10 Steps to Create a Menu Plan

Let’s take a poll. 

How much stress do you feel when you hear this question: What’s for dinner? 

a.) None
b.) A little
c.) A lot

Most people, especially those with kids, would probably answer c, a lot. To reduce this stress in our home, I try to plan our meals in advance so that both the Mr. and I know what’s planned for dinner each night. I’m here today to share that process with you.

To reduce grocery expenses and avoid excess spending, I recommend setting a weekly or monthly grocery budget for you and your family. While this isn’t a necessary step in the meal planning process, it gives me a starting point and a goal to reach when I’m making my shopping list. This amount will vary greatly based on your household income and size of your family. Set a number that works best for you.

To keep this process organized, it helps to keep your meal planning supplies in one place. Grab a pen, a pad of paper or meal plan printable, your family’s favorite recipes, new recipes you’d like to try, coupons, and local store ads. Consider keeping these items in a binder, folder, or basket stashed in a place that is easy to access.

I create my meal plan on Wednesday afternoons and usually do my grocery shopping Friday evening or Saturday morning depending on our plans for the weekend. Stores seem to be well stocked on Sunday’s and Monday’s when the new sale ad goes into effect, but these days don’t work well with my schedule. Set a day or day range that you will typically do your shopping. Then, set a 30 minute window of time in your schedule that you will devote to meal planning prior to your shopping trip. Make this a strict date with yourself to keep that stress level down.

I look through two ads each week to see what is on sale at our local stores. Sometimes I write items down, other times I just make a mental note of items that are on sale. Obviously you don’t need to write down EVERY item on sale. You know what your family likes and the items you’re used to buying, so jot down any significant sales on those items. 

Sometimes just a quick look through the pantry or the freezer will help you remember that you have 12 cans of diced tomatoes or 5 pounds of ground beef you forgot about. Jot these items down as well.

Take a look at your calendar to determine what your family’s schedule looks like for the period you are planning for. There will be some days that you have events elsewhere and won’t need to cook (like a church potluck or neighborhood party). There will be some days when you know you will have about five minutes to prep for dinner and other nights where you may have 35 minutes. Make a note of these things on your pad of paper or menu plan. If we have a family gathering at Mom’s house on Saturday for dinner, I will write “Mom’s” under Dinner on Saturday. This reminds me I don’t need a meal for that day.

Take a look at your family’s favorite recipes and match recipes to items that are on sale or items you have a large supply of at home. For example, if pasta and pasta sauce is on a big sale one week, I might plan a meatless pasta meal with alfredo sauce and a meal of spaghetti and meatballs. 

List out the days of the week on your pad of paper or grab your printable meal plan. Jot down a meal for each day. On days you will be pressed for time, fill in a meal that is quick to prepare or that you can prepare the night before. 

Make a list of all the items you will need to prepare your meals for the week. I like to write down every ingredient and then go back through my cupboards and freezer and cross off anything I already have. This way I don’t miss anything. But if that is too time consuming, just write down the things you know you need to buy. 

Stick to your list and your budget. If you buy a lot of the same items each week, you will get to know how much each item costs and this will better help you prepare a plan that fits easily into your budget. I often take a calculator to the store with me and add my total as I add items to my cart. If I get to the end and see that I’m over, I can take out items that are not a necessity.

Bonus Tips:

• Ask your family members what sounds good for dinner that week. You don’t have to come up with all of the ideas on your own.

• Organize your grocery list by zone. You may not know exactly what aisle the frozen pizza is located in, but you know where the frozen food section is, the produce section, the bakery, etc. Putting your list in this order will help you to not miss anything and also speed up your time at the store.

• Pick one recipe each week to double. Make a double batch (on a night you have time) and freeze the second half for a busy night in the future. 

• Plan every component of your meal. In other words, consider side dish ideas, breads, etc that you plan to serve with dinner. This will help you avoid having to run back to the store for something to serve with your main dish. 

• Plan every meal of your week. My meal plan consists of breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks per day. We don’t always stick to this plan strictly, but it ensures that we have enough food on hand for the week. 

• Clip your recipes for the week to your meal plan or hang them on the fridge. This way, when it’s time to prep dinner, you don’t have to dig through your cookbook to find the recipe. And, if you’re lucky, someone else will see what’s planned for dinner and grab the recipe and make it for you! 

