Though it took me a little practice to get into it, this has been the BEST habit for our family! Here’s how I spend 20 minutes to keep the most chaotic part of the day running smoothly.

---

In our house, the hours of 4:30pm to 7:30pm used to be total chaos. And I would venture a guess to say that almost every other mom would agree. Even if your time slot is slightly different, I’m willing to bet that the dinner hour followed by bedtime routines is one of the most stressful parts of your day.

And it makes total sense! Kids come home from school, have activities you are rushing them off to–clubs, practices, games, etc.–and then you have to figure out what to feed everyone for dinner, followed by cleaning up said dinner. Then a bedtime routine that possibly includes baths or showers, stories, and more drinks of water than they’ve had all day, before you can finally collapse yourself when you realize you forgot to start the dishwasher.

A couple of years ago when I first became a stay-at-home mom, the thing I was most excited about was making dinners for my family. Not only do I love to be in the kitchen, but I knew not working would allow me plenty of time to make dinners daily. Oh, how funny I was.

When I was still working, we did Hello Fresh. This worked out so great because my husband could (and did) get dinner started before I got home from work and usually had it ready by the time I got home about 5:20pm. I took care of cleanup and then we all spent time together as a family before Viv went to sleep around 7pm.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much time to spend all together, so Hello Fresh was actually a huge time saver for us, and allowed us those few extra precious minutes before we went to sleep and woke up to do it all over again.

So when I cancelled Hello Fresh, which are planned out meals with step-by-step instructions and ingredients they send to you so you have every single thing you’ll need for the recipe, I had a rude awakening to just how much I had to have my kitchen together if I was going to do dinners each night.

It only took me a few days to realize just how annoying it was to ask the question, “what do you want for dinner tonight?” only to be met with “I don’t know, what do you want?” every single day. It’s exhausting.

I decided to come up with a plan, so I started to reverse engineer.

We had a pretty good routine going when we had meal delivery, so I started there. What worked well? What didn’t work? What did we like or not like about it? What can I replicate without using a meal delivery service?

And bit by bit I came up with our current routine, which I have been using on wash-rinse-repeat for two years because it WORKS! Here’s what I figured out and how we keep those dreaded evening hours running smoothly.

This is probably the most important piece of this entire puzzle. When I cancelled Hello Fresh, it occurred to me that one of the best features of it was that we got a few meals at a time. I didn’t have to come up with something new every single day, we just looked at what we had in the fridge and chose from a couple of different options, grabbed what was needed, and got to work.

Having multiple meals planned at once is truly the key to success because it takes the pressure and stress off of having to come up with something every single day.

Using a notepad, or the Notes app in your phone, write out Sunday through Saturday. If you are using your phone, keep this in a separate note that you can refer to and use over and over again each week. I keep mine in the same Note as my grocery list, which ends up being really helpful later on.

Before you choose what you’re going to make, get out your calendar first. If you plan all these meals only to realize later you can’t execute, you’ve wasted a lot of time and thoughtfulness.

What’s going on this week? Do you need super fast, easy dinners and fast cleanup? Are there any days you know you’ll be home later than usual? Can you start the crockpot before you leave the house any of those days?

I also check the weather. If it’s going to rain or be excessively windy, I know we probably won’t be using the grill. If it’s going to be super hot, I won’t turn the oven on to heat up the house (we face west, so we get the hot afternoon sun right on us).

Go through your recipe books, Pinterest boards, saved recipes, and think through some family favorites. Save any time-consuming recipes for weekends or days you actually have time to prepare it, otherwise you’re basically setting yourself up to fail. Remember, this is supposed to make your life easier, not harder. On weekdays we stick to easy, quick and healthy. Weekends are saved for more elaborate and time consuming recipes like a baked pasta or a roast.

This is also a good time to search for any recipes you want to try and mark or pin them so you can easily find them next week when you sit down to plan dinners again.

Pro tip: As you get better and more comfortable with your weekly dinner planning, if you have the bandwidth to make something that will last a day or two for leftovers, lunches, or even the next night’s dinner, it’s a great way to save time that future you will thank you for.

Think pasta salads, cut up fruit, bread or rolls, or even just making an extra serving or two for lunches or leftovers, if your family will eat them. I love pasta salads for this reason because I can often serve it two days in a row (or skip a day in between) and just change out the main course.

Once you’ve decided what you’re going to make, add it to which day you’re making it on and repeat until you’ve filled in each day with a dinner. I like to start with busier days and fill in around it so we are eating a wide variety of things, or I’m able to plan leftovers on a busy night so things are quick and easy.

