what if you could stop asking yourself once and for all
What should I make for dinner?
Every day busy parents, including the queen of soul Aretha Franklin, grapple with the question: "What to cook for dinner?" It's a common and seemingly simple struggle.
You can stop wondering what you make for dinner every night with
The Ultimate Meal Planner Guide
A curated guide full of worksheets & various optional printables with varied layouts to effectively support busy parents who want to make meals at home.
Inside find templates made for different types organizational preferences.
Whether you are a good cook, still learning, working at home or outside the home, running a business, homeschooling or not — this resource will change the way you go about meal planning for your entire family! If you already plan your meals, this guide will enhance, support and perfect your method. Get the one and only (thus far) meal planning guide to stop stressing about what to make for dinner every night!
why is this even a problem, why do you need a guide to meal plan?
Let’s break it down
As a parent you have to plan for 365 dinners a year. YES, even when you plan to eat out or buy a frozen dinner, you still have to MENTALLY PLAN that.
But, let’s just say you eat out twice a week… that is still approximately 260 meals per year, AT MINIMUM (not including lunch or breakfast).
If you are a big family that rarely eats out you might be planning for about 624 meals per YEAR.
That is a lot of planning!! It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed when it comes to planning and making meals. It doesn’t have to be this way!
meal planning is not that easy
let’s go ahead and collectively admit,
Sure, deciding what to eat and when might sound straightforward. But let's dive deeper. What makes it challenging?
Well, beyond the frequency and actually preparing each meal, there's:
🛒 Planning based on grocery prices
🏬 Juggling goods from different stores
🌈 Planning for variety
🥦 Ensuring nutritional balance
🤧 Factoring in allergies or individual preferences
⏰ Considering cook time
🥨 Thinking about snacks
📅 Considering your schedule (extra-curricular activities, holidays, and birthdays)
💭 Recalling your favorite meals every week (Anyone else’s mind just go totally blank?)
📝 Building an organized grocery list that includes other household items like toilet paper, shampoo, etc.
…👩🍳 And let’s not forget to add trialing different recipes, which is an adventure!
friend, I have a solution for you to not
spend repeated hours trying to recall what your family likes to eat every time you visit the grocery store…
Even better, my solution for you includes not having to constantly be recalling what your family favorite staples are, the stores you get them from, your favorite meals, your kids favorite meals, household items, etc…
this is not a recipe book!
I am not providing you with any cooking tips or techniques. There are so many nutritionists, dietitians, chefs and experienced cooks who already provide that for you.
Plus, I have no idea what your family likes to eat, what your preferences or limitations are… so I couldn’t possibly do that.
I am providing you time efficient tools and work-sheets so you can once-and-for all tailor a plan that works for you.
doesn’t actually offer you the whole solution…
The internet
While the internet has a lot to offer in terms of recipes, ideas based on any dietary restrictions or wants, there is no step by step system designed to help you organize the process of planning meals.
You will find recipe books, you will find weekly planners, and maybe even monthly plans, but not a practical step for the rest of the process that might include:
Ensuring you pick up the right (for you) breakfast & snack foods for the kids
Consider safe meals the kids always enjoy (if that even exists!)
Take into consideration your and the kids snacks
The upcoming holidays
Meals based on the store that is 3 minutes from your house
Meals based on the store that is within your budget
and so many more things that are unique to your household!
What families need is a system that reliefs the mental load of having to think of meal ideas, household items, grocery lists, and plan lunches every day or every week.
Inside this guide you will find:
take a look…
🧠
Brainstorming Worksheets
Designed to help you save time by only brainstorming once.
🛒
Grocery Store Sheets
Time savers for families who visit more than one grocery store
💵
Cost Effective Planning Tips
Reduce waste and reduce the dollars paid with these tips
🍽️
Meal Idea Lists
Think of it as a quick cheatsheet for when you want something new and varied in your weekly menu!
🥦
Meat & Veggie Specific Ideas for Your Meals
For when you need to plan a meal centered around specific protein: chicken, beef, pork, or seafood. Meatless ideas too for those who do meatless Mondays!
📒
Planning for 2 or 3 meals a day
Not sure if your family should plan for all 3 meals, two or just one? Hear my recommendations.
🗓️
Weekly & Monthly Meal Plan Templates
These templates are like nothing you see online. You will have templates for a variety of needs and approaches, simply click print and get to planning STAT.
📱
Using ChatGPT to meal plan
Chat GPT can be a great and quick resource to help you create meal plans in seconds! With the right prompts it will save you time with the creative process.
❤️
Spanish Guide
Included is a Spanish Meal Planner Guide for bilingual familias.
but that is not all… you also get…
Meal Planning Worksheets for your Children!
