Chief Family Officer and I go waaaay back: we both started blogging in 2005. She, being the consummate CFO, has been far more regular with monitoring her routines than I have. (By contrast, if you were to count the number of times I start something up on here, and then never hear about it again, well, let's just say we'd both be here a while.)
Case in point, here is an excerpt from here recent post on meal planning:
I strayed from my planned menu for the second half of last week, but we didn't eat out, so I truly believe that any menu plan is better than none. It keeps me thinking about cooking and eating at home, rather than planning to go out . . . I've just moved the meals planned for last week that didn't get made to this week.
Let's break this down a bit:
- The goal of the meal plan is to replace eating out. Eating out is expensive. Food by itself is always less expensive than food plus all of the other costs of running a restaurant. But since eating out is easier than eating in, it's what gets done in a pinch when hunger hits and the stuff to make the meal at home isn't there.
- Having the meal plan in place really is better than having nothing in place at all. Fail to plan, plan to fail, and all that.
- Meal planning has some up-front costs that can be used again and again. Putting one meal together takes time, but once it's done, it doesn't vanish into thin air. It's there to be inserted again, moved around, and modified any number of ways.
- The meal-planning habit breaks the eating-out habit. The more meals that are planned, the more this becomes the default instead of “Let's order pizza.”
My wife has begun to plan some meals for us, which rocks. She's been playing with the meal planning templates over at Vertex42.com. They're free. Fortunately, she doesn't need to plan too many different meals to keep me happy. One thing I am a creature of habit is with the types of foods I eat regularly. I like a lot of different kinds of foods, but it boils down to only a handful of dishes. I can get by on rice and beans, apples and bananas, oatmeal, and a few other things at work for a good long time.
This was all precipitated by looking at our dining out expenses, which were pretty high. I'll discuss why this is an issue in a later post in my Mvelopes series. (Promise!)
If you plan out your meals, what tricks get you the farthest?
I plan meals weekly for my husband and three-year old. One thing I make sure to do is to have a well stocked pantry with the staples I use all the time. Items such as chicken stock, diced tomatoes, and various varieties of beans. I also like to try new recipes, but having a very picky eater (my three-year old, not my husband!) makes it challenging. But I’m sticking with it and I’ve become a very good home cook (so says my husband!). That’s another bonus of cooking regular home meals – you improve your cooking skills. When we do go out to eat, we’ll venture to a very nice restaurant – one where the chef is a better cook than I am!
Hi I love your blog , As a almost divorced Dad of four I have had to relearn how to cook and plan , the hardest part I find is shopping. Luckily I now live in a rural part of upstate new york and there are lots of Organic farms , so planning meals is now becoming easier.