How to Meal Plan for the Month
Samantha Rothman
This might sound odd but I’ve found that meal planning for the entire month is far easier than trying to think about it on a week to week basis. Today I’m going to talk about the advantages I’ve found by planning on a monthly basis and how I do it. This is also going to cover a few other things related to food that I think are worth sharing and that make monthly meal planning easier.
To start, I plan the month about a week before the month actually starts. You’ll see why I do that when you jump below to “how we food shop”.
Let’s start by how we (generally) buy our food. This process has really been the silver lining of COVID; now that I’ve adopted this “new” way of feeding our family, I don’t think I’ll go back to the way I used to do things (which was kind of haphazard and resulted in a lot of wasted food and expensive take out).
Currently we food shop via a weekly grocery delivery. We get ours on Monday mornings between 5 am and 7 am. I love this time slot. Anything I need to start the week – even Monday morning breakfast – arrives then and it just feels like a great, organized start to the week. Plus it makes me notice those leftover bits of stuff in the fridge that didn’t get eaten and needs to get tossed.
The first delivery of the month has the perishables I need for the week plus the staples that I’ll need for the entire month (this is why I plan for the next month about a week out from the ending of the current month we’re in). This also means that I’ve spent a chunk of the monthly food budget upfront (see my budget blog post for more on that). However, I also now know that I’ll have most of what I need for any meal planned for the month already available!
This is the magic of monthly planning…by having the basics for any of my meals, it’s easier to flip-flop a couple meals here and there if we want to change the plan on the fly. This simple idea (re: flexibility) has been the key to the success of meal planning. Back when I was planning just a week at a time, I wouldn’t feel like cooking what I had planned for that day and then suddenly, I felt like I had nothing ready to make as an alternative. For example, say I lost track of time and am late to starting dinner that day. With a month of meals at a glance, I can now look around the coming meals and switch something in that’s quicker to make! Odds are I’ll have the supplies too! More flexibility means more success.
When I first started thinking about meal planning, doing it for a month felt crazy and too controlling. Now that I’m doing it, it actually feels more freeing. An added bonus is that I can just look at the meal plan and see what we’ve already eaten which has resulted in adding more variety to our meals. Plus, I’ve been more apt to try new recipes. It’s a total game changer.
Ok… back to how we actually get food.
Staples we buy at the start of the month include things like meat, extra loaves of bread, or other bakery items. I will freeze all of these that aren’t required for that week. Additionally, I buy ready made biscuits in that pop-can (yes, I know – they are totally unhealthy and packed with hydrogenated oils but they make a nice treat with dinner from time to time… any fantasies you might have about us eating all organic and natural, you can just throw out the window… we eat our fair share of processed crap). We buy some perishable items in the first shop of the month that hold well like onions, garlic, fresh ginger, sweet potatoes and a couple heads of cauliflower…
I also enjoying shopping at the winter farmers’ market hosted by Grow It Green Morristown. It’s on Sundays. It’s a little bit harder to plan what I’m going to buy there, but in general, I get carrots, beets, fresh bread, and some yummy baked treats. That’s where I will buy any pork based products like sausage or bacon. That’s not to say that I don’t like the chicken and beef I find there, but because I know I need those things in certain amounts and cuts, I seem to buy them more through the delivery service. I’m aiming to change that and by more locally produced proteins. I also buy a big 25 lb box of ground beef from Five Mary’s from time to time. It comes frozen and packaged in 1 lb sleeves of meat.
For items like rice or boxed rice mixes (I use those a lot), I buy in bulk through Costco from time to time. We also have a really good Latin grocery market in town and I stock up on dried beans, rice, lentils and the like there.
In short, I find that it’s much easier to grocery shop this way (another benefit of monthly meal planning). After the big, top of the month shop, and I buy pretty much the same things each week. Greens for salads, milk, deli stuff for the kids…
Next let’s talk about cost savings. The way we save money using this method is pretty straight forward.
1. We don’t eat nearly as much take-out because of the flexibility of the system. I feel less burned out on cooking and I’m actually enjoying cooking more. Which, to be honest, I do 99.9% of the cooking for our family. John makes this dish called beefaroni. When I can’t make dinner, I let him know it’s a beefaroni night.
2. I don’t buy things we don’t need. I’m in the kitchen when I place the grocery order so I can just check the supplies in real time. I’m also not temped to buy things because I’m hungry or it “looks good.”
