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SLT039: Simple Meal Planning & Paying For Excess Baggage

SLT039: Simple Meal Planning & Paying For Excess Baggage

FromSimple Life Together


SLT039: Simple Meal Planning & Paying For Excess Baggage

FromSimple Life Together

ratings:
Length:
41 minutes
Released:
Aug 29, 2013
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Let's face it, there are some situations in life that cause us stress that we just don't need. The bad kind of stress...the kind that holds us back. Not the good type of stress, the kind that propels us forward. Two things that came to mind for us. The first was meals and how we overlook some simple meal planning techniques that lead to fueling us to take on the day ahead. Another was the "excess baggage" we carry through life.



So, let's take a look at simple meal planning and paring down some excess in our lives to see where we can makes some changes, and hopefully, improvements! Read more...




Vanessa’s Topic: Simple Meal Planning
After Dan talked about doing a Personal Review in Episode 037 it got me thinking about doing one of my own.   As I was doing this self-reflection, I discovered a couple of things I was doing that were causing undue stress in our lives:
1) My waiting until the last minute to get dressed when we were going out or had to meet someone for dinner causing us to be a couple or so minutes late.
2) Not having our dinners very well planned out.  
So, I decided to work on those two areas: being early and having a meal plan ...which is what I decided to talk about for this episode.

The number one key to simple meal planning is to…well…plan! Yup...as much as I wish it was the case...that dinner isn’t going to magically make itself. Here are some ways to make meal planning a little easier:



Plan 1 week of meals at a time.  That includes breakfast, lunches, dinners and after school snacks.  Yes...take the time to plan all of your meals...it will save you time and stress in the long run!




Review your calendar for the week ahead to see if there are any nights where you won’t need to or be able to make dinner.   Maybe there’s too many activities and it would be better to eat out than to try and make a meal for the family.  Or maybe you can make a simple crockpot meal on those busy nights where it’s  a “self-serve” dinner.




Plan for a leftover night.  Some meals are easy and cheap to make in bulk so why not make a little extra for lunch the next day?




Pick 1-2 theme nights and have the same meal  every week on that night:  Mondo Burger Monday, Taco Tuesday, Nacho Ordinary Wednesday…etc.




Shop only 1 – 2 times per week.  I’ve said this multiple times before, but for consistency, pick the days you want to go shopping and block that time off on your calendar.




Speaking of shopping….shop only at your favorite grocery stores...1-2 max!  Don’t waste time going to different stores just to get 1-2 items or to get the best deal!




Keep a grocery list in open view so that you and your family can write down items to get when they run out.  Dry erase boards, sticky pads, and magnetic notepads stuck on the fridge work great!




Organize your grocery lists by Store and then by Category. For example:  Walmart List: Dairy, Meats, Produce, Canned Goods, etc.  A cool way to create multiple lists in one spot is to use Grocery Gadget




Batch shopping with other errands if possible.  Let’s say you’ve got to go to the post office, then gas up the car and drop off dry cleaning.  Maybe you could finish up your errands with grocery shopping.




Get into a routine of making your lunches the night before.  Please, please, please don’t stress yourself out by trying to make lunches in the morning!




To piggy-back on the lunch routine, you may also want to review your meal schedule the night before too so that you are prepared to make tomorrow’s dinner.  This is very helpful especially if you’ll need to pull out items from the freezer to thaw out overnight.




Get kids and/or significant other involved.  Have them plan the meals they want for breakfast, lunch and dinner.




In line with getting the family involved, be sure to define roles and responsibilities as well as when dinner is expected to be ready.
Released:
Aug 29, 2013
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (79)

Leading a Simple Life in the Modern World