TLDR: Planning your meals is always worth it because it solves the fundamental need to eat. But meal planning really shines when you realize that it can solve problems beyond just what’s for dinner.
CAVEAT: Meal planning systems range from bare-bones basic to elaborately thought out, so make sure to adapt the concept to your life, this week.
(As always, find your next step at the end!)
Meal planning was the first highly intentional system I implemented in my home. I say ‘highly intentional’ because it wasn’t that I was living with no systems. It was just that until that point, my systems were almost totally based on copying those of the organized people I admired.
I was pregnant and, somewhat surprisingly, my first instinct was to start saving money immediately. It might sound like an obvious thing to do when expanding your family, but it was outside my normal mindset to think that way.
I’d never been a saver. I wasn’t a total spendthrift either. But, to be honest, I had some baggage with the general idea of money and I had allowed that baggage to turn me into someone who basically didn’t manage it at all.
And along comes baby.
Thankfully, something inside me shifted and I had a moment of clarity that let me admit that a huge chunk of our household spending was going to the purse-sucking habit of ordering delivery food.
To make a nearly nine-month long story short, I started meal planning and freezer cooking. Around eight months pregnant, I made a discovery that I was extremely proud of.
Through my meal planning, I had saved our household THOUSANDS of dollars.
It was my first taste of truly being in control of money. Especially since I hadn’t earned any real income for our household in years (artists don’t have to starve, but the ones with money baggage usually do).
But there were other benefits that came from meal planning that I hadn’t expected.
And that’s why we’re about to take a passionate deep dive into the perks and practices of meal planning today!
1. Meal Planning is a Financial Tool
I already described the savings I saw simply from deciding that delivery orders were draining me. If you’re in a place like I was, even a loosely defined goal like ‘saving money’ can help keep you motivated to plan ahead and avoid the last-minute-food tax that gets higher and higher all the time.
But if you need stronger motivation, then what you’re really looking for is a stronger reason.
Because motivation isn’t a feeling. It’s a reason.
A stronger reason doesn’t necessarily mean a deeper reason; remember my reason was about as deep as they come but my end goal (‘save money’) was pretty vague.
A stronger reason means getting really specific.
So it’s not just being numerically specific, like saying that you want to save $300. It’s saying that you want to save $300 by Thanksgiving because that will be your Christmas present fund.
And if that sounds like a lot to save in only a couple of months, consider that a meal for 4 can cost $50+ to eat out or $15 cooked at home. That’s nearly $300 saved already if you only get delivery once per week. Many people order far more often than that and also buy drinks and snacks on the go, and also pay a ‘big city’ tax, pushing that savings potential even higher (I definitely used to do all three!)
Saving a lump sum is a great accomplishment—it felt so good when I counted out my savings!
But meal planning becomes a financial tool when you do it over the long term.
Food is one of the largest spending categories for all households (along with housing and transportation). Meal planning with the intention of cooking at home can make a significant difference in your bank account without you having to worry about ‘budgeting harder’.
Pairing your new meal planning habit with achieving a specific financial goal is a great place to start.
But what about when time is more valuable than money?
2. Meal Planning is a Personal Development Tool
Years into consistently meal planning, the important financial savings carry on for me. But a surprising and satisfying benefit of learning to meal plan is this:
Meal Planning has supported my self-development in THREE highly impactful ways.
The first one is the hardest to quantify, but I also think it’s the most universally understood—it has relieved so much stress.
I first experienced how much pressure it could take off my shoulders by attaching a freezer cooking plan to my regular meal planning. (Freezer cooking plans can actually be so simple—comment below if you’re interested in hearing about it!) I’m not sure if this counts as a brag, but I’m still proud of how I fed three adults during my first three weeks postpartum without thinking much about food.
These days, having our meals planned out on Sundays relieves stress in a different way. When I know not only what I’m cooking for dinner, but that the required food is already in the fridge, it lets me take much better advantage of any available free time.
When the seas part and I get an extra long toddler nap, I can work on things that are important to me (like writing to you!) right up until the very last minute without worrying that dinner is going to be a stressful nightmare.
(Special note: we all know that sometimes dinner is a nightmare anyway, but at least it’s not because I’ve been paralyzed by staring into the fridge abyss!)
The second supporting role that meal planning has played in my personal development relates to time management.
Being the ‘late person’ was never my struggle, although I do believe that having your meals prepped will support getting you out the door on time.
My struggle was being a time waster. If you’ve read the blog before, you know that I’m fascinated by Parkinson’s Law, which basically says that tasks expand to fit the time you give them.
