Making My Life Easier: Menu Planning

Twenty-nine years times 365 equals 10,585

Why that calculation?

That is approximately how many times I have had to make a decision about dinner. Now obviously, I have not made dinner that many times over the course of the last twenty-nine years, but probably pretty darn close to that number.

No wonder I am stuck in a rut and just a bit plain tired of planning dinner each and every week.

A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook recently about dinner planning and all that goes into it.

It is just not planning what to eat each night of the week.

When I sit down on Monday morning to plan our week of dinners, I look at the weather, who is going to be home each night, what ingredients we have on hand, is anything on sale, what additional items I need to purchase, what ingredients need to be prepped, does anything need to be taken out of the freezer, when do things need to be taken out of the freezer…. I think you get the picture.

Obviously, my individual family situation is much different than many other families.

Up until a couple of years ago, I was pretty much a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom with time to shop for and prepare a good portion of our meals.

But now that I am substitute teaching a good number of days a month, and traveling to Compassion events at least once a month, my schedule is all over the place.

And our kid’s work schedules are not consistent.

So, to make my life easier, a few months back, we had a family meeting to discuss menu planning and dinner.

The solution…our two adult children are each responsible for dinner one night a week.

This week, our menu looks like this:

Menu planning

I have even started making notations for each day so I know who will be home for dinner.

This is just one thing I have implemented that is making my life easier these days.

What one thing are you doing to make your life easier?