3. If something we use often is on sale, I buy two (sometimes more!)
4. I can use “cheep” things like rice and beans more often and in more creative ways.
5. Less waste! We actually eat pretty much everything I buy and leftovers don’t become “forgotten.”
Next, the actual planning part.
If you’ve read my other posts, you know that I’m a paper person. I use iCal on the computer and I print off a monthly calendar using the “print” button, but I take off all the things I’ve entered into iCal so essentially, I’m printing a paper, blank monthly calendar spread. On to this I write what we’re having for dinner each night, M-F, for the month. I leave the weekends open because we’ll usually just graze on whatever leftovers are around, order take out, make a random pot of soup, or get something at the Farmer’s market. I post the calendar on the fridge door when I’m done filling it in.
First, I fill in Friday. I make homemade pizza once a week. Usually on Friday. It’s ridiculously easy to make. I use the basic King Arthur pizza flour blend. Then I fill in “burger night”. We have burger night usually twice a month. It’s hamburgers, tater-tots, frozen peas and a salad. Then I start at the 1st of the month and fill in.
I usually do a new recipe (or something that takes more effort) on a Monday because I’ve got more time on Monday evenings and I feel “fresh” for the week (vs burned out and ready to tell everyone to just eat (more) ramen). I like the Pioneer Woman’s Dinnertime cook book for easy, but crowd pleasing, things and I’ll jot down the page number too. If I find something on-line, I print out the recipe while planning the month so I have it for food shopping purposes. Tuesdays are usually either tacos or pasta of some kind. I try to also have a vegetarian meal once a week (curry is a favorite, served with frozen naan) and we like to have fish at least once a week too. Often it’s breaded and fried, but the kids eat it, so I’m happy with that. Alternatively, they love salmon patties and I always have the ingredients on hand (so that’s an easy one to do the previously mentioned “flip-flop” with if I need a simple thing to make). I’m a big fan of one-pot type meals so a crock-pot, insta-pot, or Dutch oven meal are all favs for me too. A note on the insta-pot… I just got one. I’m already a fan because of how fast you can cook dried beans (no soaking!) and the water left from the cooking is so perfect for soup. Did I mention we eat a lot of soup? With some crusty bread or a pile of grilled cheese sandwiches cut into quarters?
Now let’s talk about the order of meal line up. For the most part, I’m not that into meal “prepping” where you chop up a whole bunch of stuff on Day 1 and use it for meals on days 1-3 or whatever. I like to keep my systems as simple as possible. Having to think about making a whole chicken on Monday so I can have some scrap of it left on Thursday is like, way too much brain power for me. The most I aim for is try to make enough quantity of dinner so at least the adults can have leftovers for lunch the next day. That’s it. I’m not aiming for perfection here.
Lastly, let’s talk about side dishes. If the “main” is something like vegetable curry, then I pretty much serve it with rice or bread or both and call it good. If it’s more heavy on meat, I have a side of vegetables and either rice, bread, corn chips, potatoes... I have two skinny boys and a cyclist husband so they need carbs. Me? Well, let’s just say I should not be eating like they do…
For sides of veggies we pretty much have the same things often: roasted cauliflower, sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, frozen corn, frozen peas… Add butter and salt to that and they will eat it. Or A1. Which is like liquid salt. I don’t care. As long as they eat vegetables. My kids love raw peppers (red or yellow only) and raw carrots, so I try to have those on the table before everything else. When they sit down, they just start eating those. John and I eat salad; even if it’s just taking a handful of arugla out of the box and throwing it on the plate we’re eating from, that counts as a salad. Simple, people. We also eat rice often. Usually some type of boxed mix (that has a lot of salt… I know) and then I dump in rinsed canned beans and chopped (really chopped!) spinach. The kids eat it just fine. Just don’t push it… there is an upper threshold for how much spinach or kale they can deal with before they reject it. Me too, to be honest.
We eat together and we go around the table and everyone picks someone to say something nice to. You can get up and leave when you are done, without having to wait for others to be finished eating. If you’re ready to leave, then I really don’t feel like asking you to stay. We all see enough of each other anyway… I find that the people who want to stick around and chat do so naturally and sometimes that’s all of us and sometimes… it’s just me and John which is like, a huge win.
And that my friends, is dinner at our house.
UPDATE: For the month of February, I’ll be posting what we actually ate for the week. Maybe these meal plans will help you for your #monthlymealplanning !
Always open to your tips, tricks and thoughts! Drop a comment below if you’ve got suggestions for others!