Make your month a little easier by planning all your meals at one time. You can easily meal plan for a whole month and save time and money in the process.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
I know what you’re thinking….
Meal plan for a whole month? What, are you crazy? I can’t plan two days, how could I possibly meal plan for a whole month? And why would you want to?
Well, my friend, meal planning is your ticket to saving food, time, and money, as well as a fair amount of the stress that occurs when you or those you love start to get hangry. Meal planning for a month can help you stretch your resources—be they the groceries you have on hand, the time in your schedule, or the money you budget each month to buy food.
Why do it:
You can avoid wasting food.
The first step in the Good Cheap Eats System is to shop your kitchen. By taking an inventory of what you have, you realize that you might not need to buy much more. Instead, you can avoid food waste and use up what you have.
Planning the month at one time helps you take a long view so you don’t get bored eating the same thing.
When I’m doing a Pantry Challenge, it’s almost imperative that I meal plan for a whole month. In so doing, I can space out my ingredients so that I don’t use up all the proteins the first week and then slog through on beans and rice for the other three weeks of the month.
You can save time.
Batching tasks has been said to help us be more productive and do more with our minutes. If you know you’re going to meal plan each week, why not plan several weeks at one time?
Whenever life starts to feel really busy, I get the urge to meal plan for a whole month. It helps me know that I’m ahead in some area of life, and that if I know nothing else, at least I know what’s for dinner.
If you’re wanting to ramp up your organization and kill four birds with one stone, monthly meal planning is for you!
You can save money.
We’ve already established that avoiding food waste will help you save money. You can save even more with effective meal planning.
Planning a month in advance can help you save money through bulk buying and watching sales for things you know you’ll want in a few weeks.
For instance, if you know that you’re going to celebrate St Patrick’s Day with a Shepherd’s Pie and that your father-in-law would enjoy chips and salsa when he comes to visit at the end of the month, you can plan those meals now and keep an eye out for sales to help you make those meals happen.
How to do it:
Here’s the basic method for planning a month of meals at a time:
- Take an inventory of what you have. It’s important to use what’s already on hand so you can save money and prevent food waste.
- Print out a calendar for the month or open a digital one in the app of your choice. If it’s a blank printable calendar, like the one pictured (get yours here – newsletter subscribers, log into the library), fill it in with the dates for the month.
- Plunk down special events and holidays. Those meals will be different than regular nights, so you’ll want to remember to plan for something special.
- Plug in regular meals, like Friday Pizza Night or Soup Night, that you have every week.
- Look at the nights that have regular activities like sports practice and games. Plan easy meals on those nights.
- Start adding meals into the remaining squares, alternating meatless with meat, or varying the proteins from night to night to keep things exciting.
- Pro tip: This process is super easy if you already have Meal Plan Theme Nights.
That wasn’t hard, was it?
Remember you’re not married to this plan! Write it in pencil if it makes you feel less committed.
On the example above, you can see I goofed by writing date night on March 17th. We usually have a special St Patrick’s Day Meal with our kids so I simply bumped date night and the accompanying easy kid meal to the 18th.
Feel free to change it up as different things happen throughout the month, drawing arrows where you’ll swap tonight’s meal with another night. By the end of the month, it may look like a very complicated football play, but that’s okay!
The meal plan is designed to help you. To really be successful in life and in serving great meals, you need to be flexible. A meal plan can give you direction without being the law.
And a meal plan for a whole month can buy you a lot of time down the road.
Sample Monthly Meal Plan
- Homemade Sloppy Joes, Veggie Tray, Salad
- Rice and Beans with Toppings
- Carnitas Soft Tacos, leftover beans and rice
- Shepherd’s Pie, seasonal vegetables
- Skillet Pork Chops, Cheesy Potatoes, seasonal vegetables
- Soup Night, Good Bread
- Pizza Night
- Turkey and Pepper Lettuce Wraps, Potstickers with Dipping Sauce
- Six Layer Nachos, fruit salad
- Chicken Enchilada Casserole, rice, beans
- Meatloaf, Stuffed Potatoes, seasonal vegetables
- Dinner out for a birthday
- Soup Night, Good Bread
- Bean and Cheese Burritos, Mexican Rice, salad
- Pizza Night
- Rice Bowls with Chicken, Potstickers, and seasonal vegetables
- Hamburgers, Veggie Tray, Salad
- Pasta Bar, Salad, Garlic Bread
- Meatballs & Mashed Potatoes, seasonal vegetables
- Asian Chicken Salad with Noodles
- Soup Night, Good Bread
- Pizza Night
- Lasagne, Salad, Bread
- Rice Bowls
- Taco Night
- Pasta with Quick Red Sauce, seasonal vegetables, rolls
- Turkey Pesto Panini, Oven Fries, seasonal vegetables
- Pizza Night
- Soup Night, Good Bread
- Chicken Caesar Sandwiches, seasonal fruit
I’m sure there are lovers and haters of the monthly meal plan. Do what works for YOU!
