By starting the new year with a menu plan, you may be knocking a few of those new year resolutions off your list too.   There are many reasons you should be menu planning:

• Save money: Instead of eating take-out because it is getting late and you haven’t started preparing dinner yet, or making impulse purchases as you are wandering each aisle of the grocery store, having a menu plan in place will cut those unnecessary costs, and you will find that you will have less waste, especially with fresh produce.  Don’t forget to clip coupons according to your meal plan too.

• Get organized: Combining school, work, and sports schedules is difficult enough, without wondering what you are going to cook for dinner each night and worrying about whether you have enough groceries to make the kids school lunch the next day.

• Spend more quality time with your family: You are more likely to eat dinner together as a family at the dining table if you have a menu plan in place.   Without a menu plan, there’s a higher chance of take-out in front of the television or family members grazing at their leisure, or you preparing 3 different quick dishes according to orders being placed by your family members.

• Lose weight: By menu planning you will be more inclined to purchase fresh fruit and veggies, instead of pre-packaged meals and snack items that you do not need in your house.

So let’s get prepared to start the new year fresh.

• Have a system in place for your grocery list.  Whether it be using a magnet to keep a list on a piece of paper on the refrigerator, or using your smart phone with an app such as Cozi (which is what I use).
• Stock up on essential items.  Take a look at my holiday gift guide for ideas on re-usable grocery bags, produce bags, recipe storage systems, and list organization.
• Allocate one day each week on your calendar when you will meal plan and food shop according to items you need.
• Make sure your recipes are organized, you don’t want to be digging in a big pile of magazine pages that you have pulled out, and recipe cards you’ve collected over the years for a soup dish.  Organize all of those pages into files so they are easy to locate.
• Get your family on board.  Ask them what their favorite dishes are and incorporate those into your meal plan.  Allocate nights when one of the (older) kids might cook dinner, or dessert, or your husband can grill.  Also plan for ‘do-it-yourself’ dinners with a pizza bar, pasta bar, or taco bar.  This will help take the load off you a little, as well as teaching the kids how to cook.
• Decide on which type of meal plan will work best for you and your family.  Do you require more slow cooker meals that you can prepare in the morning and will be ready by dinnertime? Would spending one day a week cooking and freezing meals for the following week work better for you?  Or do you want to stick with a more standard meal plan where cooking would happen each day, and hopefully family members would be involved in this process?

Now that you have the tools to begin meal planning, enjoy the year ahead with healthy, nutritious meals for you and your family.