Meal Planning by the Moon

Doesn’t it seem like as soon as you finish grocery shopping, you’re there planning another week of meals and doing the whole thing all over again? Meal planning is an area of life that needs so much of our attention, it definitely benefits from some automation. (If you meal plan– and if you’re more spontaneous and go shopping without a plan, there are a lot of savings and benefits to trying to plan.)

 

But then, if you’re like me, not too much automation – this is food, afterall! Food is life. That’s a saying, right?  Some estimates have us spending almost four and a half years of our lives eating. We want those years to be enjoyable! I know some people (ahem, my husband before I met him) are content to eat the same thing day or week in and out– he would literally buy chicken and bags of frozen veggies and lather, rinse repeat– but I could never. Variety is the spice of life, eh? There are just too many wonderful recipes out there to limit ourselves in that way, in my opinion.

 

The beauty of monthly meal plans is that, after the first year, the process is heavily automated, but with a lot of dynamism built in. Plus, you get the cozy roasts and pumpkin breads in the fall, grilled meals in the summer, etc. One thing that’s really interesting as you go through this process is realizing the opportunity cost of meal repetition – every time you eat the same meal, that’s another slot to a new or unique recipe that’s gone, and remember, with about 30 days in each month, and factoring in some flexibility each time for eating out… you’ll be surprised by how quickly your slots fill up!

 

Use My Monthly Meal Plans

But as I said, it is some work in the first year. If you’re game for that (and if you’re like me, that’s the fun part!) I’ve outlined some steps and pointers below to get you started. If that idea is terrifying, you’re welcome to follow me on Plan to Eat, a meal planning app I recommend wholeheartedly – and use my monthly collections as a jumping off point (or, if you find you have very similar taste, a final destination!) I’ll talk about Plan to Eat, how to use it and why I love it, more below.

 

How to Get Started with Monthly Meal Planning

  1. Start out by creating a list of all of the months somewhere like Notes, or on a piece of paper, Google Doc, etc. – wherever works for you, but the point of this will just be to organize recipes that you already have in your arsenal into the appropriate places, so I don’t recommend jumping in with a meal planning app just yet, to make this easier to visualize. You’ll simply add your go-to recipes, whether they’re on cards, in another app or system, or just in your memory– to the months you want. A few tips:
    1. It’s okay to put your favorites in multiple times! This should be done to the degree that you don’t mind repetition, and in proportion with how much you and your family love a meal – but for example, I have mac and cheese on my (ahem) September, October, November, December, February, and April lists. What can I say… it’s mac and cheese.
    2. Think about what you crave at different times of year, what your schedule is like at different times of year, and be realistic. Maybe you love your lasagna recipe, but it’s labor-intensive and doesn’t belong in March because that’s your busiest time of year at work, and you’re likely to buy the ingredients… and then let them spoil in the fridge as you order out instead (been there).
    3. Factor in a little breathing room each month, especially if you do anything like a Friday pizza night, or you try to do fish weekly, etc. I only plan 6 dinners a week, because we try to do salmon once a week (for anyone keeping score, I do NOT like seafood, but I try, for health and all that). You also want to remember that you’ll go out to eat some percentage of the time, so don’t plan a full number of meals for the month if you’ll go out a couple of times. Personally, I like to plan where we go out seasonally too, but I also consider that to be super flexible. If we’re going out with friends and we head to a restaurant that wasn’t on the list for the month, do I sweat it? Nope, definitely not. But it is fun to look forward to getting Thai in just about every month the cooler months where I want something cozy, or clam chowder in the summer, etc.
  2. Flesh out these lists with additional recipes. This can take some time, but it’s worth it! (If you’re like me, by the way, don’t do this on an empty stomach.) You can browse the web for seasonal meals, call your mom for reminders about old friendly recipes, tap other family members for their suggestions, etc. Keep in mind:
    1. You’ll probably forget about some recipe that in two months, you’ll remember and realize you love, and that’s okay! At that point in time, you’ll simply add it to the months you want, and you can either remove another recipe if your month is full, or make the decision to have an overflow, giving you options for that month. I don’t recommend too much overflow, and rather think that over time, you’ll notice trends: maybe you never pick a certain recipe that you want to like, but never seem that interested in making. If you spot this, take it off. Life’s too short, and part of what we’re trying to do here is make things simple.
    2. This is a big project, and it takes time to perfect. After doing it for two years, I still have room to iterate, but my family is starting to really appreciate “ooh, Mom makes this every September, and it really feels like fall when I smell it!”
    3. Like any good plan, flexibility should be built in. Remember that it’s perfectly okay to not use all of your month’s meals in a given month – life happens, afterall. I also have some meals tagged as “budget” or “kid friendly”, so that if I spent a lot on groceries last week and really want to optimize saving in the next instead of hitting my monthly meals, or I know my husband and I will be “kinda fasting” (we do ProLon, which we really like, but I’m not a doctor and it’s definitely not right for everyone. Something to check out, though!) I’ll plan very kid-friendly meals.
    4. Don’t forget about breakfasts! I tend to use dinner leftovers as lunch, but if you don’t, don’t forget lunch, either. (As my boys get older, I’m pretty sure my time being able to stretch a meal this far is limited.) I don’t plan “recipe” breakfasts for every day of the week, because, who has the time, but I do plan a few each week, and then on in-between days I’ll either quickly cook eggs or oatmeal, or maybe the banana bread I made lasted two days, etc.
    5. Don’t forget about desserts! An important part of life. Even if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth, whatever a treat would be to you, add into your plan in moderation. And for me, as someone who needs to check myself so that I stay healthy, I don’t always want dessert– but I still like making cookies for the kids, or indulging in very small amounts at strategic times. Depriving yourself completely can be less sustainable/cause you to binge in the long run, I’ve found.
  3. Get the recipes for the month ahead into whatever app you’ll use. I really like Plan to Eat, but what’s important is that you can tag each recipe with your own tags, so that you can create tags like January, February, etc. Plan to Eat has this functionality, as well as many other features (read more about why I like Plan to Eat here) – so make sure, as you import recipes, you tag them accordingly. Personally, I find doing this as you go in the first year to be the way to go– importing an entire year would be a daunting task. I recommend embracing this as a fun task about a week or two before the given month ends – so if it’s September 16, you might want to start importing and tagging October recipes. After you do this for a year, life gets even easier from there!

