Do either of these mealtime scenarios drive you crazy?
Fortunately, the hubs and I tend to be on the same page with these issues. So, for the first time in over 5 years of marriage, we tried meal planning and keeping a food inventory.
It was a bust. We didn’t use the meal plans and never updated the inventory.
Eventually we tried again by purposefully our “lazy human tendencies.” This time it’s working! Planning meals has been so much easier and we’re not wasting as much food. Huzzah! (More about that in the post!)
You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.
Stop wasting time and energy on things that are detracting from your beautiful life!
Curious to learn more about you can stop wasting time and energy being hangry and frazzled? Let’s dive in!
During 2020, so many good changes happened when we chose to be intentional + pursue peace. It was a game-changing year for our family because we made so many healthy micro-changes – even in the midst of a pandemic.
One of those changes was being more intentional with food, which includes so much more than just food:
If you, too, have tried meal planning and not been successful, perhaps you also need to let go of your “should’s.” They might be holding you back from finding a system that works for you.
Here’s some of my “should’s” that you might relate to…
Too many Pinterest perfect ideas had been my reference for meal planning and keeping a food inventory.
If you are all about the beautiful, detailed meal planning system – rock on. We need people like you to make everyday things more beautiful.
That’s just not me. I don’t have the patience or committment to:
Since pen and paper clearly wasn’t working for us, we moved both our meal planning and food inventory system to one Google Excel doc.
I’m sharing a screenshot below, but if you can’t read that clearly, here’s the breakdown of what you’d see:
For us, this was easier to maintain and maximize than our former paper approach.
During our weekly planning, we add a new tab with meal planning for the upcoming week or weeks.
Throughout the week, we jot down on our food additions/subtractions on our whiteboard. Typically, during our weekly planning or after we get groceries, we update the digital food inventory using those notes.
Like many families, we tend to have meal defaults. For instance, my husband eats the same peanut butter sandwich for breakfast every workday morning. So, we popped that on for every workday.
This also helped me establish a go-to flexible rhythm for feeding Little Man and I. For example, we’ll have hot cereal for breakfast a couple mornings a week. I choose between oatmeal, baked oatmeal, Malt O’ Meal, etc. the week-of. It gives me room for creativity but also reduces decision fatigue.
My husband is an extraordinary bulk entree-making cook with a penchant for freezing whatever he can.
So, we decided to maximize that by also picking a couple nights a week that would be frozen entree nights.
Since we didn’t maintain our paper food inventory list when we had it, we went digital.
We added a tab to our meal planning Google Excel doc and added these columns:
Just a head’s up, my DIY whiteboards aren’t pretty. Seriously.
But do we actually use these tools? Yes!
That, my friends, is far more important than pretty (at least in my world).
Rather than printing off a new meal plan every week, I printed the meal planning template and popped it into a sheet protector. I then write down updates with a dry erase marker.
During our weekly planning, I update the template with our basic plans.
Our food inventory update whiteboard is very similar to our meal planning whiteboard.
I pop a sheet of paper into sheet protector and stick it on the fridge.
Throughout the week, I jot on the sheet what’s been added or removed.
+ # item = What’s been added to our pantry or freezer, including the number of the item, if applicable (like 2 tomato soup cans)
– # item = What’s been removed to our pantry or freezer, including the number of the item
Want a simple way to create more peace in your house?
Prep tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch and supper today!
I’m not encouraging you to cook a full-fledged meal the night before.
However, if you can take 5 minutes to prep the night before, you might feel a bit less stressed and save time tomorrow!
Personally, I’m constantly trying to get better at drinking “more” water. You feel me?
I also prep my pitchers of water the night before. This way when I wake up the next day, I’m ready to start guzzling water!
Meal planning food inventory tools can help you:
You can feel far less frazzled about pulling together meals because it’s already sketched out.
Will you need to pivot? Totally. Having some easy go-to meals planned, though, has made it loads easier to pivot.
As we’ve discussed, here’s how you can get started with meal planning and keeping a food inventory:
Is meal planning and keeping a food inventory for you?
Ultimately, that’s your decision to make.
You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved. Perhaps meal planning and keeping a food inventory can help you live more intentionally!
Hopefully, this post has given you some ideas for what might work (and not work) for your household.
It’s your turn. Do you meal plan? Keep a food inventory? What works for you? What doesn’t?
Let’s chat in the comments!
P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.
Cortney is a Christian life coach and recovering over-achiever who is passionate about helping Christian women embrace who God created them to be so they can confidently step into any season of life with passion, purpose, and peace. She’s also an ENFJ, MBTI® coach, M. Ed in College Student Development, Pilates and Yoga teacher, wife, mama, and entrepreneur. In her pre-kid life, she coordinated programs for, coached, funded, and provided leadership training for more than 60+ student organizations and 100s of university students for 7+ years. (Helping people highlight their inner awesomeness and reach their goals is her jam!)
More importantly, she’s God’s beloved.
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