Families who choose to meal plan and eat at home often do so for reasons that extend beyond simply saving money. It's about embracing family values and achieving personal goals. Whether it's being conscious of the ingredients used in your meals, spending more quality time together, or fostering cooking skills in your children, meal planning can be a fulfilling part of family life.
To support this, I've included in this guide meal planning templates tailored for children of various ages, from toddlers to teens. These templates not only help organize meal preparation but also involve your children in the process, teaching them valuable skills before they even begin to follow a recipe.
it sounds
too good to be true
I get it, it sounds too good to be true. This really is a beautifully and minimalistic guide for only $20. This guide is designed in only black and white so that you do not get bogged down by having to pay extra dollars on printing! It’s pretty in just two colors.
But these are not the details you are needing to hear, so let me tell ya how this guide will support your parenting journey as a working or stay at home parent…
with this guide you will….
✴ support your family’s nutrition goals
✴ support your family’s budget goals
✴ reduce any food waste from your house
✴ eat and track what you have in your fridge and pantry
✴ reduce the amount of unplanned times you have to hit the drive thru
✴ stop staring at the fridge with no idea of what to cook
✴ get other family members effectively involved in meal planning and cooking
✴ lessen the burden of yet another thing to plan for the week
✴ feel confident in what you buy at the grocery store
✴ easily communicate with your household about whats for dinner tonight
✴ have a concrete plan when you visit the grocery store
✴ ensure your fridge and pantry are stocked with the right foods
✴ ensure you are eating varied foods and meals
✴ easily have an answer to the question, “whats for dinner tonight?”
✴ feel good about eating out when you plan to
this guide is for
✅ Families who need more support meal planning
✅ Families who want to cook and eat more at home
✅ Parents who do not want to only rely or use technology (aka their phone or computer) to meal plan
✅ Parents who enjoy having a hard copy to go shopping or reference on the fridge.
✅ Parents who need improved communication in managing buying groceries and cooking dinner.
✅ Busy parents who want to save time while creating a library of preferred meal ideas
✅ Parents who need more flexibility their meal plans and budget.
✅ Families who tried meal prepping and learned that is NOT for them. Meal planning is a more flexible alternative.
you don’t have to do it alone, find inside this guide
tools that will support everyone in the family to plan and prepare meals
This guide will make it easy for you, your partner, and kids to participate in the process of meal planning. Mom, if it’s you reading here, you don’t have to do it all. Get the tools necessary so that others in the household can actively participate in planning meals for the week. Dad, if it’s you reading here, this guide will show you how you can share-the-load better and use this guide to make a weekly or monthly custom plan for your family in minutes!
In my household I often plan the meals and write a grocery list. Sometimes I get the list, others times my husband. Then we divide and conquer prepping dinner together. Often, I do all the prep work (thawing, marinating, chopping) while my husband will actually cook everything and assemble dinner for us when he gets home. This works perfectly for us now on our schedules, but can change depending on the season. Even if one person is in charge of all the prepping and cooking, this guide will support you immensely by cutting down a lot of the mental work for you and guiding you on creating a family library of meal plans you already love!
Conquer Meal Planning!
NOW IS YOUR TIME TO
Get this fully printable guide to begin the process of mastering meal planning for your family no matter the season, the size, the likes, the preferences and crazy schedules your family manages.
Here is what you will be getting:
👉 A set of brainstorming sheets: to help you do the thinking once and for all.
👉 A set of grocery organization sheets: to help you organize your family’s regular shopping based on what you get where.
👉 Cost Effective Meal Planning Tips
👉 Categorized Meal Idea Lists for when you need some inspo!
👉 Meat and Veggie Specific Ideas if you need inspo!
👉 Recommendations for planning for 2 or 3 meals a week
👉 Chat GPT tips to meal plan
👉 Weekly and Monthly meal plan templates + grocery list printables (in one sheet!)
👉 Meal planning templates for toddlers, kids and teens.
👉 Spanish Meal planning guide INCLUDED!
Hey, I am Micaela
business owner, creator, foodie & stay at home mom
While I love to cook and eat as my life gets busier and fuller, I simply cannot devote that much time to it. But food is a BIG part of who I am, it’s a part of our family values. Not so much that we always buy organic, but that we value eating at home and teaching our kids how to cook food over eating out. We have so proudly mastered cooking at home that we rarely prefer to eat out.
But that is not to say that cooking, and planning meals isn’t a big stress in my house — because it is. Its a big stress because we care about it and want to do it well. It’s also a big stress because its a necessity. Our kids need to eat and so do we. So what will we make for dinner today?
