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There was one thing I did last year that I wish I had started years ago – Meal Planning.
For some reason I have always resisted this simple 5 minute job and I am now certain that this little mistake has cost me thousands of dollars in unnecessary spending and food waste over the years. Seriously! Thousands!
Throwing food away really, really bugs me. Knowing that I spent $3 on that soggy, rotten lettuce that I forgot about at the back of the fridge, and now tossing it in the compost – makes me feel guilty. My husband works really hard to support us and when I waste money like that – simply because I’m not organised – it upsets me.
The thing is, I always thought Meal Planning was too much of an effort. I’m not naturally organised and Meal Planning is one of those things I thought ‘other Moms did’. Not me, because that;s just not my ‘thing’.
Pfft. But Guess what?
Saving money and time is my thing. And meal planning helps me with both of those things.
Every Thursday, the local grocery store mailer arrives in my mailbox. And I love going through mailers so at the same time, I check out the specials and fill out my meal plan for the week based on what’s in Season or on sale.
That’s it.
I used to write out a detailed shopping list to go with it but that just pushed it into the ‘Agh!! too much‘ zone. Now I just take a picture with my phone of the meal plan stuck (with a magnet) to the fridge and shop from that. It’s not rocket science.
And as an added little bonus, after a few weeks, The grocery store tends to have similar things on special, so if I keep my Meal plans, I can rotate them and use them again. Game Changer, baby! I have a year of Meal Plans up my sleeve now.
So Whats Special About my Meal Plan Template? Nothing. Absolutely Nothing!
It’s Simple. No fluff. Just big squares ready to write in.
I’m not going to complicate this, because I actually want you to give this a go, so here is a super simple Meal Planning template that works.
Click on it, Print it, Save it for next week.