Here’s an example:

S – Baked Ziti

M – Leftover Baked Ziti

T – Grilled burgers and Rainbow Pasta Salad

W – Turkey, Zucchini, Sweet Potato Bake

Th – Lemon spaghetti + Parmesan crusted chicken

F – Cajun shrimp + veggie skillet

S – Chicken burrito hotdish

If you’re stuck for recipes, you can always check here for my favorites under Blog > Recipes

Go through each of your recipes that you will be making each day and check your fridge and cabinets for the ingredients. Add any ingredients you do not have to your grocery list. Do NOT skip this step.

If you don’t add the ingredients you need to your grocery list, you won’t have what you need, and it will crumble your entire weekly plan. You will have wasted time planning meals because you can’t even make them, and then you’ll be right back to where you started, just out more time you were trying to save, or making unnecessary trips to the grocery store for forgotten ingredients.

I have gotten into the habit of making my grocery list at the same time as I am planning dinners so I am up and checking the fridge and cabinets all at one time. That way I don’t have to go back and do it again when I’m going to go grocery shopping or make my pick-up order.

Put it somewhere the entire family can see. This will solve two problems. First, you will see it and know what you’re having (and if you need to take out anything from the freezer). It’s very helpful to have when you are starting this habit because it reminds and motivates.

Second, if anyone asks you “what’s for dinner?” you can start training them to know where to look so you don’t tear your hair out hearing this question every day. Eventually they’ll know where to look and won’t have to ask.

I’m learning that kids (and husbands) thrive when they know what’s coming. They have time to think about it and, for my four year old, decide if she’s having what we’re having or if she would like something a little different. I don’t expect her to eat Cajun shrimp, so I either alter the shrimp for her so it isn’t spicy, or she can have another form of protein.

For consistency, we use a weekly whiteboard calendar that lives in our kitchen on a wall under our cabinets. They’re very inexpensive, anywhere from $10-$20 on Amazon, and just a simple Sunday-Saturday. I write it all out on there and refer to it all week.

I usually do a grocery order and pickup towards the end of our week (Thursday-Saturday) depending on what we have going on, so I usually plan Sunday-Saturday (or Sunday-Thursday at the very least) and buy all the ingredients I need for everything I plan to make and serve for the upcoming week. Shopping like this is helpful in a number of ways.

First and foremost, it ensures I have all the ingredients I need in order to execute the dinners I’m making. I said it above, but if you don’t have what you need to make the dinner…you can’t make the dinner…and then you’re back to square one, scrambling to come up with what to make, or resorting to take-out.

Speaking of take-out, this can get expensive and is typically not the healthiest option. By planning our dinners and making them at home, I have kept our family eating healthier and cleaner. Of course we still have take-out, and we usually build it into one day every other week as a treat.

But multiple times a week is no longer in our plan and after doing this for two years now, we usually only use it as a “back pocket” card when I forgot an ingredient or we’re just really tired and don’t want to cook or clean up.

Planning dinners has also significantly helped keep our grocery budget lower. Because I have a pretty curated list, with all the ingredients I need for recipes I’m making, I am no longer going up and down every aisle at the grocery store (wasting time) guessing what we might need in the pantry, and then coming home with a third box of the same pasta already in my cabinet (waste of money and wasting cabinet space).

Last, this has helped with is keeping my cabinets and pantry from overflowing. Because I’m only buying what I need week-to-week, I have very little in our cabinets sitting there collecting dust or outdating. I used to find things buried in the back when I cleaned it out once a year wondering what in the world I bought a can of enchilada sauce for when I have never made enchiladas or two bottles of unopened salad dressing when we rarely make our own salads. All of which are outdated and go in the garbage (another waste of money).

The biggest thing planning out dinners has done for our family is reduce the chaos of evening hours and give us back some quality family time. Even though we only have one kiddo, she is still a handful between the hours of 4pm and 7pm. She’s always trying to squeeze in more play time, one more story, one more game, and drinks more water than she’s had all day…if you have kids, you know how it is.

Having a dinner plan has drastically reduced the rush and tantrums that result from rushing her, and allowed us some downtime before getting into bedtime routines for all of us. We can play a game or two, read more than one story, and have that quality time together as a family that we love so much but was getting lost in the chaos before we had a routine. We all feel more relaxed and less anxious.

Overall, planning out dinners each week has helped improve more areas of our family life than just what we’re having for dinner. It has positively affected our budget, saved us time, allowed more quality family time, saved us valuable cabinet space, kept us more organized, and allowed us to eat healthier.

It isn’t just about planning dinners. It’s about making your life easier and developing healthier habits, all with doing this one thing each week.

I hope you decide to give it a try and that you find the value in it! If you have any questions that I didn’t address here, feel free to drop me a note on Instagram or send an email. And, as always, check back here for weekly recipes to incorporate into your dinner plans! I’m always cooking up something new.

Until next time,