What's for dinner?

So I guess menu planning is the biggest rage around mommy land, which seems kind of like a no brainer to me. I mean, how else do you figure out what you're going to have for dinner?






There are a billion sites that offer services for you, fancy craft ways to make it all cute and fun, and tons of free printables to help you organize yourself.


But I've always just done it, more or less because I HATE going to the grocery store. Even more so now that I always have at least two littles in tow.


So here's what works for us.


We shop at Costco for things like milk, eggs, and meat. As well as things that we go through by the trough full, such as string cheese, yogurt, bread, waffles, and peanut butter.


At the beginning of the week, Husband and I sit down and brainstorm about which meals sound good for dinner for the week. He's pretty good about letting me try out new recipes that I've found on Pinterest, and we both kind of know which recipes we all enjoy and try to base our decisions on what we have in the freezer. 

After we've decided which meals we're going to have, we make the grocery list for what we need. One of us will do the grocery shopping, and usually pick up some extra staples, ( like black beans and diced tomatoes), and we always have all of the ingredients for tacos ready, just in case. (Always)


Then we look at our calendar for the week. If we have an evening engagement, I try to make something that gets put together fast, and that will make enough food for our childcare workers (read: grandparents) to enjoy a meal too.


The rest of the week, we kind of just decide in the morning which meal we will have, at which time I take the meat out of the freezer, or assemble the ingredients in the crock pot.


It's super simple and saves us so much time and money! Only making one shopping trip a week has been a life saver. And while I would love to use fancy things like this, or these printables, my handy pen and notepad work just as well.


Do you meal plan?