In case you missed the previous posts, I’ve already addressed the methods for weekly and bi-weekly meal planning. Choose what suits you!
What’s YOUR favorite meal planning style?
This post was originally published on November 3, 2012. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Antonio
I really didn’t take this. It looks like that one is literally one meal per day, per month. This means that you are going to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner? Or just one meal per day? Can someone actually explain me this thanks ?
Jessica Fisher
These are meal plans for dinner only. Many people do a lot of repeats for breakfast and lunch, so I didn’t include that process in the post. You can certainly plan three meals a day for the month, but for many, I think that’s unnecessary detail.
Christina S
I think I have done almost every type of meal planning. Daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly,… Right now in the season our family is in I am loving the Kitchen Winners Circle Menu plan. Minimal work for me and my binder makes it easy if anyone else should decide to take a turn cooking supper.
Jessica Fisher
Yay! So glad to hear that you are all WINNING in the kitchen!
Roberta Moore
I made a 2 week menu for years when the kids were at home. We lived in the country & couldn’t just pop into town. Even my children knew to ask be fore they ate, making sure it wasn’t food that was on the menu. But now I want to make healthier meals and that doesn’t work if you don’t have a plan. Write the menu out as you make your grocery list. But don’t hesitate to change a meal on the menu, it’s your plan. Cook extra when you do cook, freeze for future use, even if it is just the meat. It will make a difference in how your family eats and balance your meals if you follow the menu.
Jessica Fisher
Great rules of thumb!
Pat
The pantry challenge and Kitchen Winners Circle got me back to meal planning again. After our vacation this summer the thought out plan went out the window! I always had ideas just didn’t write them down. Having a plan now is good. I only started with a 2 week plan and hope to get back to monthly for February.
Jessica Fisher
Yay! Glad to hear those resources are helpful!
Tammy
I just went through and inventoried our pantry, refrigerators, and freezers. Just being able to see what we had, what needed to be used promptly, and coming up with a plan – even for three days to start – was a huge help. Yes, I have already swapped some of the meals, but being able to plan – and see what items I will need to purchase on pay day to complete certain meal items – is a huge help. I look forward to planning meals for the remainder of the month – and hopefully continue the practice. Even if we have to swap meals, I’d prefer that to forgetting I had planned “X” for dinner one night and then completely forgot about it. It will be a work in progress, but one that I think will be very advantageous for our hectic schedule.
Jessica Fisher
great job!
Teresa
Little late to the party here but one thing that I think needs to get added to the discussion about meal planning is overlap between meals. When you’re cooking for a crowd, this might be less important, but when you’re cooking for one, you need to find ways to use the same set of ingredients in different and creative ways. I can’t buy lettuce and then plan a single salad in plan, it all goes bad then! I need to make sure that I have side salads with several meals, plus maybe BLTs for lunch all week, and maybe some salad wraps. Or I cook up a batch of stew beef and make a several-meal stir fry, and put the rest in beef pot pies for the freezer. I find that’s the hardest part about planning for a whole month; I’m not creative enough to think through all the different uses for ingredients One or two weeks is about right. That way, even if I have leftovers, they’ll still probably be good and can get rolled back into the -next- meal plan and be used up properly.
My biggest barrier to monthly meal planning is that I don’t always know what I’m going to feel like eating. I really like having a couple of options available to me, instead of being locked into meals, because things change, and my preferences may shift from day to day sometimes. When I planned I might’ve been on a tomatoey preference day, but then find out that I want light fish-vegetable meals for a week straight! Flexibility to respond to cravings is a must in my meal plans.
Jessica Fisher
Great point! Using common ingredients in your meal planning is key to saving money and avoiding waste.
Jessie
I started a new version of the monthly plan by choosing 2-3 meals a week that repeat each month. The empty days get new meals added in each time I meal plan. I can stock up on those ingredients and also get variety; it’s a win win 🙂
Jessica Fisher
Sounds like a great strategy!