A Wo-MAN with a Plan

For some time, I have "pooh pooh"-ed the idea of making a menu plan. And honestly, I can't ever see doing that on a monthly basis like most of the people who so strongly recommend it. Nor can I honestly ever see myself doing it for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner. The idea of being that planned out makes me twitch.

But I have been doing it for about a month now on a weekly basis with our dinners. And I have to say that it is working quite well for me. Surprisingly well, even. I never guessed how much easier it would be just by having a dinner plan written down.

To some extent, I always had an idea of what I wanted to have that week. Usually it was based on what was in our pantry and freezer or what was on sale. Or some combination of both. But by the time Tuesday hit (along with most of the week's day to day goings on), I was forgetting that stuff and sometimes ended up just throwing down whatever was quick and easy. But not necessarily healthy or cheap.

I decided though to give it a try when we got back from our Arkansas visit. After two tree removals, the limb fiasco, a new roof, a new pool pump, and our already planned trip... well, our pockets were decidedly empty. I thought that we might have cinch up the financial belt a bit and our grocery budget usually has the most room to play with. So, I decided to make sure I cooked our dinners for a while with not much going out.

And just to make it more firm for myself, I made a list of that first week's dinners. The Chick latched on to it immediately. She is definitely a woman after my own heart. She likes to KNOW what's going on. It was so freeing to not have to think of what to make each night that I tried it again the next week. And so began a little experiment. Now both the Dude and Hubby are checking it too.

It's a general idea kind of plan. It's not set in stone and can be changed easily for the evening. Here's the one for this week:

Sunday: Hamburgers, pasta salad
Monday: Chicken fajitas, stir fry vegetables
Tuesday: Salisbury steak (made with ground turkey), broccoli rice casserole
Wednesday: Chicken Pot Pie (which we changed to Chicken and Dumplings), green salad
Thursday: the Dude's night (the child chef is supposed to have a plan by Tuesday so I can shop if necessary)
Friday: Homemade pizza
Saturday: Grill food

I've been trying to include a lunch on both Saturday and Sunday lately because we usually have both meals at home on those days but, generally, that is what we affectionately call "Scavenge." Other people call it leftovers or "just find something in the pantry."

And let me just say that we always have vegetables at every meal. The only reason some are not included on the list is because it doesn't take much to throw on a plain vegetable. I usually include the main dish and whatever else requires some time or prep. Or thawing (which is usually the problem I ran into during the week before, by the way). Or if I need to purchase some minor ingredient that I don't have on hand (another nice thing to know ahead of time so I'm not running out hoping I can get back before something burns).

Of course, a lot of those same people who love to plan every meal for the month would probably tell me that my plan isn't enough. But I employ the KISS principle in a lot of things (as taught to me by Dave Ramsey). If you haven't heard of it before, the letters stand for "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

And I really think that's why this is working for me. It's just a basic outline of our meals that is completely fluid if we so desire. You can see that we changed our meal up some last night.

If you haven't tried this before, I'd really suggest it. Even if you just do a basic outline like I am to make life a little easier, I think you're taking charge of your home and saving yourself some headaches. Let me know how it works out for you.