How to Create a Meal Planner

At a loss about what to make for dinner?

Time to go to the grocery store again. This means you need to plan your meals for the week. Once you make your customized meal planner, shopping and weeknight cooking won't be nearly as stressful or time consuming.

Things You'll Need

• Three ring binder
• Sheet protectors
• Tab dividers
• Recipes

Instructions

1. Collect all of your favorite family recipes. If you don't have them in paper form--you have either committed them to memory or they are all on your computer--print them using your computer printer or write them down on paper or 3-by-5 cards.

2. Organize your recipes in a manner that makes sense to you. For example, you might want to categorize your meals by season (stews for fall or winter and salads for summer). You might also choose to separate recipes by main ingredient--vegetable, beef or chicken.

3. Place the categorized recipes inside the sheet protectors. You can insert them facing each direction or only facing the front of your three ring binder. If you have lots of recipes you might want to do front and back. You can also place a plain or colored piece of paper into the sleeve behind recipes to make them easier to view.

4. Write a category name on tab dividers. Place them in the three ring binder in the order that you decided on in Step 2. Place all of the recipes in the sheet protectors into the binder behind the proper divider.

5. Use the meal planner when your weekly grocery ads come in the mail. Find out what items are on sale and then find recipes in your meal planner that use those items as ingredients. Look at the recipe to see what items you currently have in your pantry and then create your shopping list accordingly.

Tips & Warnings

• You can use a photo album with self-sticking pages instead of a binder and plastic sheet protectors. Glue a tab onto sheets that will work as dividers.

• Put a sticker with the date on a recipe you have not used for a while. Take off the sticker once you have made the recipe. If a year goes by and you still have not made that dish, you can safely toss that recipe.

• Print a binder cover and spine insert for your binder using your computer.

Resources

• Binder Cover and Spine Templates