Most importantly, don't let the menu planning process create MORE stress for you. It should be a tool that helps your week to flow a bit more smoothly. Adjust these steps to what works best for you and your family. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about creating your own menu plan!

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How to Store Those Pesky Plastic Bags

What do you do with all of the plastic bags you get from various stores? Do you throw them away? Recycle them? Reuse them for other purposes? 

I have reusable grocery bags for grocery shopping, but I often forget to bring my reusable bags when shopping for other items like clothing, household goods, etc. So, I end up coming home with a plastic bag or two. It gets stashed in our cleaning closet in the kitchen and begins its journey of annoying me indefinitely. Our local grocery store does accept these bags for recycling, but I always forget to bring them with me and I do use them occasionally for tasks like emptying the kitty litter box or transporting items from one place to another. 

At this point, I feel they are an evil that I will not be able to get rid of completely, so I needed to come up with a better way to store them. Enter my DIY plastic bag storage container project!

In my collection of empty glass bottles and various other containers, I found this coffee can. I kept it because I figured I could use it for something worthwhile instead of recycling it. I pulled out a scrap piece of paper from my craft paper collection and cut it down to the height of the container. 

Using permanent spray adhesive, I sprayed the back of the paper and carefully adhered it to my coffee can.

Done. It's that easy. Then, I grabbed my stash of plastic bags. I got rid of the ones with holes in them and the ones that were extra large. They never seem to get reused at our house. The rest got stuffed into the coffee can.

I put the container in our bottom kitchen drawer next to the trash bags.

Now, those pesky bags are out of sight and out of the way of annoying me, but still there should I need one. An easy and free solution - my favorite type!

How do you corral your bags - or avoid getting them in the first place?

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The Continued Quest to Reduce "Stuff"

Can you believe the first quarter of the year is over already? Time flies when it's freezing cold and snowy outside... Not really. But time does seem to be going by quickly!

Way back in January, I shared my experience with an internet phenomenon called Project 333. The idea is that you choose 33 items to create your wardrobe for three months at a time. At the end of those three months, you can select 33 different items or add and subtract from your original 33 as necessary. The project states that these 33 items should include clothing, accessories, jewelry, outerwear, and shoes but not everyday jewelry like a wedding ring, underwear, at home lounge wear, sleep wear, or workout clothing. Then, after you've completed four cycles of this project (12 months) it should be very clear what items in your wardrobe you should keep and what items you can do without.

I wittled my wardrobe down to 33 clothing items in January and then added in five accessories and five pairs of shoes. I tweaked the program for me a bit for a couple reasons. First, my clothes were out of control but my outerwear, shoes, and jewelry are items that I don't have a ton of, relatively speaking. Second, my day job requires me to dress pretty formally which means I need jackets, pants, and skirts to get me through five days without repeating. Project 333 is not meant to be a "project of suffering." It's meant to be helpful. So these tweaks are what I felt would help me the most.

So it's been three months. Where am I at?

I was really surprised that I managed to go three months with only 33 clothing items in my closet. I was also surprised at how easy it was to pick out my clothes each day. Before purging my closet, I would stand in front of it depressed, constantly complaining about how I had nothing to wear. I don't think I had that conversation with myself once over the last three months. Because my 33 items were picked from my "love" pile, any item I picked was an item I loved. So, everyday I got to wear clothes I enjoyed and that made me feel good. I thought for sure I'd get bored, but surprisingly, I made it. I did swap out one pair of pants about half way through February because a pair I had originally selected were not working for me. 

After three months, here is a picture of my closet:

Aside from a couple rogue hangers, it's still organized and easy to find all the hanging items. 

To start phase 2 of this project, I went through my 33 items and decided three things:

1.) What items do I still really love and want to store for the next fall/winter season?

2.) What items do I still really love and want to keep in the closet for the next three months?

3.) What items didn't really work for me over the last three months that I can now get rid of?

Because we live in Michigan, my fall/winter wardrobe varies from my spring/summer clothes. So all those big bulky sweaters had to be packed up. I also packed up my wool pants, wool jackets, and fall/winter dresses. I loaded them into a box and labeled them Winter. Here is my "keep for next winter" pile:

I picked two items to donate from my original 33. This was tough, but I realized that I rarely wore them even when they were part of a very select few available items. I also kept about 10 items to transition into spring. Once I had those 10 items, I had room for 23 more. 

