The 9 Worst Mistakes People Make When Meal Planning
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As a nutritionist, when I mention the words "meal planning" I often get one of two reactions from my audience. Either their eyes roll into the back of their head and they cease listening to what I'm saying due to past failures with trying to meal plan OR their ears perk up in hopes that I am about to share the magic secret to successful meal planning.
Whichever their reaction, I can immediately tell that they have experienced at least one and possibly all of the following meal planning mistakes.
#1 They don't do it
Ummmm, pretty self-explanatory here. If you don't meal plan, then you will obviously not reap the benefits and probably suck at it.
I get it. I was averse to meal planning for 12 years of my adulthood (counting after college - no one meal plans in college...no one plans anything in college!)
Meal planning sounded like this big horrible no good very bad idea. Why would I put so much work into planning my meals when I barely had enough energy or time to cook them?? Besides, I liked "being in the moment".
Enter having children. And yet I still put it off! Life was more about them and less about me (okay, not really much at all about me) but I could still drag them to the grocery store, feed them leftovers and cook dinner for me and hubs after they went to sleep at 6:30/7pm.
Then the kids got older. Contrary to what I thought would happen...life got crazier!!
I resisted for such a long time and then I caved. I started meal planning.
And holy moly why did I not do this before?!?! Meal planning saves so much time and money and sanity!!!
#2 Too big too fast
Okay, so you finally decided you are going to try meal planning for the first time. You've printed out like 52 copies of a weekly meal plan template (you can get mine here), you have a stack of 14 cookbooks, Pinterest is open on your computer and you are armed with pen, sticky tabs, and highlighter.
Yeahhhh... good luck with that. I give you one week, two tops before you are completely burned out or give up because you don't have time to do that each week! Sometimes it can be fun to search for new recipes and come up with a new rhythm to your meal planning but for beginners, let's keep it realistic.
Don't try to plan out 52 weeks (or even 8 weeks!) of meals. Start with 1 week!
Don't add 7 new recipes to your weekly meal plan. Start with recipes you know and have made in the past. In fact, I would say for your first few meal plans, don't add any new recipes. You're not having a dinner party at your house every night this week. Sometimes grilled cheese and cut raw veggies is a perfectly fine meal for a busy night!
#3 Not consulting the calendar
Soccer practice finishes tonight at 6pm and you have it down on your meal plan that tonight is the night to make a meal that has 20 minutes of prep and 20 minutes of cook time.
Are you and the kids eating at 7/7:30pm? I'm guessing not. I predict that the meal plan gets thrown out the window and you all stop for take-out after practice.
If only you had consulted your family's calendar! Then you could have planned accordingly and had a nice hot meal all ready and waiting for you to eat when you came home. Wait, what?
Yes! Slow cookers are one of the amazing tools you can use to meal plan. Schedule slow cooked meals for the nights when you are away and don't have time to cook in the late afternoon/evening. You can go a step further and double the slow cooker recipe so you have a meal already cooked for the next day or to put in the freezer for a future easy meal.
The takeaway message here is that meal planning can be a disaster if you don't look ahead to your commitments for the week and plan meals that work with that schedule.
#4 Cooking every night
While I acknowledge that a subset (a pretty small subset) of the population loves to cook every night for their family, most of us don't want to or don't have the time to enjoy doing that.
This brings us to another meal planning faux pas beginners make; planning to cook every night of the week.
There are seasons for everything. Seasons for dinner parties, seasons for grilling into the late summer evenings, and seasons for holiday cooking. And then there is the season of busy school-time schedules and kids activities. This is not the season for cooking every night!
Take some of the burden off of yourself and create a meal plan where you only cook 3-5 nights a week. This means cooking once-eating twice, planning ahead to use freezer meals, and giving yourself a night off by ordering take-out or eating out.
Just. Do. Not. Burn. Out. Long-term, meal planning can really become your very best friend! So start easy and basic until you work into a rhythm that works for your current season.
#5 Not writing it down
I consider myself a highly intelligent person 😜, but there is NO WAY I would ever try and use up valuable brain space for a meal plan. That's just a waste of effort! Get that meal plan out of your head and onto paper! (Free up some space in the process!)
