Spring Menu Planner Worksheet Free Printable
With the start of Spring, we as parents all have a lot of activities to plan for, end of school parties, graduations, summer jobs, playground dates, long walks, bike trips and hikes. Adding all this activity along with keeping the home in order and everyone feed can be a frustrating job. However, taking a little time out of each week to plan the family meals will relieve a lot of this stress and give you a basic plan to follow along with all the ingredients already in your pantry.
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It is hectic to keep up with Spring activities with kids and family and make a homemade dinner every night. Keep your family fed and healthy seems impossible as Spring functions add up.
With 3 kids at home, the only way I could keep our food budget down, control the ingredients in our meals and make sure all ages got a healthy meal was to plan a week in advance our dinners. This spring I have designed a free daffodil theme weekly meal plan worksheet so inspire myself and you to take a little time in your week to save you hours later each night.
How To Meal Plan
Meal planning sounds like a huge job but it really is not as bad once you start and make it a weekly practice. Having it written down also helps keep your ideas and plan right in eyes view to remind you that a plan is set when you start getting tired or frustrated.
- Start by think of the 5 to 10 dinner recipes that you know your family loves and asks for. Find these recipes, print them off, put them in your favorite recipe app, or make a copy out of the recipe book you regularly use. Put them in one place with your weekly planner.
- Next, look at your week and what you have on your calendar. Look and see which days you want to have a family dinner ready.
- As you look at your week as a whole maybe you need to make slow cooker or Instant Pot recipe that will say warm as everyone will not be home at once but that is just fine. Your goal is to feed your family as many nights of the week a home-cooked non-fast food dinner for health and wellness.
- Now that you have your family favorite meals and you know what nights you can get a healthy meal on the table, fill out the Spring Meal Planner Worksheet for what meals are best cooked on what day.
- Check your kitchen to see what ingredients you already have. Complete the shopping list so you know exactly what you need to buy. If you use one of the stores where you can order online and pick up, order what you need and set a pick-up date.
- Can you believe it you have a whole week of dinners planned, shopping list completed and groceries ready to pick up. Now all you have to do is put the plan in action if you have a husband that likes to cook he knows exactly what to do if he is home first. If you have older children and you feel it is safe you can have them help with the meals or at get the meal started.
Benefits of Meal Planning
Homecooked does not mean slow and tedious. Looking for easy & quick recipes that your family will love will help you save time and money. Saving time & money is number one and the biggest reason for a meal plan.
When you have a plan, with the recipes where you can find them and the ingredients in the house you are not at the last minute searching for carrying out. We have all done it gotten on our cell phones talking to our spouse and one spouse just goes through a drive-through and dinner is served. But is that the way we want our families to eat. Is that the example we want to have for our kids? I can say for us the answer is no!
When you have a plan you also same money on groceries as you are not just tossing food in the cart hoping it makes a meal. As mentioned before you can use a shopping service to save you not only time but money. You will also not be wasting food that goes bad in the kitchen as it is not used.
Planning your family meals your kids will be eating real food and learning how to eat well. Saving time, money and teaching healthy living you can not go wrong.
Who Is Meal Planning For?
Meal planning is for every mom who wants to have a little more time for herself at the end of a busy day. Who wants to save time and money. And who wants to have healthy homemade quick & easy meals for a healthy family.
Take just a little time out of your week to print off the Meal Planner, plan out your week and enjoy dinner in your own home.
~Susan
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Thank you for this free menu planning printable. I’m terrible at meal planning. However, I see why it would be beneficial to do it. I personally tend to get turned off of any ideas I come up with for dinner before I get to that time to cook it when I plan out ahead of time.