What are we having for dinner??!!

It’s 5 o’clock and you find yourself standing in front of your pantry or refrigerator wondering what you are going to make for dinner. A glazed look comes over your face as you can't think of anything that will work and on top of that, you are very tired and you start feeling the stress of not knowing what to do.

Does this sound familiar? That was very often me and many times, my family and I would end up eating out instead because that was easy.  There isn't anything wrong with eating out, but it can get expensive to go that route all the time. I wanted to have a solution which would reduce the stress in my life, was a healthier option than fast food, and would keep us from blowing our budget on eating out. What saved me? Putting together a meal plan every week so when dinner time rolled around I knew what I was going to do.  Here are a few strategies that has helped me stay sane at meal time:

• Once a week sit down and look at your cookbooks/recipes and choose what you want to make for dinner. I like to keep a list of favorite meals handy to refer to when making my meal plan. If you want the kids to get in on the action, have them plan a meal as well.

• Take note of nights that you have activities-I like to make something quick and easy on those nights.  When my kids were younger and played sports, a dinner to go consisting of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were on the menu quite often.

• Write down your dinner plans and display where you can see it in your kitchen.  Here is a free printable of a meal planning sheet that you may use.

• Make a grocery list from the meals you have planned for the week. Downloading a grocery app on your phone comes in handy and saves time. This is the one that I like to use.

Share any tricks you have that save you at dinner time in the comments.