Simplify Family Life by Meal Planning

by Tara Ziegmont

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In celebration of Simplify Family Life sale, all of this week’s posts will focus on simplifying family life.

When you have two small children, cooking is not simple.

Somebody wants to help cook. Somebody throws her food on the floor. Somebody cries and throws a fit.

I complain, but I love it when the girls join me in the kitchen. It’s fun to teach them how to measure and mix.

Anyway, this post isn’t about cooking with kids. It’s about simplifying the process of getting food on the table each night.

The one single thing that makes cooking easier is planning meals ahead of time.

When you plan meals ahead of time, you can take advantage of the sale items from the grocery flier. Food doesn’t sit around unused, and it gets wasted less often.

And also?

You get less take out and eat a lot less pizza.

There are lots of meal planning options available, but my favorite (because it’s free) is Google Calendar. A couple of years ago, I put together an illustrated tutorial to show you how to use Google calendar for meal planning.

Another option I’ve started using recently is Food on the Table.

Food on the Table does the sale scouting for you, providing you with recipes that take advantage of sales in your local grocery store. The recipes provided are simple and easy, and there are even options for special diets (like low calorie and gluten free).

If you sign up for Food on the Table using the link above and put in the code SPRINGFREE, you’ll get up to 3 recipes per week from Food on the Table free for life.

Isn’t that awesome?

No matter what method you use, planning meals ahead of time will save you time and money and aggravation.