Save Time and Money with a Six Week Meal Plan

When I was younger, I wanted spontaneity and excitement. These days I pray for what some may consider boring; a scheduled routine. The older I get the more I find that keeping schedules of almost everything has simplified, made more productive and has increasingly made my life less stressful. I'd like to share some of my ideas to save you some time.

Being the person in our home responsible for grocery shopping and meal preparation, I found that making a six week schedule has saved me a tremendous amount of time. Well, O.K. I can't take full credit for it… My sister began using a convenient yet healthy, catering service. In her case, it was perfect. For a single person it worked out to be cheaper or at least equal to eating out all the time. In my case however, I was preparing for a family of four and the catering service did not have a "family plan price". We wanted to eat healthier as the service provided, but it would end up being more costly than preparing our own meals and that did not fit our budget.

I asked my sister to save the meal slips that came with her food. I thought, I may not be able to mirror exact portions, but I could prepare the same variety of meals. And so it started; I would make the meal for that particular day with the same side dishes. If it was something I was not familiar with, I would look up a recipe for it in a cookbook or even easier, I would just Google it! Let me tell you, it will take a little bit of trial and error. My family can still tell you the first day I made red beans and rice! They called my sister to give her a sarcastic, yet comical "THANK YOU!" for giving me the idea to make it. Let's just say that one didn't work out so well! Since then, I have made adjustments to work well for us. Our six week diet has less cheese than the original, and in some cases I have replaced certain things. But in the end, I worked out a six week cycle of meals and recipes to call our own. I have kept the same balance of food groups that the catering service used (minus a small portion of dairy due to the elimination of some cheese). We now have fruit as a regular part of our dinner, which, I think, has caused the decreased desire for a dessert by all.