Meal Planning 101

Dustin and I used to be the worst at eating out, wasting food, and spending thousands a month on food (thousands might be a slight exaggeration, but we did spend A TON of money on food). Then I stumbled across Pink Pistachio's meal planning guide and thought hey, I can do this. So armed with my new years resolution to be a better wife and cook for my husband who commutes an hour each way to work, I decided to give it a shot. Instead of heading to the grocery store and winging it like I usually do, this time I looked up recipes, figured how I could make one meal last for two and how to best utilize all ingredients, and shopped with my list in tow and a little more direction than usual (no more ummm that looks good). Meal planning is a bit more challenging since I'm a vegetarian and Dustin isn't, but to make it work I just choose meals that can go either way (think salad with or without chicken) or I just throw a veggie burger on as my main dish and eat the sides. This is our second week of meal planning (so in no way am I a pro), but I have to say meal planning is awesome! There's no more what are we having for dinner? or I'm so hungry, but there's nothing to eat. Dustin loves having each meal prepared for him, I love the praise I'm getting from making the meals, we are saving money by eating almost every meal at home, and no food goes to waste (we literally had an empty refrigerator at the end of last week where we used to have a full refrigerator of rotting fruits and veggies). We have spent around $130 at Whole Foods and Sprouts both weeks which is pretty good for us.

The key to meal planning is choosing one or two meals that you really want for the week and then working the other meals around that.  For example, I made ribs one night and then we had tacos the next night with the leftover ribs.  I also got a whole chicken, put it in the crock pot with lemon and rosemary and it lasted for quite a few meals (chicken sandwich, chicken taco soup, chicken salad).  I definitely recommend giving meal planning a shot.