Monthly Family Meal Planner

It’s Saturday afternoon and you and everyone else are slugging your way through the crowded grocery store hoping to get out with everything you need and with your sanity in tact. Sound familiar? For many families getting a meal on the dinner table every night is a challenge. From the planning, shopping, and cooking, family meal planning can become overwhelming forcing many families to opt for eating out or quicker less healthy alternatives. One way to save your sanity and get a home cooked meal on the table more often is to use a monthly family meal planner that allows you to plan meals a month at a time and streamline your grocery shopping and meal preparations.

What You Will Need

1 Three Ring Binder
8 Three Ring Sheet Protectors
8 Tab Dividers
5 3 Ring Binder Pockets
1 Copy of Each the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall Menu Templates
Copies of the Grocery Shopping List Template

How to Make the Monthly Family Meal Planner

Begin by gathering your supplies and printing off the menu and grocery list templates. At first you will only need one copy of each the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall menu templates, and I suggest you start with twelve copies of the grocery shopping list template (enough to get you through the first season of meal planning). The menu and grocery shopping list templates are available as a free download and you can buy all of the binder supplies at your local office supply store or on-line at Office Depot. See the Where to Buy section for further details.

Next, assemble your monthly family meal planner by inserting all of your tab dividers into the binder. Once you have all the dividers in the binder insert the other items in the following manner:

Tab 1

Insert a copy of the Winter menu template into 1 of the sheet protectors and place it behind Tab 1. Add an additional sheet protector and 1 binder pocket

Tab 2

Insert a copy of the Spring menu template into 1 of the sheet protectors and place it behind Tab 2. Add an additional sheet protector and 1 binder pocket

Tab 3

Insert a copy of the Summer menu template into 1 of the sheet protectors and place it behind Tab 3. Add an additional sheet protector and 1 binder pocket

Tab 4

Insert a copy of the Fall menu template into 1 of the sheet protectors and place it behind Tab 4. Add an additional sheet protector and 1 binder pocket

Once you have your tabs set up, go ahead and place the 12 copies of the grocery shopping list template in the second sheet protector of the season you will be working on first. For example, if you are building your family meal planner in February add all of the copies to the extra sheet protector behind the Winter tab. Over the remainder of the year as you continue to build your family meal planner, you can add additional copies of the grocery shopping list to each season.

How to Use the Monthly Family Meal Planner

The key to building the family meal planner is to build it one week at a time. Don’t try and rush through and feel pressured to complete all four menus at once. After five weeks, you will have 3 months of menus completed.

To begin, determine which season you are starting with; Winter (December – February), Spring (March – May), Summer (June – August), and Fall (September – November). Using the menu calendar for that season, pick the week you are planning for and begin adding in one meal for each day. To streamline the planning, try assigning themes to each day of the week. For example, make Monday chicken night, Tuesday pasta night, Wednesday crock pot night, etc.

Once you get a full week’s worth of meals, add the recipes for the meals to the binder pocket of that section. If your recipe is on a 3 x 5 note card simply slide it into the binder pocket. If your recipe is in a cookbook, make a copy and slide it in the binder pocket.

After your menu is completed for the week and you have gathered the recipes, use your grocery shopping template to check off the items you will need for the meal. Post the grocery list in a central place like on the refrigerator or on the bulletin board to easily add things during the week until you head to the grocery store.

If you use coupons or store fliers, place them into the other sheet protector with the extra grocery lists behind the tab, so that they are easily available when you are ready to go shopping.

Week after week, just continue this process until after five weeks, you have completed one entire menu that will get you through three months of meals. Don’t hesitate to repeat popular meals throughout the month or from season to season to make planning easier.

Use the additional tabs, sheet protectors, and binder pockets for extra copies of the menus, grocery shopping lists, coupons, store fliers, or recipes you want to try.

Where to Buy

You can buy everything you need to make your monthly family meal planner at your local office supply store or on-line at Office Depot . If you have an Office Depot in your area, they offer a great in-store pick up service which offers shoppers a great way of buying on-line and saving on shipping costs by arranging for an in-store pick up. Here are the items used in our family meal planner:

Storex Duratech Round-Ring 1" Binder

Avery Binder Pockets - 5 Pack

Avery Index Maker Clear Label Dividers

Office Depot Clear Sheet Protectors

Additional Resources

Add fun to your family meal with Family Dinner games

Find great recipes at www.recipezaar.com or www.allrecipes.com