Do you plan meals for your family? I know many women that create menu plans for their household – some plan out weekly menu plans, others go as far as to organize a monthly menu plan. They all speak of the benefits of planning meals in advance, which include easier grocery shopping, saving money, and eating healthier.

I have tried in the past to create a weekly dinner menu and used my Google calendar to lay out each day’s meal. When I planned our family’s meals a week or two at a time, I found a few things to be true:

• Grocery shopping was easier and faster. I was able to quickly make a shopping list based on the meals we had planned and could better stick to grocery shopping every two weeks to coincide with pay days. Very rarely did we have to make grocery store runs in the middle of the week, which often times ended up going over budget.
• No more “What’s for dinner?” debates. Not only did I avoid the daily struggle of thinking about dinner, which can sometimes be a point of frustration for many women, but my husband was also informed well ahead of time. He could easily look at the printed calendar on our fridge and know what the menu was for that day.
• Dinner responsibilities became easier to share. My husband can cook just fine and actually cooks certain meats better than I do. But, he’s the first to admit that when it comes to thinking of side dishes to complete the meal, he needs help. Having the dinner menu planned in advance resulted in him initiating the cooking process sometimes because he didn’t have to think about what to make, he already knew.
• We ate better. Not all of our meals were super fresh or healthy, but they were all home-made. Regardless of whether or not we took shortcuts by using pre-packaged foods, we were still able to control what we put into our meals, how much of it, and in the end, this created better meals for us than if we were to order out.
• We saved money. It’s true that just by planning a dinner menu, we were able to control our spending and many times saved on the food budget. There was much less eating out, more buying in bulk, and less grocery store trips. It was easier to keep an eye on the money we spent on food.

As I write this out, I can’t think of why we ever stopped planning our meals. I definitely plan to work on getting back into it and will hopefully start this weekend by creating a dinner menu for next week. The benefits of meal planning are sure to help our household’s balance and peace of mind.

Do you meal plan? If so, share with us in the comments about how you plan your family’s meals. Do you create a weekly dinner menu, two weeks at a time, or a monthly meal plan? How often do you grocery shop? What other benefits not mentioned have you found from meal planning?

More Meal Planning Ideas

• Sample Weekly Dinner Menu (my own dinner ideas that work in our house)
• Menu Planning Basics
• Spring Monthly Menu Plan
• Sample Menu Plan from Frugal Upstate
• Monthly Menus from Once a Month Mom

As a working mother, I need shortcuts wherever I can get them.

Dinner is often a challenge for us busy moms, and this holds true for me as well.

I work 8 hours a day outside the home, which leaves a small window in the evening for me to pick up baby girl, spend some time with her (don’t forget time with the husband also!), and cook dinner. Some days I wish dinner was just sitting there waiting for me; I mean, I get hungry too!

So, I take shortcuts. I try my best to plan ahead, both by planning a monthly menu and by cooking ahead if I can.

This week has been a particularly good week for us when it comes to dinner. I’ve actually stuck with our planned menu and have not ordered out.

Sample One Week Dinner Menu

Now, I don’t pretend that this is the healthiest menu, but we are eating and the food is home-made. I’m not spending money on take-out and it’s manageable for our busy schedule. It works.

1. Sunday: Turkey Chili – I cooked this in my new slow cooker and didn’t have to do much with it once it was started, which allowed for me to work on other things around the house.
2. Monday: Ground Beef & White Rice – I was off on Monday for the MLK holiday, so I was able to cook from scratch. The ground beef is cooked with tomato sauce/paste (think of picadillo) and I made extra meat for later in the week. The white rice I cooked in a rice cooker, but you could easily take your own shortcut by using Minute Rice. And if you wanted to be extra healthy, you could substitute with brown rice. (There’s shortcuts for brown rice too!)
3. Tuesday: Leftovers - I had a dental appointment after work on Tuesday, so I got home later than normal. Luckily, we had plenty of chili and some white rice leftover. Voila! Dinner served.
4. Wednesday: Tacos with Knorr Rice Sides pack – I used the extra ground beef I cooked on Monday to make tacos. All I had to do was chop up some lettuce and tomatoes, warm up the tortillas, and assemble. I made a pack of Knorr Rice Sides Chicken as a side dish.
5. Thursday: Chicken Fettucine Alfredo – Sounds fancy, huh? This dish is *full* of shortcuts. I buy a bag of chicken cutlets, which don’t really require defrosting. I use a box of Fettucine pasta and a can of Ragu Classic Alfredo sauce. (What, you thought I made my own?) Since, the chicken doesn’t need defrosting, I just put it in the pan as soon as I get home. I usually add a can of peas & carrots to the chicken when I add the alfredo sauce. Serve over the fettucine.
6. Friday: Hot dogs & Fries – Fridays are our slack days. So, we normally eat something very easy. This week, we’ll be making some hot dogs and baking some fries in the oven.
7. Saturday: Pork Chops with Yellow Rice – Since it’s Saturday, I should theoretically have more time to cook. You can cook pork chops however you’d like: in the oven, on the stove or on the grill. Yellow rice is one of my favorites. It’s easy to cook and you can add whatever you like to it, making for many delicious variations. I’ll be making rice with corn this week, but sometimes I use beans or other vegetables. Shortcuts for yellow rice can be found via Goya, if you’d like.

You can see that the recurring theme is to use shortcuts to create quick and easy meals for your family.

How do you manage your weekly dinner menu as a busy mom?

[top photo source]

Picadillo Image via Wikipedia

Calendar Image via SugarcubeDesign

You’ve heard me say it before. A working mom needs all the help she can get.

We need help with planning dinner, cleaning the house, work life balance, and time for ourselves.

So, I’m always on the lookout for new resources and sites that offer some tips.

I use delicious to keep track of all my resources, and I love to collect resources. But…that’s another conversation.

Here are a few resources I’ve found that I think you might enjoy.

Working Mom Resources

• Breastfeeding Working Moms
• Working Moms Forum at thebump.com
• 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers (2008)
• Working Mother Magazine
• Meals in Minutes from Kraft
• Mommy Track’d
• Work It, Mom! Community
  • Be sure to also check out the Full Time, All the Time blog
• BlueSuitMom.com
• Moms At Work blog at the Orlando Sentinel

Bonus!
American Academy of Pediatrics Working Mothers Q & A – A tad too generic (and maybe even archaic?), but it’s *official*.

What great working mom communities, blogs, forums, and other resources do you enjoy?
I can always add more to my working mom category on delicious.

Image from Jeffrey Place