Meal Planning Tips And A Free Disney-Inspired Meal Planning Printable
This fun Disney-inspired meal planning printable was created by Carrie of Carrie Elle for Rock-a-Bye Parents. And it’s yours to print and enjoy!
My name is Carrie and I like to meal plan. Okay…technically, I’ve only been meal planning consistently for a little over five weeks now, but it’s a start – and I promise you, if you haven’t meal planned before, you need to start. It makes life SO much easier!
One of my favorite parts of meal planning is making meal planning printables and then using them. It’s much more fun than the cooking, and the grocery shopping, and the picking-out-recipes-the-whole-family-will-eat parts of meal planning!
In honor of Elizabeth’s Disney vacation (lucky duck!), I decided that I’d create a free Disney-inspired meal planning printable for her readers. Because we don’t want her to be the only one having all the fun!
It takes me a few extra minutes to meal plan for the week, but the time I put in is minimal compared to the time, effort, and MONEY we save when we don’t meal plan (when we don’t meal plan, shopping trips are a random free-for-all!).
Here’s what I do: I sit down with my laptop open and scroll through my Pinterest boards (I have an entire board dedicated to EasyMeal Planning – come check it out!). If I feel like pasta, or trying a new crock pot recipe, I might search Pinterest for new recipes (who doesn’t love an excuse to pin more food, right?!). I usually pick 4-5 recipes, knowing that we’ll eat out once and have leftovers once or twice during the week (depending on the dishes we make). I open the websites with the recipes so I can be sure to see what I need, and I add the ingredients to my grocery list.
When I’m planning the meals, I keep our calendar in mind. On the days when we have lots of activities scheduled, we do a crock pot meal. If I know I’ll be home and have some uninterrupted time during the day, I plan a more complex dish, like lasagna (it’s always easier to prep foods when the kids are quiet or at school!).
Meal planning has made our evenings more peaceful, our schedules a little less hectic, and our grocery trips less expensive – annnnd, I have an excuse to make cute meal planning printables!
I hope you enjoy this free Disney-inspired meal planning printable!
So – do you meal plan? What are you tips?
Bio: Carrie is a stay-at-home mom to two children, ages 4 and 2. She loves horses, books, and tea. She blogs about learning to parent, tips for bloggers, and fun family friendly activities in Dallas on her blog, Carrie Elle.
We love meal planning. It can be essential when there is upwards of 10 or so people here all the time. We have a big family and big meals, and it’s equally as hard to find ideas that everyone will like because lets face it some of us are picky lol. Meal planning helps and everyone plays a good part in it. People in the house enjoy the scedule part of it. My tip is keep up with it.
Meal planning is key to smooth evenings. And, our kids and husband’s love dinner around the table together as family!
Precious printable, by the way.
I’ve recently gotten into meal planning myself. It does make things go smoother, but I personally need to find a way to not make it take forever.
What an adorable printable!! Perfect for the Disney loving family!
It is! Carrie did a great job. She makes the cutest printables.
Our family doesn’t function without meal planning! Whenever I fall off the meal planning wagon, things go a bit chaotic. Cute printable Carrie!
Like Carrie I’m new to meal planning as well. Honestly I don’t know how we functioned before it!
I love Disney themes and this meal planning printable is so cute! Thanks for sharing!
They are adorable! I was so excited when Carrie said she was going to make a Disney meal planning printable for me. She did a great job!
How cute! I am pinning and printing this.
Thank you Jennifer! I hope you found it useful!