How I Meal Plan for Two Weeks (free meal plan printable)

Before I had kids I never even thought about meal planning. I am not sure I even had much of a grocery list. I'd go grocery shopping sometimes multiple times in a week and just buy what I felt like getting when I was there. It wasted a lot of time and money. Perhaps you can relate?

I starting meal planning a few years ago for a few different reasons:

1. I wanted to save money.

2. I didn't want to try to think of a dinner idea every night. It's stressful! Meal plans simplify things.

3. I wanted to make it less of a temptation to go out to eat because I didn't feel like coming up with dinner.

4. I didn't want to have to run to the grocery store all the time.

It took me a little while to tweak my meal planning strategy over the years. Now I have a good system down and I can't imagine ever straying away from it. It makes my life so much easier!


This is how I do it:

On my phone I have an app where I can make lists. It helps me organize my perpetual tornado of thoughts! The app is called "To Do" but I know there are many other apps similar to it. One of my lists is called "Dinner Ideas" and it's where I've written down all the meals my family likes to eat. I currently have 46 dinner ideas on my list. I started out with a lot fewer than that but picked more up as years went by.

Every week I go through that list and I star 14 dinners that I will make in the next two weeks. I only meal plan for dinners. I know some people prefer to plan for all 3 meals a day but I'm not there yet.

I rotate between a few different meals for breakfast and I keep all of the food I need on hand and buy it every time I grocery shop every two weeks. Same with lunch. It helps that my kids prefer peanut butter sandwiches for every meal! Of course I don't feed them PB sandwiches every meal, but they certainly eat a lot of them throughout the week for lunch and breakfast both.

Once I have chosen all the dinners I am going to make in the next 2 weeks, I go through and take inventory of my refrigerator and pantry. I then write down all the ingredients for the meals that we are out of or almost out of. I write it down in a grocery list on the same app. I have separate lists for each of the stores I usually shop at. For example, I buy a lot of my food from Costco. And I also buy a lot of my food from Smith's. So I have a separate list for each of them and any other stores I normally go to.

After I have all my ingredients written down, I go to my online grocery ordering apps and order what I need. Smith's has one and so does Walmart. Many other grocery stores are on board with online ordering as well. It saves me so much time and sanity! Grocery shopping with little kids is very difficult! And I can also stay in budget better and not have impulse buys when I order online. Then, I go shop in person at Costco whenever I have time that week.

When I shop for enough groceries for two weeks, I keep in mind that a lot of produce could go bad before the two weeks is up. I buy a large amount of my vegetables frozen so I don't have to worry about them going bad too soon. Things like carrots and broccoli last a while in the fridge. The other vegetables that perish quickly I try to eat first. Then we have meals with the frozen vegetables during week 2.

We try to stick to a budget when grocery shopping. I certainly am not perfect at always staying within it! But I'm working on being more strict about it!

The last thing I do is I have a little white board on the inside of my pantry door. It's in a spot that I can easily see often. I write down the days of the week and then I pick a meal from my list and match it with a day. I keep in mind which nights are my busy nights, where I won't have as much time to cook. So I place the easier and quicker meals on those nights.

Nights like Sundays, I have the more time consuming dinners. So, when it's time to started making dinner, I just glance at my white board and see what I'm making that night.

That's it! It does initially take time to sit down and plan for two weeks. To go through your pantry and refrigerator and see what you need. But in the long run, it saves a whole lot of time and effort. And also $$$$. It is one little thing to help simplify your life in a huge way.



I have a free meal plan printable linked below, if you want to give meal planning a try for yourself! My husband helped me create it. This printable allows you to plan for two weeks, for all 3 meals if you so desire.

Thank you for reading!

- Merewyn 

Simple 2-Week Meal Plan Template     <---- free printable