Getting Organized - Menu Planning

I have been working hard for awhile now to really improve our Menu Planning and come up with a system that works for our hectic schedule. I finally have come up with a system that is working for us so far, and am so excited to share it!

Step 1)     Get a super cute binder and stickers!

I put "Family Recipes" on the front... my 2 year old had to have some input and tried to remove the stickers as you can tell in some spots, so maybe in retrospect, stickers with toddlers around aren't a great idea. ;) But they look cute!

 On the side, I put "Meal Plan Book" for extra cuteness ;)

Step 2) Come up with a "plan" for each night of the week. This was the toughest, but honestly, I think will be the biggest time saver! I really thought about our schedule and what works for our family... 

This is how I figured a few of the evenings:

 "Crockpot" Meals on Sunday because we are at Church all morning but love to come home to a yummy dinner...

"Boys Cook" on Monday nights because those are my 'late' nights at work & I am purely exhausted when I walk in the door, so therefore I leave dinner up to Chad & Kent. 

And, "Surprise Pick!" on Saturdays, because that is usually the day something comes up and we eat out while running errands, or end up eating leftovers, etc. This way I won't plan a meal that won't get cooked.

Then, I labeled tabs with each category to make Meal Planning even easier...

 

 

Step 3) Organize recipes and file into each category. I also updated our Weekly Menu to include this week's plan for easy reference... and made cute labels for each category:

 

Here is an example of the recipes filed away in this binder.. I would say I get about 90% of them from food.com and the rest are from various blogs/websites/pinterest/etc.

 

Step 4) I put the week's menu on the fridge to remind myself and the hubby what our plan is! We hope this will save us $$ from eating out!

 

I am so excited about our new system! How do you Menu Plan??? :)