Help with Meal Planning

I love being organized.  It is one of my passions.  It frees my mind to focus on other things.  But, organization does not come easily for me.  I have a scattered mind, thinking about many things at once.  Can you relate?
One thing I have done in the past that has been extremely helpful was meal planning.  Meal planning allows me to focus on more "fun" stuff, and not break out into a cold sweat at around one in the afternoon wondering what I'm going to serve for dinner.  I have fallen off the wagon and have struggled many times to get back up.

In addition, meal planning can be a huge money-saver.  When Tom and I were first married, I went to the grocery store almost every day.  Not only did I purchase what I needed for dinner that night, I'm sure I purchased things we didn't really need, too.

Recently I found a great tool to help with my meal planning.  It is a free MS Excel download from Vertex42.  I've been using the Weekly Meal Planner version for several weeks now and I absolutely LOVE it.



What is so cool about it is that for each main dish, side dish, breakfast, and lunch entry, you can select an item from a drop-down list within the cell. You can edit the meal lists based upon your own favorite foods and recipes. The weekly meal planner also has a notes and grocery list section.

I'm in love...

Let me know if you download a planner and what you think of it.