A picture of my back-to-school simple monthly meal plan.

I had a couple people ask about my meal plan and this is it. Simple, handwritten using a FREE printable monthly calendar . I’m not good at following schedules and am already forgetting to look at this one but I am going to give it a shot. Before you look to close at my meal plan let me tell you my Method of Operation for it and what the Abbreviations mean.

#1- Because too many details make it even harder for me to follow, I need simple. This plan is basically a month of meal ideas broken down by a different theme for most days of the week. Monday is Meat, Tuesday is Chicken/Tuna/Fish, Thursday is Ethnic (Chinese, Mexican, Italian) and Friday is FUN.

#2- Because of church, Sunday is for already prepared food like Freezer Meals (F.M.), Crock Pot (C.P.), Left Overs (L.O.). And Wednesday is the same. Saturdays is open for “whatever” we have going on.

#3- At the bottom of the meal plan is a list of lunch ideas for the kids. I also plan on using left overs, etc..

#4- The meal plan is put inside a plastic page protector and taped to a cupboard door and I can use a dry-erase marker to cross off the meals as we have them (since I allow myself to jump all over the place picking what meals I want for when I want in “real life”). See my M.O. below.

My M.O. (Method of Operation): Simple and flexible are the keys here for me. I can plan my grocery list by the week and/ or month based on themes if I want. My grocery buying is very limited to whats on sale and what I have coupons for or where I can find the best prices where there are no sales/coupons available.

I can look at the monthly plan and decide what meals (from any week) I want for the time period I’m buying for. For example, because I wasn’t finding hamburger on sale for “our” price for months, we rarely had it for meals. This past week I found it on sale for $1.89 a pound and bought about 12 pounds of it.

And thats it. 

Do you have any meal-planning tips to share that have revolutionized your meal times?  Please share in the comment section!

*Click here for a list of free printable organization forms including the one I use for this meal plan.

P.S. -  The plan is very basic. I should have added that I already know I can throw in some vegies, applesauce, etc. to go along with the main dish!

*Sharing at Moms The Word link up.