Mom Goals and Resolutions: Meal Planning

Being a mom is a rewarding job, but it’s also a difficult one. Between all the cleaning, homework help, laundry and motherly advice, we struggle to find time to cook meals that are both nutritious and appealing to the kids. If we don’t have a game plan, it’s almost next to impossible.

That’s one reason that meal planning is often overlooked in favor of convenience foods. While kids often like frozen pizzas and microwavable items, they are usually low in nutritional value. If we plan meals in advance, we can reduce the amount of convenience foods our families eat, improve the amounts of important vitamins and minerals they get, and save time and money shopping at the grocery store. So why not make meal planning one of your New Year’s resolutions?

How Do I Go About Planning Meals?

Meal planning does take a certain amount of time and thought, but it makes things much easier when it is time to cook. When you plan ahead you know that you’ll have all the ingredients you need and you can plan simple meals for several days when you know you won’t have much time. Here’s how to do it:

1. Start your meal plan the day after you plan to go to the grocery store. You don’t have to go by exact calendar weeks, but planning for 7 days at a time makes it easier to keep up with.

2. Decide what you will serve for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. Be sure to include at least one of everyone’s favorite foods each week. You could make a separate list of favorites for easy reference.

3. Don’t forget to add some variety now and again. Trying new things is good for us!

4. Make sure that each meal is nutritionally balanced. If you’re not a nutritional expert, locate a food pyramid chart online and print it to refer to for the proper number of servings per day of each food group. You may not be able to hit a perfect balance every day, but you should be able to come reasonably close.

5. Once you’ve planned the meals for the week, make your grocery shopping list. Go through your menu plan and decide which ingredients you need to buy for each meal.

6. When you go to the grocery store, don’t forget to pick up some healthy snack options. Fresh fruits are popular healthy snacks among kids and they are loaded with beneficial vitamins.

Simple meal planning allows us to feed our children healthy food with less fuss. It also saves us time and money in the long run. Of course, the best part is that it helps make everyone happy because they’ll enjoy their favorite foods on a more regular basis. Planning meals is a great way to start off the New Year… make it one of YOUR resolutions!

Chele Neisler is your host for Moms Love Shopping. As a mother of three boys, Chele is happy to have Moms Love Shopping as an outlet and a connection to other women. Spending every moment with all males isn’t easy! Hosting the show also allows her the chance to return to her two first loves, shopping and chatting.