A New Wife's Best Friend: Menu Planning

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/14133313/?claim=bp42nd9y89m">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Being the oldest of four kids, you learn how to do things early on like: washing clothes, laundry, babysitting, cooking, etc. So it was only natural that I prided myself in my cooking abilities before marriage. While we were dating, whenever Toby would over, he'd usually find himself stuffing his face with whatever meal I eagerly prepared for him. I honestly thought that at least the area of cooking would come easy to me. One more step closer to being a Proverbs 31 wife!

Wrong.

About a month into marriage, I was so over our usual conversation:

Me: Babe, what would you like for dinner?
Toby: I don't know babe. It doesn't matter.
Me: Okay, well would you like XYZ?
Toby: No, I am tired of XYZ. How about ABC?
Me: We just had that last week, and we've been eating a lot of cheese lately.
Both: *sigh*

We either couldn't agree on something or we were always eating the same thing, AND late at night, I might add. On top of that we would spend so much money because I would forget what we had in the fridge and get an extra jar of mayo or something or just suggest grabbing Chipotle. And Chipotle ain't cheap when your man likes to eat. A LOT.

So, it was safe to say that I got a nice slice of humble pie in this area. It was like God was saying, "You need me in all things; including cooking dinner for your husband."

But thank God He led me to Google after I saw Jamie's post on menu planning! I found this website on Google and with some tweaks, I have been using this style of menu planning. The lady on the site strictly used her Google calendar to create and use her menu, while Jamie went the visual route and had hers hanging on display. I needed something visual, but also needed to be able to look at it when I was out and about. So I combined the two.

What I did was first draw a calendar on a piece of paper (you can also just print a calendar. I was at work. Hey, a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do) and then began to fill that baby in. Let me just say that trying to figure out 30 dinner meals was a challenge, so I went to Pinterest. I then broke the days down to this:

Sundays: old favorites or something new
Mondays: veggie or baked meals
Tuesdays: pasta
Wednesdays: chicken
Thursdays: salads
Fridays: pizza
Saturdays: leftovers or going out

From there, I uploaded my list to my Google calendar and made sure to add the link to the websites of new recipes and ingredients to the notes section so I could view it on my phone and I knew what to pick up at the store. I also added Toby as an administrator so he can view and edit the calendar. To get step-by-step details on how to set up your dinner plan on your calendar and how to organize it, click here.

An example of a recipe on our calendar

Let me just say that this is such a life saver! We both know what's for dinner each night, and if I have extra time the day before, I can begin to prep for the next day's meal (still working on that part!). Plus, I usually make enough for us to have for lunch the next day. Also, it helps me stick to a budget because I won't end up wasting money by buying more mayo when I actually have two jars waiting for me at home.

Any of you out there menu plan? How's it been going for you?