When I was younger, I sometimes had literal days to devote to projects. Now, I have hours when I’m unbelievably lucky.
But I get. So. Much. More. Done.
In no way am I telling you that you’ll become hyper productive solely from meal planning. We are multifaceted creatures and we deserve multifaceted support when we’re working on becoming More.
But practicing meal planning every week has given me regular opportunities to refine my system, which has cut down on the overall time it takes me to plan, shop, and cook. So not only is my cost benefit ratio improving (the ‘cost’ being the time invested in meal planning) but the principle has translated into other areas of my life.
It was meal planning that drove me to purchase my adorable Dreamsicle Orange Time Timer, which in turn finally opened me up to the transformative productivity advice I’d always (very unproductively) ignored: give your tasks a time limit.
This is called Timeboxing (although I actually think of it as Dreamsicling) and it’s a productivity principal that lets you be in control of the amount of time you’ll spend on a task, instead of the task dictating how much time you’ll spend on it.
And as it turns out, it’s weirdly motivating to know that you only have twenty minutes to finish something.
The third area of myself that meal planning has helped me develop is my overall planning abilities.
Meal planning is, well, planning. Just because it’s related to everyday activities like dinner doesn’t mean that it isn’t a powerful tool. In fact, I think it’s so powerful because it’s related to the everyday.
Meal planning engages some of the same cognitive functions we use for larger scale thinking, like long term or specialized planning.
By mentally trying out different meal plans, rearranging the physical aspects like food inventory, and adapting your systems to the real live humans that you feed, you’re exercising your flexible thinking skills.
When you meal plan, you are:
Evaluating your current environment
Anticipating future needs
Mentally sequencing activities
Meal planning is low-stakes practice for a high-value skill: learning how to plan.
3. How to (Actually) Meal Plan
I’m not going to teach you my own meal planning method, because meal planning especially is a system that needs to be personally customized (although if you’d like my free meal planning printable you can grab one by clicking here!)
I will tell you how I think about meal planning, because the thought process is truly the key here.
Here’s a simple set of questions to ask yourself as you make your plan:
What does this week need?
Consider this week’s schedule. Which days are busy? Are there any activities planned that interfere with cooking at your ‘normal’ time? Which days might be extra exhausting, whether they’re extra ‘busy’ or not? (Toddler days, anyone?)
What do I already have?
You don’t need a formal inventory of your pantry and freezer to take a quick look and see what’s already there to work around. You can even use ‘cheats’ like uploading a picture of your fridge to AI and asking it to generate meals from only existing items (or with only a small number of additions)
What am I realistically willing and able to cook?
This is where the reality of meal planning comes in. I used to fall into the ‘full blown recipe trap’ thinking I had to make every component from scratch as well as Mom/ Grandma/Whoever made it or not bother at all. That destroyed my consistency.
Remember: Frozen bags from Trader Joe’s are fine. Sandwiches are fine (and can be made into nutritionally complete meals!) Only plan to cook intricate recipes on days that you know you’ll have both the time and the energy.
And here are a few top tips to support consistency in your new habit:
Assemble a recipe binder, box, or single digital note
I used to think it was ridiculous to have recipes for dishes I already knew how to cook. Now I know that having those pages (or cards, or phone notes) to flip through allows me to select quickly even on days when my brain is feeling a little deep fried.
Keep a list of BackUps
Backups are basically your flexibility support. It could be an actual list of the absolute easiest options for when things go crazy at the last minute, including self- permission to just get takeout if that truly supports your sanity. For me, it’s usually revisiting my written meal plan to see which days I can switch around to make my actual day easier, sometimes pulling a pre-cooked meal out of the freezer, and every once in a while throwing in the apron and informing people that they can figure it out for themselves. I’m not a meal planning machine, after all.
Create Meal Categories
Some people call this idea ‘Themes’ and assign the categories to days of the week. But the point is simply having a list of categories (like Mexican, Italian, Slow Cooker, etx) that help trigger your thought process when selecting meals.
Whether you’re planning week by week or going all in and mapping out a monthly meal matrix, pairing these questions and tips can make meal planning easy enough to become a part of your normal cadence.
And reaching the point of consistency is when the benefits become more than just occasional victories—they become a foundational system.
HERE’S YOUR NEXT STEP:
Identify your busiest day next week. Plan that day’s meals TODAY and see what it feels like to solve a future problem before it even happens.
P.S. To get your Free Meal Planning Worksheet, join my
Systems Library by Clicking Here