Menu Planning – How To Menu Plan For A Month In 35 Minutes!
by PlanningQueen on September 13, 2009 in RecipesI often prattle on about how efficient it is to menu plan for the family in bulk and how once you start the process, you can knock a monthly plan of quite quickly. Well this weekend when I created our monthly menu plan with the kids, I timed it so I could show you just how quick it really is!
| Time | Task |
| 10 mins | Gain children’s input. 5 meal selections per child. To assist the selection process I have collated a list of all the meals that I have in the planner and printed it out for them.*
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| 5 mins | Mum’s choices. Selected 3 new recipes to try over the month from saved online favourites. I now have 23 meals selected of the 28 needed for the monthly plan.
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| 2 mins | Create matrix of activity and meal requirements for each day of the week. One day a week will be created from “left overs”, so now I have 27 of the 28 meals that I need to choose for the month!
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| 8 mins | Allocate the meals listed across the days of the month, according to the matrix. Choose a meal to fill the one remaining gap.
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| 10 mins | Use the Planning With Kids Free Menu Planner to collate menu plans and shopping lists. Save these pdf files with date naming conventions like “090912 menu plan.pdf” and “090912 shopping list.pdf”
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35 mins | Completed Monthly Menu Plan For The Family! |
6 comments...read them below or add one
Woah. I am in awe. It usually takes me 35 minutes just to work out what we’re having for dinner on any one given night!
i will generally eat anything as wel!!!!!
Also, as can happen with any plan, event execution can be different to expectation. For us, that happens when the kids love the meal so much that they eat my portion (often I get home from work after mealtime). When this occurs i have a stack of pies in the freezer in waiting.
Thanks Alison – That’s what it was like for me too. It is amazing how quickly you can run through it when you allocate some time – when no kids are starving!
Mr I – Definitely! As the older boys are getting bigger, very soon I am going to have to increase the volume of what I am cooking.
I love my menu plan which is a little different from your but similar – what i also love is my coles online shopping – with my menu plan and shopping list it is a breeze
[...] once you are in the menu planning mind set, it is a task that can be done very quickly. I can now plan our family meals for the month in 35 minutes. I then use the shopping lists generated to do a bulk monthly grocery shop (we do fruit and veg [...]
[...] Or if you would like to try menu planning for a month for yourself you can check out my post on how to How To Menu Plan For A Month In 35 Minutes. [...]