Printable Meal Planner + Grocery List

Simplifying in 2019

There is something so refreshing about a blank slate and a brand new start going into the New Year. I’m not normally one to make New Year’s resolutions or choose a “word of the year,” but going into 2019 one word kept coming to mind: s i m p l i f y. In the busyness of life and the (wonderful) chaos of raising two young children, I felt like I was drowning in the clutter and disorganization.

My goal for 2019 is to slow down, simplify + organize, and get rid of the extra clutter so to speak; both practically and metaphorically.

Disorganization

One of the areas in our life that Hubby and I set out to simplify is our diet (we started another Whole30 on January 2nd, but more on that later). Because of disorganization and lack of proper planning, I would constantly find myself looking up at the end of the day only to realize Hubby was on his way home from work and I had no plan for dinner. Not only did this make me feel less than adequate as a wife and mother, it led to the bad habit of asking Hubby to either swing through and pick up some quick unhealthy meal, or have him run to the grocery store for the “one thing” I needed to throw together a dinner at the last minute.

I knew something needed to change, so I sat down and created a printable weekly meal planner as well as a grocery shopping list.

Printable Meal Planner + Grocery List

You can download your free printable meal planner HERE and your grocery shopping list HERE.

Meal Planning

I can’t even tell you what a game-changer this has been. I am the first to admit that I really don’t enjoy cooking all that much (if I’m going to “make” something I’d much rather be crafting, sewing, or DIYing). But I also recognize that as a wife and mother I have a Godly responsibility to provide my family with healthy meals.

She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants. Proverbs 31:15

Even though I still don’t love to cook, I have learned to find joy and satisfaction in preparing a healthy meal that we can enjoy around the table together as a family at the end of the day.

It’s become my routine to sit down on Sunday afternoon and write out quick and easy meals for each day of the week. Then I make my grocery list directly from my meal plan and make one big trip to the grocery store for the entire week.

This simple process has made cooking more enjoyable, grocery shopping more enjoyable, and our evenings as a family more enjoyable.

Biggest Takeaways & Positive Impacts

The positive impacts we have noticed from such a small change have been tremendous:

• Fewer trips to the grocery store: Previously I was making multiple trips to the grocery store throughout the week, sometimes multiple trips in one day. (If you’ve ever been grocery shopping with two young children you understand what a nightmare this is!) Because I wasn’t organized I would always end up missing one or two ingredients I needed for a recipe. Now I sit down on Sunday and map out our meals for the week. I make one master grocery list and make one big trip to the grocery store that lasts us all week. And all the mamas of littles said AMEN!
• Never missing that one ingredient: See what I said above? The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I got halfway through making dinner one night only to realize we were out of eggs. Now I make my grocery list straight from my weekly meal plan and I always have every ingredient I need for each meal.
• Less food waste: I can’t stand throwing food away. We used to end up with a bunch of food at the house but none of it made any sense or went together to form cohesive meals. It would go bad before we could eat it and we would end up throwing it away. Now every meal is accounted for and we have just the right amount of food in the house to last us seven days.
• Healthier meals: When I sit down and plan out our meals at home I choose healthy meals with clean ingredients, and I am able to stick to them! (As opposed to letting my eyes and stomach tempt me into sneaking all the junk into the buggy at the grocery store)
• Meal prepping: Never in my life have I been a “meal prepper,” but when I sit down and physically write out every meal I am encouraged to prep certain meals for the week. For example, we have been making a big batch of egg muffins on Sunday evenings that is enough to last us through the entire week. I’ve learned that it makes no sense to scramble eggs every single morning when I can do it all at once and be done with it for the entire week.
• Dinner around the table together as a family: It’s so important to sit down to dinner together as a family. I am now organized enough to ensure this actually happens on time and it has become one of the sweetest parts of our day.
• Calmer evenings: Stemming from sitting down together as a family, our evenings feel so much more calm and collected. Hubby works extremely long hours and it has given us time to relax and play with the kids after dinner.
• Budget: At first I thought our grocery budget was actually suffering from this newfound meal planning routine. But then I realized our grocery bill only seems larger simply because we are only going to the grocery store once a week. We have one large grocery bill rather than multiple smaller grocery bills. It has also cut down drastically on the amount of times we eat out. We may eat out once a week now whereas before we were constantly “grabbing something” to go.
• Time: I’ve gained so much time by simply putting in a little effort upfront to ensure our meals are organized for the week ahead.

Maybe I’m late to the game and you’re thinking, “Well, duh, Casey, why are you just now figuring this out?” Better late than never, right?

Or maybe you’re like me and you need a little extra help to get organized and win back your evenings together as a family. If so I hope these printables are as helpful to you as they have been to me!