groceries delivered by Tuesday evening then you should plan to have your weekly meals ready by Sunday or Monday night.
Conclusion
We hope you see the importance of meal planning. In our next blog, this Thursday, we will be discussing meal prepping as it will help you save you time making a portion of your meals throughout the week. Leave a comment for what you found the most helpful and Subscribe so you never miss a blog! Stay saucy!
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