Menu Planning Time

And so here we are.

An explanation of how I plan my menus for the month is here.

I didn't time how long it took to do my pantry and freezer inventory. I did those when I was cleaning the pantry, but they really didn't take that long.

I used menu plans from Nov 2009 and last month to create this month's plan. It really saved time: it took only 30 minutes to come up with all the meals we'll be eating this month.

It took another hour and a half to look up each recipe and mark down what I needed on all my various forms. I even added an extra step: in the Time Management course, Aby hands out a weekly menu plan and shopping list combined. I filled it out (by hand) for each week and then wrote in the produce and other fresh food items I would want to buy that week for those dinners.


I filed each sheet in my Tickler/planner behind the corresponding Sunday (the day I like to do my weekly shopping). I will plan what we'll do for lunch then.

Then, I typed up my dinner plans onto the calendar (above). That took 23 minutes (and allowed me to add any items I may have missed to my various forms).

So, all in all, it took me less than 2 1/2 hours to plan my meals (and shopping list) for the month.

The ladies in my Time Management course are all raving about Ziplist, though, so maybe, next month, I'll have all the recipes inputted into my computer--and it will take even less time.

Here's hoping. I do not enjoy this task one bit.