In my opinion, meal planning is the number one thing you can do to save money on food. If you carefully plan your meals (especially around what is on sale!) then you reduce last-minute trips to the grocery store or stops at fast food. This has really helped us curtail our eating out expenditures. With four kids to feed under age 9 we were finding ourselves at a loss for what to cook each night (and would head out to eat!). The saddest part of that is that my husband and I are BOTH cooking teachers! You would think we would be all over the cooking healthy meals for our family thing. Sometimes we are. But when we don’t take the time to meal plan, out we go! These free printable weekly meal planners for busy families will help you get back on track!
Printable Meal Planner from Printable Crush
I love this colorful, fun planner! It has space for breakfast, lunch, and dinner plus a spot for you to jot down your grocery list. One of the things that makes this planner unique is the daily servings checklist at the bottom, helping you to ensure you are getting a wide variety of foods in your diet. (Helpful to make sure the kids are eating their fruits and veggies!)
Grocery List with Menu Planner from Heytherehome.com
This is a very simple menu planner and mostly grocery list. This is honestly how I usually plan dinners (we just kind of buy breakfast and lunch stuff and wing it) so I will make a detailed grocery list with a small list of the week’s dinners off to the side. Very good planner if you are just wanting to plan dinners and have a large space for the grocery list.
Weekly Menu Planner from Little Coconutty
Here is another good example of a menu planner that lets you plan out each of the day’s meals including a snack. It also has a small area for the grocery list.
Weekly Meal Planner Excel Template
If you like to keep your meal plans digital, check out this nifty meal planner that you can fill out in MS Excel! It has a spot for all the breakfasts, lunches, and dinners grouped together and a shopping list area, too. Maybe I should move my meal plans on the computer… it sure has helped with my budget…
Free Printable Meal Planner from dearcrissy.com
Okay, so if you are looking for a detailed meal planner that includes everything you might need for FREE – look no farther! This is over 30 PAGES long and includes items such as shopping lists, recipe cards, weekly meal planner, and so much more!
I hope one of these free printable weekly meal planners works for you and helps simplify your life (and your budget!!). We are jumping back on the meal planning wagon with the new year and I hope you are, too!
Amanda