1 – Plan for a Week at a Time: Some people shop every other week, or even try for once a month. Others are at the store every other day. The most efficient way, taking into consideration your time AND food expiration dates, is weekly. It is much easier to shop on lets say Sunday, and know you need 7 of each thing, of each person. Or have your ingredients planned our for each dinner, and get them all at once. You’ll be able to buy more in bulk, be able to buy more fresh items, and not waste money. I have templates for this in my online course to help with this.
2- Always Shop from a List: This is so important. This is the #1 reason you need a plan first! If you wander into the store knowing you need some fruits, some veggies, some meats, and like a couple canned things, you will at some point realize you have too much, or too little of something. This takes up space, wastes time, and costs money in food that’s going to go bad! Eating healthy can be very inexpensive if you do it right. The money you save is done through the effort you put into plan. There is a shopping list template in my online course.
3- Batch Foods in Your Fridge: If you have the worlds smallest, and least useful fridge like I do, you’ll want to be organized. If you know that these 4 items are all of Tuesday’s dinner, put them together. Repeat that for each dinner you’ll cook, or put all the lunch items together. This is going to make for much easier packing each morning, or cooking each night. It really does help you stay on track if you don’t have to dig through your fridge to eat healthy and stay on plan. Make it as easy on yourself as possible and you’ll stay focused.
4 – Don’t Hide Your Fruits and Veggies: The crisper drawer is a LIE. If you eat your fruits and veggies with in the week, they do not need crisping. That is where healthy food goes to die! If you do all the work to cut celery, chop peppers, and wash those grapes, put them right in the line of sight. You will eat what you see first, and what is easiest, most the time, so put them front and center. Use those bottom drawers for things you don’t need to be grabbing easily, or things that aren’t as perishable.
5 – Make Sure Your Family Knows the Plan: The most annoying thing that happened when I first started meal planning, was going to make something, and one of the ingredients was missing! I’d either face going to the store, making something from another night, or the most likely scenario, ordering pizza LOL. If your plan is clearly written, printed, etc on a fridge, notepad, or whiteboard, everyone knows what is going on. This might also help the relentless “what’s for dinner?” questioning 😉
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