Three Meal Planning Tips and a Farewell Message | Family Economics

By Erin

Depending on many factors in your life, including your budget and schedule, meal planning can be a good or bad thing. To this end, I wanted to share a few resources to help make meal planning a little easier. All of the tools and ideas provided are FREE so you can try them and see which works best for you and your family.

•    Weekly Meal Plans – Every Sunday evening, we share a meal plan for the week on my blog, “$5 Dinners” that includes a variety of different dinner ideas, along with a breakfast and/or dessert idea. The plans are free and come with a printable grocery list.

•    Fast Five Meals – Put a list of five meals that you can make in 15 minutes or less on the inside door of your pantry or posted on your fridge. This way, you have a guide for something to make that you know your family will love and you can get on the table in a pinch.

•    Batch Cooking and Slow Cooker Freezer Meals – Keep pre-cooked ingredients, snacks and even whole meals stocked in the freezer to help out on those “I’m going to lose my mind” kind of days. Ensure your food stays fresh by storing in Ziploc® Brand Containers with the Smart Snap® Seal.

These tools and ideas help keep me on track when coordinating my family’s busy schedule. I hope they will be as useful to you as they have been for me!

It is also with a heavy heart that I share with you that this will be my final post on the SC Johnson Family Economics Blog. With baby number four arriving in January, I’ll be spending more time focused on family and less on work. It was a difficult decision, but one that I know will bring more balance into our lives as we welcome our newest addition.

I would also like to introduce Alison Lewis from “Ingredients, Inc.”  Starting next week, she will be contributing recipes, entertaining tips and more to this blog as the newest member of the SC Johnson Blogger Panel. I know you’ll enjoy her as much as I do!

It has been a pleasure and honor to work with the SC Johnson family for the past two years, contributing recipes, articles and ideas. I will miss working with them and their fantastic team.

~Erin

Photo courtesy of Erin Chase.