Family Meal Planning Made Easy

I grew up in a busy household of five children.  As you can imagine this fact made dinner no small matter at my house!  Over the years I learned some strategies to make the process of shopping and meal planning easier. 

Create a printable list: Writing a shopping list for the entire week can be a daunting task as you try to figure out what meals you wish to make, not to mention remembering the staples you need to re-stock your pantry!  We came up with a printable list in Word (Excel is fine too) of all the foods we typically buy, with extra space to write in amounts or exotic foods.  This may take a couple edits to truly be all encompassing.  Foods were arranged in categories (not alphabetically) so we were not walking back and forth through the store wasting time.  This list was printed off the computer and hung up every week.  During the week if we ran out of something or were getting low my siblings and I would circle the food item.  By the time shopping came around almost all the work was done.  My mom simply circled the foods that we needed to buy for meals. 

 Create a menu of your favorite foods: There are so many different ways to customize this step so it works for your family!  At my house we designed a categorized list of all the meals and sides we enjoyed.  The list was divided into pasta, soup, meat dishes, vegetables and starches.  My mom could easily make meal combinations without wracking her brain.  She then wrote out the meals for the week on the family wall calendar. 

For people who are more visual you can create your own magnetic calendar for meals.  Below is one of my favorite examples but the possibilities are endless:

Use the same ingredients several times: If you are on a budget it will take a bit more creativity to make meal planning work.  I have found choosing meals that have similar ingredients in succession prevents waste and uses up the leftovers that would normally sit around in your fridge.  If you need to buy herbs try to make several meals in a row to use up the fresh greens before they spoil.  Or if you are making chicken use the leftovers to make soup the next day.

Great Christmas products

Here are some of my favorite items and products that are sure to make Christmas time easier! 


Square Storage Box and Ornament Storage Trays

Storage Box Link

Large and Small Ornament Trays Link

You don’t need a fancy storage box for ornaments.  I love this clear bin because the contents are visible.  You don’t need to label the box!  I also like these storage trays because they have sides to prevent the ornaments from falling off the tray when you remove a layer from the storage bin!

Ribbon Box

Ribbon Box Link

No more fighting with roles of gift wrap ribbon!  This little box both stores and dispenses the ribbon so it does not get tangled or crushed.  


Foam Ornament Packing Envelopes

Ornament Envelope Link

I am one of those people who reuses the tissue paper an ornament came in to store it.  After a couple years the paper gets torn and the labels get crushed.  These packing envelopes are a great idea!  Keep your ornaments safe and organized.

Holiday Dinnerware Storage

Dinnerware Storage Link

The peek-a-boo window in these storage boxes sold me.  You do not have to label the box or even remove the lid to see the contents!  You can see the pattern and the inside through the large clear window.

How to create more space in your kitchen

-Designate an area in your house to act as secondary storage for your kitchen.  A shelving unit at the bottom of the basement stairs, a shelving unit in the garage, shelves in your pantry or even an extra closet are great options.

-Determine what items you rarely use but still need for certain occasions.  Bread machines, lobster pots, large roasting pans, Christmas molds and special serving dishes and utensils are only a few of the candidates for the secondary storage area.  Anything you use about once a month or perhaps every couple of weeks could go in this area.

-This space is perfect for bulk food purchases that need to be stored until you are ready to bring the food into the pantry or kitchen cabinets for use.  If possible buy some shallow baskets to store small, similar food items to help categorize and organize the food shelf.  If you have a lot of canned goods small stacking shelves on your existing shelves can take advantage of the vertical space often wasted by a row of canned goods.

It is important to assess the items in your kitchen and make sure they are active and used regularly.  Anything else should move to another storage area.  This practice will create more useful space on your counters and also prevent your cabinets from being stuffed with non-essential kitchen items. 

Make an impromptu display stand

This week I discovered another use for small, self-adhesive rubber bumpers one normally finds on the inside of a cabinet door.  They make fantastic barriers for plates you want to display.  Because they are so small and often transparent these bumpers don’t take away from the item you are trying to show off.

Take the plate you want to display and hold it on the shelf to see where it looks best.  Once you have determined that spot just place a rubber bumper in front of the plate’s spot and let it adhere fully.   If the item is large add two bumpers next to one another.  Within a matter of seconds you have a low profile and easy solution to make a plate or picture stand up securely!  

Moving one household to multiple destinations

Working with individuals who are downsizing for a move means I run into more and more people moving items to multiple destinations.  Recently I spoke to someone who needed to transport items to new homes in both Boston and California as well as a storage unit in the area.  The packing company had to know exactly what to pack and ship to each destination and we needed an easy system for accomplishing this goal. 

We decided to take different colored masking tape and assign each location a color.  Every item in the house would get a strip of tape based upon where it needed to go.  Then the packers would know exactly which items to pack up for each house or the storage unit. Brilliant!

How to purge food without throwing it away

When my pantry gets a little too full I look at what I have and make a meal plan based upon the contents before buying more food.  Often times I get almost a week’s worth of dinners from the food.  This prevents my pantry and refrigerator from becoming too full.  When either space gets packed it is hard to see what is on hand and duplicates are bought by mistake.  I like to “shop and cook” from my cabinets and fridge about once per month instead of buying ingredients according to a menu I have already created. 

This habit helps me cut down on waste and really use what I own!  Sunday as I prepped my shopping list I noticed I had leftover veggies that would only be alright for a few more days.  I needed to buy more but didn’t want to waste what I had.  So I made soup out of the older vegetables and made room for the fresher ones.  It was a tasty solution to my space problem.

Don't bring it home

When we are away from home and the clutter it is easy to buy something and think it will fit right in at the house.  But our homes are so often filled with these types of items, the impulse purchases we make because we couldn’t resist acquiring them.  A huge part of clutter management involves being brutally stringent about what comes through the door.   

When you are out and about and something catches your eye ask yourself these questions before you walk away with a new trinket…

“Do I truly need this?  Can I live without it?  Is this thing necessary for me to live my life?”

“Do I have a place for this item to reside?”

You must be honest from the beginning.  If you answered “no” to any of the questions above the item should not find a home with you!  If you absolutely need to bring something back and space is limited decide before you leave the store what item at home can go to make room for the new purchase.