Creating & Organizing Your Meal Plan | Organization Tips + Meal Plan

Welcome to the Budget Mom YouTube channel, I'm Kamiko Love from thebudgetmom.com and today I'm showing you and answering a question I get all the time. I am now a weekly

meal

plan

ner. Okay, I go shopping every week for my food. but I'm also a monthly

meal

plan

ner. I have questions mikko, how do you organize and create

your

meal plan? So today I'm going to do a top overview and show you the tools and what it looks like when

creating

my monthly meal plan, so let me show you the new monthly meal plan worksheet inside the paycheck budget workbook and the personal planning inside the leverage planner because I use both and I'll show you how I organize everything. my printed recipes so each month I start with a spread out monthly meal plan now I am currently using the full size peony budget by paycheck workbook.

This is a new worksheet inside the workbook and you can see I'm going to flip through December. I'm actually going to sit down on Saturday and do my December monthly view for my meal plan, but essentially it's just a blank monthly calendar that looks like this at the end of each month in the paycheck budget book. I like to start with a monthly view. because I can plan holiday events or maybe there's an event where I have to use leftovers a little differently, Thanksgiving is a perfect example of we all have leftover turkey, leftover Thanksgiving treats , I want to be able to use that in my meal plan I was also on vacation in November, so I knew and I know myself well the day before and after I came back from vacation.

I don't want to cook myself because I don't have food in my refrigerator before I leave and when I come back I'm tired, exhausted, I want to unpack and settle down again. I'm not going to want to cook that day, so I can plan for that. Okay, these are takeout days. I'm going to eat out these days. it can be in my budget, it's in my meal plan and then I can choose the days that I use the leftovers now, especially for Thanksgiving, like when we had turkey pot pie soup, leftover Thanksgiving casserole thanks, we're done with one of these leftover stickers you see. here we made leftover turkey tacos so it's possible to plant and deliver My birthday was November 15th so I know I won't need to cook that day it's just easier to meal plan and do it well in advance if you do.

You can do it monthly because you can plan for all the different things that happen throughout the month. That said, I'm also a weekly meal planner, which means I use the recipes I select in my monthly view. and I put them on a weekly basis now this is the Live Rich planner and I use it in my real life for more of my personal planning. I'm using the full size sunflower theme from the Live Rich planner but this is personal planning. I can break that down into breakfasts and snacks, lunches and dinners, so I can break it down even further now into the monthly distribution.

I really only look at my dinners and sides in the weekly. I can split that. Reduced to lunches, breakfast and snacks, I can also create a shopping list based on my meal plan for that week, so I go to the supermarket every Saturday, that helps me avoid things going bad or having to throw them away, it's just better for me. Do it weekly so I can create a shopping list from this weekly meal plan that came out of my monthly meal plan. Now a lot of people say Mikko, that's too much work. I don't want to do all that, but think once. have

your

monthly meal plan ready, all you have to do is create that shopping list and voila, you know what you have to cook, so also here are your important reminders, your goal trackers, but these, this area top is what I actually use. for my weekly view, that being said mikko, how do you determine which recipes to use next?

I am a big lover of cookbooks. I have a ton of hardcover cookbooks, but I also have some of the best recipes I've found in some of my favorites. it actually came from Pinterest online and I print those recipes out and a lot of times I like to do the same thing over and over again, especially if I love the recipe, you want to create your recipes based on what you know you have at home first. You always want to have an inventory of your refrigerator, pantry, and freezer. Many times the recipes I choose are based on the protein I have at home and the meat I have in my freezer because protein is pretty much the most expensive ingredient. in any recipe, so once I know my protein, I go out to the freezer and say, oh man, I have a lot of chicken, I have a lot of boneless chicken, skinless chicken breasts, I can make recipes based on that meat that I have at home.

You will significantly reduce your meals and your shopping list if you sprinkle your recipes with what you have in your pantry, refrigerator and freezer at home, so the question is Mikko, how do you organize all these printed recipes you have been making and printing for years? that you see in your system, I have a couple of good things for you, this is my recipe folder. Now one of the best things about this is that today I'm giving you access to the printables that I use in my recipe binder. They're in the free resource library at thebudgetmom.com.

I'll put a link in the description of this video, but this is how I organize all of my printed recipes that I print from Pinterest and that I love. I know I'm going. to go again and again so I have my index I have appetizers and batteries soups and stews dips and jams breakfast side dishes dinners and stews desserts and drinks I get a lot of questions like mikko where do you get these? transparent page protectors with the tabs I will put a link in the video description but they look like this. I get mine from Amazon and they're essentially just eight tabs, but they're also clear page protectors.

