
Adulting Is Hard – Meal Planning: Do People Actually Do This?
For today in Adulting is Hard I thought I would write about Meal Planning. Now, I love (LOVE) paper planners (yes, I know everyone and their Mom carries a smartphone nowadays) but I seriously love planning my week and daily to-do’s in a colorful paper planner – bonus points if I get to use stickers and colorful pens/markers/highlighters – but Meal Planning…I just don’t get it.
Do people really figure out their breakfasts, lunches, and dinners a whole week in advance? I normally eat the same general thing for breakfast so as long as we have eggs, cheese, veggies, ham, and veggie sausage patties I can make eggs in a variety of styles for breakfast. I basically eat the same thing for lunches as well – deli meat, cheese, veggies, fruit, and maybe some crackers. I also like to have soup on hand as well as chicken sausages. Easy things I can throw together for a healthy, quick meal.
Yes, Chef
I’ll be honest here, I don’t do the majority of cooking in this house – my husband does, but I do help with prep or when we’re cooking in the crockpot (or he needs to work late, of course). I guess he decides weekly what to buy from Fresh Direct, our online grocery store, but I honestly don’t know if he has a day by day plan for cooking dinner. We text on his way home from work about what he needs to pick up at the market and that’s when I usually find out what’s for dinner -unless we already talked about the crockpot or any sides I’m helping with.
So…I guess we have a small idea, but we don’t write anything down or decide anything a few days in advance. Do people (not on YouTube) actually do this? And if you do, help me out – how? I tend to follow an Intuitive Eating plan from my nutritionist – I keep things on hand that I like to eat for breakfast and lunch and snacks and then eat what I feel like eating when the time comes up. I let the one that does the cooking plan the meals for the most part, with my help on Saturday when we order food – like, I sometimes say – this week let’s make this – but that’s pretty rare.
Buttered Noodles, Please
Maybe I would meal plan more if my kid ate what we did? My son tends to eat one of like six things so we always cook his stuff separately – chicken nuggets, Amy’s pizza rolls, buttered noodles, etc. And sometimes he gets hungry even before my husband gets home from dinner, so I cook his dinner early. I’m not going to starve a six-year-old.
Do you meal plan? On paper or just in your head? Do you sit down weekly and decide for the whole week or do you shop twice (or more) a week? We tend to order a large batch of food from Fresh Direct on Saturday (delivered on Sunday) then we hit up the Fruit/Veggie market or smaller grocery store a few times a week to buy produce and things we either forgot or that Fresh Direct didn’t have. We don’t do Costco or the like because we have a tiny apartment, even tinier kitchen, and no pantry to speak of – so we don’t have room to store giant gallons of anything. How do you shop and deal with meal planning?


2 Comments
Vicki Ploscowe
Problem solved!!! I don’t eat dinner at home. My friend(s) and I choose a restaurant near an activity/event and whatever i don’t finish, I bring home for some future consumption. Breakfast is usually around lunchtime…
Minimal shopping required. Never been in Trader Joe’s. ??
Jennifer Gregson
Yes! That’s an excellent solution…if we still lived in Manhattan, I would do that too. 🙂