I went back to all the clothes I had packed away in January and pulled out anything that was spring/summer appropriate. Then I followed a similar process as in January, separating those items into things I love, things I liked, and things I could get rid of. From the first two piles, I picked my final 23 items. Here is my spring (April - June) selection:

I found quite a few things that I wasn't willing to part with back in January, but was now able to say it's time to get rid of them. So I combined all of those items into an overflowing box to take to donate.

The amount of room taken up by stored clothing in our home has already decreased noticeably. What's even better is that getting dressed this morning was exciting because it felt like I had just shopped for an entire new wardrobe. I'm really excited to continue on this journey and especially excited to see how many items I end up with in December when this project is complete.

Check out the Project 333 website if you're interested to try something like this yourself. I'm happy to answer any questions you have as well!

Here's to decreasing the amount of stuff in our homes and increasing organization!

Arranging the Kitchen: Dish Storage Zone

When I first started my kitchen reorganization project, I divided the kitchen up into three zones. This helped the project feel less overwhelming and also helped me to define the space. If you missed the results of the first and second zones, click here and here. The third and final zone to tackle was the dish storage zone.

Again, I followed the same process here as I did in the first two.

1.) Empty all the cabinets and drawers in this zone.

I took everything out and piled it on the kitchen table and on other parts of the counter in the kitchen. For some reason, I felt like these cupboards were the most empty, but all the stuff in them covered the kitchen table and the island. I just kept saying, “How do we get so much stuff?”

2.) Clear off the counter.

I cleared everything off the counter which included sink supplies and a dry erase note board.

3.) Vacuum drawers and cabinets.

I actually skipped this step in this zone. The drawers and cupboards here hold dishes and small appliances. These items don’t create a lot of crumbs, so it was sufficient to just wipe them out.

4.) Clean counters.

I sprayed down the counters with an all-purpose cleaner and wiped them down really well. I got in all the corners, scraped off any dried on spills, etc. I also wiped down the back splash.

5.) Wipe out drawers and cabinets.

Like I mentioned earlier, I ran a sponge through each one to pick up any crumbs or dried spills. I also scrubbed the sink really well since it sits near this zone.

6.) Polish drawers and cabinets.

Following the same process as before, I used a sponge dunked in hot soapy water to wipe down the faces of all the cabinets and drawers. Then I went over them with some furniture polish to make them shine.

7.) Load cabinets.

I loaded our upper cabinets first. The cabinet between the sink and stove now holds our cereal and cereal bowls. 

The plates and bowls stayed in the same place but I added some shelf racks. Previously, all of our plates sat on the bottom shelf and our bowls were on the top. Since I’m a bit vertically challenged, it was really hard for me to put the bowls away when emptying the dishwasher. I tried to use that excuse to convince my Mister that emptying the dishwasher should be his permanent chore, but that didn’t go over well. So I picked up these shelf racks for just $5 and put half of the plates and bowls on the bottom shelf and half on the top. 

Our daily glasses are next to the plates and bowls. 

The final upper cupboard holds our coffee supplies and coffee mugs. I purged out quite a few coffee mugs in the process!

The lower cabinets hold an extra set of dishes for when we have large groups of people over. I also decided to keep our electric griddle in this cabinet.

8.) Load drawers

The drawer closest to the dining room holds our placemats and fabric napkins. The drawer next to that holds some of Mando’s treats and cans of wet cat food for our kitty. 

The drawers under the cereal cabinets hold our kitchen towels and hot pads, small appliances and large measuring cups, and large mixing bowls and colanders. 

The mixing bowls and colanders used to be in a cupboard in the island and they seemed to get lost in the back corners making it frustrating to get to them when I needed them. So far, having them in these drawers has been awesome.

9.) Add items back to counter.

In Zone 2, I moved our wine rack over so it was by the other drinks and the wine glasses. The coffee pot took its place and it now sits under the cabinet with our coffee supplies and mugs. 

My homemade dog treat container sits on the counter (above the drawer of other treats) and our dry erase note board sits next to that.

I spruced up the sink a bit too. I found a cheap oil dispenser and filled it with dish soap to replace that ugly plastic bottle. I also picked up a new hand soap dispenser that blends into the kitchen a bit better as well. Lastly, I added a divided tray to hold our sponge and pot scrapers.

10.) Access the situation.

