One of my (vague) long-term goals for this year was to start meal planning. Now that my boyfriend and I do more of our own cooking, we’ve started to get more creative in the kitchen and try new recipes (plus, I’ve been taking a cooking course this year, which has been awesome!). This has been lots of fun, but since neither of us has much time, we end up making a lot of last minute decisions about what to eat and probably eating a whole lot more pasta than we should (but with lots of delicious veggies! 😉 ).
Since we moved into our new apartment, I’ve been keeping track of our grocery bills just for the record. In my Filofax Saffiano, which currently serves as my home binder, I store the grocery shopping lists paper-clipped to the receipt from that shopping trip.
This is a good way to see both how much we’re spending, and what ingredients come up over and over again. Indeed, if you’re trying to make pre-printed shopping lists or a meal plan, I’d suggest this as a great way to figure out how to start: review your past lists and habits, see what you tend to eat, and analyze what you would like to eat more or less of.
Now, I’m literally just starting to meal plan. So, what I’ve done to start is create a running list of the meals we eat most often and that we like the most. I’ve filed it in my Filofax Malden under “M” for “Meals”, and for the next week or so, my boyfriend and I will continue to add to it as we think of more things.
Once we’ve got a good list established, we’ll start sitting down on Fridays or Saturdays to plan out meals for the following week, and those will be written down on my weekly pages. It needs to be Friday or Saturday in case we need to do any prep work on Sunday, when we don’t work, and that way on Saturday or Monday we can buy any ingredients that we’ll need (we’re very lucky to live in a place where fresh ingredients are available every day except Sunday in one of the multiple supermarkets or fresh food markets under 5 minutes from work / home).
So, we’ll see how it goes – I’ll keep you updated!
Organizedly yours,
L.
The Organizeaholic 
I like the start of your meal planning. I do have something similar. I plan the meals for the week and based on that I do my weekly shopping. I tried to use only what I have both and tried to keep the shopping once a week. I also have a list of receipts that I tried and liked.
I am looking forward to see how yours develops.
Thanks! Sounds like you’re thinking along the same lines I am…we’ll see how it goes! 😊
I try to stay up on at least a tentative meal plan in my house. Four adults with completely different schedules and one 3 year old make it challenging at times. But I dread the ‘what’s for dinner’ question. Having at least a general idea of what to fix takes a lot of stress off my day.
Wow! A lot to plan for! But yes, that’s the question I want to avoid – because when you’re hungry, stressed, and don’t have time, anything will do!