I’ve been there: Sitting in front of a blank piece of paper, trying to figure out what the family should eat for dinner this week. Or walking through the grocery store without a list, grabbing whatever you think your family might need for the week, yet fully expecting to be back in the store within a day or two. Why is meal planning so hard? What makes it so difficult to decide what to cook and then ACTUALLY cook those things? Let’s chat about some common meal planning roadblocks along with some solutions to help you overcome them.
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Meal Planning Problems (and Solutions)
This list isn’t all-encompassing, but it includes a lot of common hurdles to meal planning that I’ve experienced in my nearly 20 years of meal planning for a family.
1. Lack of Inspiration/Boredom
I think this can be one of the most common issues with meal planning: Coming up with ideas when you feel like you just make the same seven meals on repeat. You’re flipping through your tried-and-true recipe books or your favorite Pinterest board of recipes, yet you don’t see anything that looks good. Frankly, you’re B-O-R-E-D.
Solution: Shake things up by incorporating some food holidays into your meal planning routine! Somehow, your old faithful spaghetti recipe is more fun when you’re planning to make it on National Pasta Day (which is October 17th, if you were curious). I’ve put together a printable list of food holidays that you can keep in your recipe binder whenever you’re feeling a lack of inspiration.
2. Too Many Ideas
The other side of the coin is being overwhelmed by too many meal ideas! When you’re tasked with selecting a week’s worth of dinners from your entire recipe collection, it can be challenging to know where to start.
Solution: Try meal planning with themes! Assign each day of the week a particular theme, which immediately narrows down your options to a handful of recipes that would fit with that theme. If you’re bored with Meatless Monday and Taco Tuesday, be sure to check out my post with over 50 dinner theme ideas that you can use in your meal planning.
3. Trying to Do Too Much
If you’re just getting started with meal planning, it can feel overwhelming to plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner for your family every day of the week. The truth is, you don’t need to plan so much! That is a ticket to burning out. Some people are able to do this with no problem….I applaud them! But that can be what’s making meal planning so hard for you and many other people.
Solution: Start by just planning dinners. You’ll often find that you can use the leftovers for lunch the next day, so you don’t need to plan anything. Or, you’ll be able to incorporate extra ingredients from dinner into breakfast the next day. By planning your dinners first, everything else tends to fall into place. This is exactly how I meal plan for my family.
If you’d like to learn more about my A-B-C-D-E meal planning method, be sure to check out this video! (And if you love grocery hauls and meal planning content on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to my channel.)
4. Restrictions
Whether you’re dealing with dietary restrictions or the preferences of picky eaters, it can really complicate meal planning when certain ingredients are off the table. Meal planning becomes a dreaded chore when it feels like you’re putting together a complicated jigsaw puzzle to make the weekly dinners work for everyone.
Solution: While I never suggest that I have all of the answers, I have found that it’s helpful to include the entire family in the meal planning process. I ask my child with food sensitivities what meals have felt okay on their stomach lately and add those to the calendar. Then, I invite my picky eater to choose a meal that sounds good to them. I also plan meals that are easily deconstructed into their components so everyone can fill their plates with preferred options. (Some of our favorites are tacos, chef salads, and burgers.)
5. Rigidity
I think that some people think meal planning is hard because they often find themselves scrapping the plan mid-week. The planned meal for the night is too much work, they forgot to defrost the meat, or what sounded good on Saturday just isn’t the vibe come Thursday.
Solution: Be more flexible with your meal plan and expect to adjust it over the course of the week! When you treat your meal plan with flexibility, you won’t feel like it “failed” when you decide to skip one of your planned meals and make quesadillas or grilled cheese instead. This is why it can be helpful to have a few shelf-stable meal options always available in your kitchen. This can keep you out of the grocery store mid-week and make you feel better about the meal planning process.
6. Time
Ultimately, I think one of the biggest meal planning challenges is a lack of time. Depending on how you decide to store your favorite recipes and create your grocery list, it can be a time-consuming process to meal plan and grocery shop for a full week. I think this is why people often find themselves going to the store without a real plan. They only have time to grocery shop RIGHT NOW, so they do their best to figure things out on the fly.
Solution: Find ways to make meal planning easier for YOU. Everyone’s schedule is different and every household is unique. It’s important to find a meal planning method that fits with your life and is something you can stick with.
Meal Planning with Plan to Eat
This isn’t a sponsored post or anything…I just wanted to share my personal solution to the meal planning woes I often have. The Plan to Eat app has been a total game-changer for me! I’m able to quickly access our family’s favorite recipes (or add new recipes that I find) and add them to a digital planner that I can access on my phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
Once all of the meals have been added to the calendar, I tap on the shopping tab and all of the ingredients for every planned meal have been consolidated into one list. It takes no time at all to create a meal plan and grocery list in my car before running into the store. (It’s also easy to print off your list if you prefer a hard copy.)
There are many more features that make this such a time-saver, which I share in my Plan to Eat review. If you’d like to take a closer look for yourself, just click below for a free 14-day trial. This is a 100% no-obligation free trial. They don’t even ask for your credit card information!
By using my referral link below, you’ll receive 20% off your first year if you decide to subscribe after your trial period.
Save These Meal Planning Tips
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite Pinterest board so you can quickly and easily find these tips when meal planning feels hard.