 

Now you’re set up! How to Use this System:

 

  1. I like to do two things. One, around the time I import my meals, or, if it’s after your first year doing this, towards the end of the month, I plan out in pencil what I might do for meals for the whole month, on my physical planner (BlueSky makes my favorite planners, which have monthly as well as weekly organization). You don’t need to use pen and paper; this is just my preference– but if you do, pencil is great here because this is really just a draft. It’s about taking a snapshot of the month ahead, and figuring things out like, “my husband’s birthday is here, so I know I’ll cook this on that day,” and we have travel that week, so I won’t be planning full meals this month, etc.” 
  2. Then, when I create my grocery list for the week, I use Plan to Eat to actually assign the meals to the right days on the week ahead, which automatically puts together a shopping list for me for the week. Easy! This is where I might deviate from the original plan I had in pencil, if say, some new plans have come up that change a meal’s feasibility, or I look at it again and say what was I thinking, planning four pasta meals in a row?
  3. I also like, when my family shows particular enthusiasm for a meal, to get them involved in things a bit. I’ll ask my kids, “when else during the year would you really like to eat this?” And if they give me a couple of other months and it was a big family hit, I’ll add repeat appearances, which they get a kick out of along with a sense of empowerment (I just did this with Rachael Ray’s Enchilada’s Suizas, of all things, which my younger son ADORES. They’re a bit of work, but, omg, try them.)
  4. Another cool thing about Plan to Eat, which I’m sure other apps have as well: you can add prep notes, which are really useful for next year you, if you take advantage of this feature. (Think: note what you substituted that really worked, or when cook time for you was longer than the recipe suggested, etc. It’s like a time machine that plugs you into last year’s memoriese at exactly the right moment.) Also a bit of fun: For anyone who, like me, might be “training” someone else (kids, ahem, husband) to make a wider variety of meals, adding notes like “Jim’s speciality!! Came out great” can be great evidence to them, a year later, that they can, in fact, make this meal, no problemo.
  5. Enjoy the process, and the results! I love sipping a homemade chai latte in December, or making springtime soup in April. It’s almost spiritual for me as it roots me to the passing of time, and appreciating the moment I’m in. And it’s fun to discover which meals you want to make several times a year, and which, when it comes down to it, you’re okay with having only in June.