About eight years ago, I started creating meal plans for our family. Once a month, I would prepare and freeze approximately 14 meals. Then, each morning, I would simply take a dish out of the freezer to thaw, and in the evening all that was left to do was bake or heat the dish and prepare the sides. This saved so much time everyday, as well as money, since there was no need to make last minute trips to the grocery store or pick up fast food for dinner.
Planning so many meals at once was great, but required a lot of time planning and preparing the dishes for the freezer. It also required a significant amount of freezer space (which we no longer have). Over the years, I have found it is more manageable to plan fewer meals at a time, and I usually do not freeze meals anymore. Just the fact that I have meals planned takes the stress and guesswork out of the daily dreaded question, “What’s for dinner?”. These days, I grocery shop once a week and plan 5 meals at a time.
Since meal planning has been so beneficial to our family, I want to share the joy. 🙂 This meal plan contains some of our Family Favorites. It includes 5 meals (main dish and sides) plus two desserts, as well as a shopping list. Simply click on the heart to view the plan. Then, you can email or print the file. If you try it out, I would love to hear about your experience!
Happy Planning!!
