Last year was a very busy year in my business and life in general. I am not sure about you but for me, one of the things that suffered as a result of being busy was regular grocery. Of course this then resulted not having lots of fresh food on hand then coming home and doing the ‘what’s for dinner dance’ only to decide that take away or quick supermarket options were the best we could do in the short amount of time we had. My meal planning was too often last minute and generally I was not looking after myself or the family in a way which I am happy with.
Even though we would choose healthier quick options such as a supermarket roast chicken, Thai, Japanese or Korean it is nowhere near as healthy as you can make at home. I feel that it is just not honoring myself or the family when we are eating this way too often. Plus, the cost! Oh my goodness, I added up how much we were spending on food eating in an ad hock fashion and it was crazy!
So as 2019 approached, I knew that it was time to make some positive changes.
To get the family on board, we created a plan of attack together, which worked like a dream because they were all in with me on making a fresh start in 2019.
The plan was to do something that I have never done before and that was to have a structured week around our evening meals, as in a meal plan. The only thing was, that I hated the idea of this because I have so much structure in my life already that I felt opposed to having further structure and around one of life’s pleasures! But I knew that a change had to be made so that we can be more organised in order to deliver fast healthy meals to the table every night.
I created a menu plan around meals that we enjoy as a family and also so that the meals can have variations. For example Tuesday is Taco night (we are so cliché) but with taco’s you can have chicken, beef, pork, fish and so on, plus the veggies can vary too.
With the family on board, together we came up with a meal plan that suits us and this year for the most part unless something is on, we have stuck to it. And it has worked! I am feeling more organised, we know what we have to buy for the week ahead or for that night if we are flying by the seat of our pants. There are no more conversations around ‘what’s for dinner, I don’t know what’ do you feel like for dinner…. Ok, let’s just get pizza!
I have mentioned my meal plan a few times on my Instagram stories so I thought that I would share over the next few weeks all of my recipes that I have been using to create my meal plan.
This is what is on our weekly menu:
MONDAY – Frittata Night
TUESDAY – Taco Night
WEDNESDAY – Salmon Night
THURSDAY – Spaghetti Bolognaise Night
FRIDAY – Burger Night
SATURDAY – BBQ Night or it is free depending on what we are doing.
SUNDAY – Roast Night – yes we have been bringing back the family roast dinner.
Being organised, makes all the difference, even if the being organised part is just having a plan!
We were really struggling before to stay focused because of life pulling us from all sides. Now this is something that we just don’t even have to think about. If you are like me and are busy and find that you are struggling to be organised with your weekly meals, then this really is a great solution. It has worked so well for us. I am saving time, money and annoying conversations plus we are eating in a way that honours the family by being delicious and healthy. It’s a winning formula!
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