meal planning magnets
If you read this blog post, then you know I don't always love grocery shopping. You know what else is not my favorite, preparing to take on the place that takes my patience by meal planning. Every month when we end up having tacos and spaghetti at least once a week, I think, there has got to be a better way to do this... And it turns out there is! Meal Planning Magnets! My type A personality gets a little giddy thinking about my little color coded sticks. Even make me excited to meal plan!
What you need:
a bag of large popsicle sticks
your three favorite colors
craft magnets
a categorized list of your main dishes.
Obviously you do not need a gallon of paint, but when searching for my little bottle of acrylic turquoise, it was no where to be found. Luckily, I LOVE turquoise and have leftovers from the nursery!
Step 1: Categorize your meals. We eat a lot of chicken and beef dishes, so my three categories were: chicken, beef, and other (soups, casseroles, etc...). Therefore, I needed three colors. I painted both sides of the popsicle sticks. I made a few extra of each color for mistakes and new meals courtesy the Pioneer woman and her butter filled dishes :).
Step 2: Write each dish on the corresponding colored stick. You could get fancy and Cricut your letters, but when nap time is almost over, you make do and sharpie them on.
Step 3: Put a sticky magnet on the back of each stick.
Step 4: I put them on the side of my fridge according to category. Now when I go to meal plan I grab five meals of different colors and my grocery list is a breeze! I put those five meals on separate magnetic chalkboard, and when that week is over, I put those meals at the bottom of the list. No more spaghetti every week! Yay!