I feel like I have a brand new kitchen. All of the cabinets and drawers are sparkling and shiny. Everything has a home and, so far, those homes seem to be making sense. It feels clean, organized, open, and functional. 

Here is the entire kitchen after the overhaul.  

I have been looking online for some clearance/discount hardware in a stainless steel finish. Our appliances and accessories are stainless but our cabinet hardware is a dirty brass finish which makes the cabinets look dated and dark. 

I think switching these out will further brighten the space and make it a bit more cohesive. After sticker shock, I decided it may be better to just spray paint our current hardware for now. Hopefully the weather will warm up soon and I can tackle that project. I’ll share pictures when it is complete!

Arranging the Kitchen: General Storage Zone

As I continue through my kitchen arrangement project, the kitchen is starting to feel new and much more orderly. My second zone to tackle was the general storage zone.



I followed the same process here as I did in the first zone.


1.) Empty all the cabinets and drawers in this zone.

I took everything out and piled it on the kitchen table and on other parts of the counter in the kitchen. I am amazed each time how much stuff is really packed into those cabinets!

2.) Clear off the counter.

I cleared everything off the counter. This part of the counter was a bit less cluttered than the island was since piles of papers don’t seem to accumulate in this part of the kitchen.

3.) Vacuum drawers and cabinets.

It was much easier vacuuming up crumbs before wiping out the cabinets and drawers last time around so I did the same thing here. It was a bit difficult getting up into the upper cabinets, but I just did a general sweep through to get all the big stuff.

4.) Clean counters.

I sprayed down the counters with an all-purpose cleaner and wiped them down really well. I got in all the corners, scraped off any dried on spills, etc. I also wiped down the back splash.

5.) Wipe out drawers and cabinets.

With the drawers and cabinets vacuumed, I ran a sponge through each one to pick up any remaining crumbs or dried spills. I also wiped off the top and sides of the refrigerator since it sits in this zone.

6.) Polish drawers and cabinets.

These drawers and cabinets were just as yucky as the first ones. I used a sponge dunked in hot soapy water to wipe down the faces of all the cabinets and drawers. Then I went over them with some furniture polish to make them shine.

7.) Load cabinets.

Referring to my diagram, I loaded the upper cabinets first. Our drink collection went on the top shelf and our drink glasses, like the Mister’s special beer glasses went on the bottom shelf. I like the idea of having these items in the same cabinet and by using three cabinets, I was able to spread things out enough so it’s easy to get what we’re looking for.

The cabinets by the stove hold our daily lunch boxes and to go cups / water bottles. I found a lazy-susan for just $5 and put that in the cupboard directly next to the stove. It now holds all of my cooking oils and a can of salt for easy access.

 The lower cabinet by the stove holds our toaster and baking pans.

8.) Load drawers

Next, I moved on to the drawers. Up until now, two of the four drawers in this space were empty and one of them held just a loaf of bread. Since we don’t eat a lot of bread, I decided to store that in the fridge.

The top drawer is my new spice drawer. It makes me happy every time I open it. It’s so colorful and organized and easy to find what I need.

The second drawer holds our aluminum foil, ziplock bags, and parchment paper.

Next is our baking supplies like cookie cutters, rolling pins, cookie toppings, etc.

And the last drawer holds our trash bags.

9.) Add items back to the counter.

I moved our wine rack over to this part of the counter so it was by the other drinks and the wine glasses. Our utensils went back to their home by the stove. Since I moved my cookbooks off the bookshelves, they needed a new home and it seemed appropriate to keep them in the kitchen. We had a decorative box on the counter previously, so I just tipped it on its side and stashed the cookbooks there.

10.) Access the situation.

I took a step back and thought about how it looked and flowed. I think that I will need to work in the kitchen a bit to decide how this arrangement works. The counter feels a bit cluttered to me so I might do some rearranging there. Since I still have one more zone left to rearrange, I will wait and see how it feels when it’s all done before making any major changes.

Overall, it certainly feels clean and organized. Oh, and as I mentioned during the first zone, I wanted to add something to the counter on the island because it looked so bare. I moved a colorful blue teapot over there that used to sit where the wine rack is now. I also found some pretty lemons and pears at the dollar store and put them in a clear glass container for some more color. Our salt and pepper shakers sit there as well. And I did decide to trade out the teal tray for a wooden one. The teal was pretty but it was clashing with the other blue in the kitchen. 

See, it really is about trial and error (and me just liking to change my mind).