While I have dreamed of writing a recipe book, I simply cannot because I never follow recipes exactly— can you relate? This meal planning guide is NOT a recipe book. It’s not about me telling you how to cook, but how to plan for meals based on your family values, tastes and needs.
I am a parent taking it day to day and have many of the same concerns, goals and hassles that any parents has in today’s world. Over the past four years, I've experienced various parenting seasons including working both outside and inside the home. I have managed my own business and contributed to others', toggled between having and not having childcare, and have juggled work while in school and raising two children.
It’s just a lot!
And while I cannot solve all the things that require my energy and attention one of the biggest ones I have dedicated to solving for myself and my family in the last few years is meal planning — because we love to eat and mealtime is one of my favorite times of the day.
With my love for cooking and eating while trying to keep my brain a bit sane I have created this lovely 60 page guide for you. May you also feel more at ease as you continue to tackle all the parenting, adulting, and working things while feeding your family at home.
Meal Prepping Vs. Meal Planning
what is meal prepping?
Meal prepping is when you prepare (and cook) your meals for the week in advance. This may look like making casseroles, cooking meats and freezing or it could look like chopping all the needed ingredients in advance for the week.
In any manner, it usually requires a set amount of hours per week to complete. Usually about 2-4 hours to shop, cook and store all the foods for the week. It does make for a smooth week but it has it’s downsides too, which you can read next!
There are a myriad of ideas online on what meals you can prep in advance and tips and recipes from many creators. This resource could work very well for families who meal-prep in advance as it will allow you to plan what meals to make and what to get, but will lack depth when it comes to meals that freeze well, last long, and storage tips because it is not about meal preparation as much as the art of planning effortlessly!
If you have already tried meal prepping for the week you may already know all of these downsides… but if not, let me save you some time. Although the disclaimer here is that meal prepping does work for some families, it didn’t work for mine although I tried several times. Here are the downsides:
the downsides of meal prepping
It takes a lot more planning and time than imagined. The shopping, the cooking all at once, and the freezing (having all the materials to properly store) is a lot of time.
The food doesn’t taste as fresh. After day 3 of the same casserole you might start to hate the taste. While some people don’t mind eating re-heated food, others can be sensitive to it.
It is a rigid plan. After spending so much time and effort in meal prepping, straying from the plan of “off” days might be difficult and depending on what you prepped you might not always be able to save it.
So, why meal planning?
because having a plan always pays
Having a plan is always a good idea, but it does take effort. It takes brain power, energy, time, focus… it takes some creativity. These are the things that I hope to support you with. While I cannot guarantee that you’ll find a quiet hour in the day to work on meal planning I can tell you with certainty, it doesn’t take close to an hour if you use my method. While the first two times you get through my sheets might take you extra time (okay maybe an hour?!), it should feel drastically smoother thereafter.
I have been using this method for 6 months now and it only gets better as I continue to know my family’s eating habits, preferences, and goals and build our family meal library, grocery sheets and brainstorming sheets.
Meal planning is simply your intentions for food this week so that you can get what you need from the store, use what’s in your fridge, determine who’s fixing it and when, and going with the plan or adjusting as you need to. Adjusting the plan is a real breeze.
Get Started with Efficient and Easy Meal Planning Today
$12
Get the Ultimate Meal Planning E-Guide
👉 A set of brainstorming sheets: to help you do the thinking once and for all.
👉 A set of grocery organization sheets: to help you organize your family’s regular shopping based on what you get where.
👉 Cost Effective Meal Planning Tips
👉 Categorized Meal Idea Lists for when you need some inspo!
👉 Meat and Veggie Specific Ideas if you need inspo!
👉 Recommendations for planning for 2 or 3 meals a week
👉 Chat GPT tips to meal plan
👉 Weekly and Monthly meal plan templates + grocery list printables (in one sheet!)
👉 Meal planning templates for toddlers, kids and teens.
👉 Spanish Meal planning guide INCLUDED!
$15
Add The iPhone Note Worksheets & Planning Templates To Your Order
👉 A set of brainstorming sheets: to help you do the thinking once and for all.
👉 A set of grocery organization sheets: to help you organize your family’s regular shopping based on what you get where.
👉 Cost Effective Meal Planning Tips
👉 Categorized Meal Idea Lists for when you need some inspo!
👉 Meat and Veggie Specific Ideas if you need inspo!
👉 Recommendations for planning for 2 or 3 meals a week
👉 Chat GPT tips to meal plan
👉 Weekly and Monthly meal plan templates + grocery list printables (in one sheet!)
👉 Meal planning templates for toddlers, kids and teens.
👉 Spanish Meal planning guide INCLUDED!