Besides, a really great meal plan has many moving parts. Grocery lists, when to take things out of the freezer to thaw, prepping food on certain days to save time, dumping ingredients into slow cookers in the morning, etc. While you are likely a Master Multi-tasker, your busy mom-brain will thank you for writing this all down. Some of you Ultra-Planners are just giddy with excitement about this, right??
Download your FREE weekly meal planner in the Free Resource Library
#6 Not doing any meal prep at the beginning of the week
If you ask a seasoned meal planner what their Sunday looks like I'm betting you get an answer something like, "we do [family activity], then I/we [another activity], and I do about an hour or two of meal prep, and then we [third activity]". Just like that, meal prep is part of their Sunday like brushing teeth is part of your nightly routine.
The secret that they know about meal planning is that 1-2 hours spent up front can save time and stress throughout the rest of the week.
Do they do it every Sunday? I'm sure not. There can be flexibility depending on what the meal plan is for that week and whether they are in town or have special plans but most experienced meal planners actually love to work in some meal prep on Sunday or Monday so that their entire week flows better.
Some of the foods you can think about starting to prep ahead are washing and cutting veggies and fruit, marinating or adding rubs to certain meats, making salad dressings, dips or sauces.
#7 Not taking inventory
Another mistake that can cost you, literally. Do you even know what is in your freezer? You might end up throwing away food that was perfectly good but is now a couple years old (do you even know how long it has been in there?)
TIP: Label everything with name/description and date that goes in the freezer!
Taking stock and keeping an inventory of your foods, especially in the freezer, can really help with meal planning. You can use pre-made dinners from the freezer for busy weeknights and free up space for the next time you make double or triple of the family's favorite chili dish.
#8 Doing it all alone
Kids (and husbands) are more likely to have a good attitude about what is served for dinner when they get a say in it. I'm not saying that you should turn into a short-order cook. But giving your children some input for the weekly meal plan can get them a bit more "on-board" with the plan.
Every once in a while (maybe 2-4 times per year) have a little family pow-wow so that you can all make a list of the family's favorite meals. Divide the list into categories. Here are some examples:
Healthiest
Fast & Easy
Comfort Food
Everyone Will Eat
Favorites (that are not quick!)
You can add/subtract and tweak these categories to suit your family. With a list like this, you know where everyone stands with their likes and dislikes.
Now that you have this "Master Family Favorite Meals" list you can engage your kids to pick one or two meals from that list and enter it into your Weekly Meal Plan where it suits you. For example, let's say Kid #1 picks something "Fast & Easy" and Kid #2 picks something from "Favorites (that are not quick!)". Fill in Kid #1's choice where you need a quick dinner option and save Kid #2's choice for a weekend night when you have more time to cook. The more you do this the easier and more fluid it will become AND your kids will be involved and look forward to (at least some of) the meals!!
#9 Not repeating a past meal plan
You already did all the work, why not use it again?? Throw away the meal plans that are total disasters (or better yet, save them and make notes as to why it was a disaster). Keep the weeks that worked (with notes on how to improve) and reuse them!!
TIP: If you like to organize digitally, take a picture of your handwritten meal plan and save them on your computer or phone!
This is not rocket science. Your family will be totally fine if they eat the same weekly meal plan again. They probably won't even notice! You can always skip a week or more in between duplicating the weekly meal plan.
Also, many children LOVE repetition! You know how they like to read the same story over and over and over until you want to rip your hair out? They like the repetition with food too. Perhaps they aren't super jazzed about certain meals but if they come to expect it then they are less likely to complain.
You can also try implementing certain themed nights that you can repeat with variations. For example:
Taco Tuesday
Soup Sunday
Meatless Monday
Friday Pizza Night
Try it Tuesday
Breakfast for Dinner
Quick & Easy Thursday
Leftover Night
You get the idea. Why not come up with your own themes, with some help from the family of course!
Learn from mistakes
You are all set up for some meal planning wins now that you know what not to do! Simply acknowledge and avoid these 8 meal planning mistakes and start meal planning. You won't be perfect at first, but the more you do it the better you will become!
Happy Meal Planning!
P.S. I have some great FREE tools like a printable Weekly Meal Planner and Freezer Inventory List you may find helpful in your meal planning journey. Check them out in my Resource Library.
