Freedom in Planning - Meals

The freedom that you and your family can find with meal planning is incredible. There are businesses upon businesses who are ready to help you plan your meals. They range from sending you full meals to providing recipes to organizing your personal recipes in a weekly plan for you. And these are just a sampling. There are even meal planning notebooks and notepads and dry erase boards. However, none of it works if it doesn't work for you. Likewise, it only works for you if you stick with it. So take some time to look at some options, ask your friends who have similar tastes (literally) and lifestyles, and try one way of meal planning that you think may work well for you. Additionally, if something has worked for you in the past doesn't mean that it will work for you indefinitely. As your lifestyle, family, and home changes, so may your meal planning strategies.

Some of you may want to stop reading now because you love the thrill of the chase. You’d rather a deadline of 6pm to make up something from whatever you have on hand. If that’s you, you may not want to try meal planning right now. Or maybe, even if you love the thrill, you’ve started to see the toll it’s taking on you and your family. If so, reading this article does not commit you to meal planning. It doesn’t hurt to have ideas.

Since this article is about the freedom found in meal planning, let's get to it.

Save Time

A lot goes into making a meal, not just cooking the food. Let’s make it more streamlined leaving more time for things that are important to you.

Planning
Starting with a decluttered and organized pantry, you can plan meals for the week based on what you have in your pantry. If there is something that is on it's way to the trash can if it's not used soon, plan a meal around it. If it seems overwhelming and you like lists, this may be a good route for you: Make a list of pantry items. Using a cook book or online tool to find some recipes using those pantry items. Write down which meals you want to make which days. Or simply know that you will eat those meals sometime that week. Make a grocery list of things you still need after using up your pantry items. After putting in the initial time to plan at the front end, you have taken the stress out of the day-of “what will we have for dinner” decision fatigue each and every day.

Shopping
Knowing what you need for the week ahead gives you an exact list of ingredients that you need. If you use a food delivery system you will save even more time. Although you will pay for that time with actual money. If you use a pick-up-at-store process, you will breeze through the order process because you already know what you need. And the same is true if you are walking into the store. Well, unless you take that curious and always-learning toddler with you. But you already knew that.

Prepping and Cooking
Since the food in your pantry, fridge, and freezer are easy to see, grabbing everything you need to cook the meal you planned for should be a breeze. The time that could be spent wracking your brain to think up something to eat that your whole family will like from what you have on hand is now yours again to do with as you please. How about a bubble bath? Also, you now know how long the meal you are making should take to make. That goes a long way in helping your night to run more smoothly.

Save Cash

If you know exactly what you need, you are less likely to spend money on things you don't need. Yes, this does take self-control and you are fully capable of that. And with time and practice, it becomes even easier. Not only are you only buying things that you plan to eat, because you are planning what you are eating, things aren't going to waste in your fridge. Because you have decluttered and organized your pantry, things won't get lost and go bad either.

Have More Fun

Maybe you like to explore different types of foods and try new recipes. When you plan ahead, you can make sure that you have that ingredient that is essential to the recipe - even if you did have to go across town to the local Asian grocery to find it.

Question for you

How can you implement any of these ideas to help you find freedom in your home?