Top 5 Meal Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Meal planning and meal prep can not only save time, meaning increased productivity and reduced overwhelm but can also save you money as you will be hitting the stores with a list of the things you definitely need, rather than the things you think you need or buy every week.

I remember what it was like when I was first starting out meal planning. Everyone else made it look so easy. Seems like a lot of people on the forums and even some of my friends had managed to have a week or even a month of meals and shopping planned without any problems.

But not me.

I was always getting tripped up by that new recipe or not having the ingredients I thought I had. Once I started asking what others were doing, I learned that they too were making the same mistakes.

Now if you are a meal planning beginner, I would not be surprised to hear that you are already making these mistakes – or if not, then you are going to be making them, soon. And once you start making these mistakes, you are going to find out that meal planning can leave you and your family hungry and you stressed, with little time for the things planning is meant to allow.

Unless, of course, you learn how to avoid these mistakes.

So, forget about trial and error. Forget about learning this stuff through Google or Pinterest searches as you will quickly become overwhelmed and give up. Instead, learn from my mistakes and save yourself a lot of time, grief and money. Read on…

Mistake #1: Not playing to your strengths

What do I mean by this? There are bound to be some meals that are your favourite go-to recipes, the ones that you and your family enjoy. Add them to your weekly or monthly plan. That leads me to mistake #2

Mistake #2: Being Wishy Washy on your time scale.

To be able to plane effectively and efficiently you need to know how long you are planning for. Decide from the outset if you are going to plan a week, two weeks, month in advance. How are you going to decide this? How often do you need or want to shop? If you coincide your shopping with other things like filling up the car, regular appointments. The whole point of planning is to make things easier so start with the timescale.

Mistake #3: Changing the plan

We all do it. Make a plan and then change it. Now, I am not saying make one plan and stick to it no matter what, but I am saying make a plan and give it a go before changing it, not on day 2/3. Planning will give you time back, once you have a plan that works for you and you allow it to continue.

Mistake #4: Not looking at what you already have

Once you have decided on a time scale look at what you already have. Make recipes from what is already in the house. Planning is all about efficiency, not only in time but resources. One way to do this is to list everything you have in the house; fresh, chilled, frozen and store cupboard, then make your first meal plan from there. You can then either replace what you have used or introduce a new recipe once that commodity has been used up.

Mistake #5: Having enough variety and nutritional content

One of the main drawbacks with meal planning is monotony. It can be easy once you get into things to keep repeating the same meals, so do not forget to reassess every now and then. When planning make sure you are considering the nutritional content too. Do not fall into the habit of convenience over a healthy varied diet.

In summary…

Give yourself a pat on the back for paying attention to this article. Because now that you know the top 5 mistakes and how to avoid them, you will be miles ahead of all the other people who are starting their meal plan journey.

One final tip: make a folder of all your favourite recipes so you don’t have to keep hunting for something else and do not forget to add in the shopping list.

If you are looking for a little help with starting your planning take a look here.

So, take this newfound knowledge and confidence and start your meal planning journey today. Happy nutritious planning.

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