How to Make Your Own Food Menu

Save time and money by planning your meals.

It's a dreaded question: "What's for dinner?" While your kids expect you as a parent to know the answer, you may be just as lost. Parents, couples and single people alike can benefit from planning what you're going to eat for a meal at least a day before the meal. Menu planning saves time and money, according to Susanne of the home management website Hillbilly Housewife. It prevents you from ordering takeout food or going to a restaurant for meals and it removes the stress from meal times.

Things You'll Need

• 5 sheets of white 8.5x11-inch paper
• Pencil
• Die
• Refrigerator magnet

Instructions

1. On a sheet of paper list your seven favorite meals. Ask everyone in your household to contribute to the list if you live with other people. Write "B" next to each breakfast meal, "L" next to each lunch meal and "D" next to each dinner meal.

2. Write "Breakfast" as the heading on a separate sheet of paper and list the breakfast foods below it. Repeat this for lunch and dinner.

3. Write the days of the week down the length of a separate sheet of paper. Write "Breakfast," "Lunch" and "Dinner" across the top of the paper, leaving the area over the days of the week blank. Put equal space between the words on each axis.

4. Roll the die. Count down each list to the number shown on the die. Add the meals at that position to the menu for Sunday.

5. Add the remaining three meals as the breakfast, lunch and dinner for Saturday. Post the list on your refrigerator.

Tips & Warnings

• To make a new menu for next week, repeat all the steps or just steps 3 through 5.

References

• Hillbilly Housewife: Menu Planning Made Easy