They are called a recipe. Mangas, I'll put a link to that Amazon link in the description of my video, but that's what I use for all the items in my index that I use and you'll see here, so I have my appetizers and stack soups and stews. I can see I have some of them printed and stored here, my sausage spreads and jams. Now there's something I want to mention here. My side dishes are divided into actual side dishes, but I also have my bread recipes and I just put a little tab, you can get them at staples or any office store, they're just little clear tabs and I have my bread recipes.

I do the same with my dinners. I have my dinner category, but my dinner is then organized into pork. lamb fish poultry and vegetables that makes it easier for me to find the recipes that I want and if I don't really like it fall if it's pasta or something like that, it goes at the top here you can see that I have an instant pot tortellini alfredo I have penne and sausages, so those they go at the top here and then if I have them and then I have all my meat, uh recipes, the clear page protectors that I use to organize my index, you can actually buy a big pack.

You can get it at Staples or Amazon. I get mine at Staples. They like this. You can get a whole box of 200 and they're great too because my son can use them for his projects too, but I have, you can see. I have all my dinner organized differently and you will have access to these printables also all these covers and then I have my desserts oh there's my vegetables and then I have my desserts and then I have my drink recipes too They will also come with recipe cards in the printable, if you don't want to print the recipe, you would prefer to write them down.

There are also printable cards in that printable set, so that's what I do to organize my printed recipes. I just keep them in a folder, they're in my kitchen, I can grab them and go, it's organized, I can find things quickly, so remember, I start with my monthly view, I go through my inventory, my pantry, refrigerator and freezer, I create my recipes. of course I planned everything around what is happening in my real life, I organized it into a weekly view, the weekly shopping list and then my printed recipes, that's how I organized it, starting with this monthly view really helps me stick to my eating plan, have you ever done it?

That done, you created your meal plan, you went to the supermarket, you looked for all the ingredients, you know exactly what you are going to prepare, you go out during the week and you realize that you don't want to do what you planned in your meal plan I think everyone we've been there for me, the reason we put the monthly meal plan view inside the paycheck budget book is because I felt like meal planning is such an important part of the budgeting process, your budget of food really is one of your biggest expenses throughout the month, so we really felt like it was important to include it, but I also felt like you know a lot of the time meal plans are created, okay, this recipe, this day , this recipe creates a ton of recipes for every Day you get a shopping list, you finish the day, but really a meal plan should be based and created around what's going on in your real life, your vacations, your events , your night out with your friends, your night out with your parents, any kid having a birthday party, you know? it's going to be late, you know you'll want to use your insta pot maybe you have a you know it's going to be a long work day or week that week, you know you'll probably want to Pick up some slow cooker recipes

creating

and basing that meal plan not only in what you have in your refrigerator, pantry and freezer, but also in the things that are happening in your real life, which will make it easier to follow that meal plan now by creating That weekly meal plan is also useful for me because it helped me reduce food waste.

Now I know many people who plan their meals for the entire month, they go shopping but they save their perishables, their fruits and vegetables for a weekly grocery run and that's it. good too, but I was looking forward to making that weekly shopping list and going to the supermarket every Saturday has really helped me with my meal planning now also with the recipe binder. This has been a blessing in my life because it's been so many months where I think I don't know what to do and I don't have time to look up a ton of recipes or go through my cookbooks and find recipes, which is why I've been meal planning for years. and so I've made a lot of printed recipes that turned out to be my favorite recipes, especially if you have picky eaters at home, your kids or your spouse, or whatever your handy recipe binder is, you can check out those recipes that you know that you love. you know they worked when you made them and they ended up turning out great, so that's what I love about having my printed recipes organized and easily accessible, so in the months when I don't feel like choosing recipes, that's why I feel like these subscriptions, these monthly food subscriptions where they give you a meal plan don't really work and technically you can do it yourself if you save a recipe of all your favorite printed recipes as you go look, I have look, I have my meal plan feed subscription to the recipe right here and it's free and I created it.

I also give you access to those free printables. I'll put a link in the description below. If you found this video useful, please like it and don't forget to subscribe. put a little toothpick in my bad, okay, so starting with this month, starting again, okay, we're filming our last YouTube video right now, okay, I'll let you know when we're done.