What’s inside: This post is going to give you some totally doable ideas to create a meal plan and thereby create less stress in your home around dinner time!

Dear 5 pm.  You are the worst time in the history of all mankind.  Even babies know you are a horrible time.  They are wretched and ornery that time of day.  I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly a peach at that time either.

Dinner time is the worst.

And the crazy thing, it happens every. single. day.  Who thought that up?

It’s absolutely insane.

The only thing that saves me is picking out what’s for dinner in the morning, when I’m still calm, cool and collected.

Otherwise I might as well lay down on the kitchen floor and wait for someone to draw a chalk outline around me.  I’m screwed.

I’ve gone into great deal on how I menu plan.

Here is the simplified process (although I totally recommend any of my meal planning posts if you want more detail).

Send me the Menu Planner!

We never share your information with third parties.

Create a meal plan:

1. Gather your recipes in some way.  A computer file, a recipe box, a recipe binder (that’s how I do it)
2. Decide how long of a time frame you want to menu plan for
3. Pick the recipes
4. Buy the food (I have tons of great posts to save you money on groceries)
5. Slave over the meals with blood, sweat and tears so that your kids can say they don’t love it and leave the table. 🙂

{silent tear} — anyone else ever want to just cry over #5?

But, sometimes that process is SERIOUSLY overwhelming. #beenthere

I  wanted to give you a list of some of the meal planning services that I’ve had good luck with.  Hopefully you find them helpful as well!

Have Someone Else Create A Meal Plan:

Deals to Meals

This one matches grocery deals with recipes.  I love their recipes, they’re always family/time friendly and super tasty.  I love the idea of eating what’s on sale and likely, also what’s seasonal.

From Chaos and the Clutter

If you’re looking to do a lot of prep on a specific day — freezer meal plans might be JUST for you.  My friend Sharla (from Chaos and the Clutter) has an awesome freezer meal plan series!

$5 Meal Plan

Erin has been running Five Dollar Dinners for a long time, and has perfected the tasty, inexpensive meal plan.  I also love Erin’s Grocery Budget Makeover.  She’s just a savvy shopper.  If you’re looking to slash your grocery budget, overall, this is the one for you!  She also has a monthly freezer meal plan that looks super awesome.  I really want to get into more freezer meals when my boat is sinking!

Looking for a little help?

Angie from Country Chic Cottage has a book all about helping you meal plan.  That might be just enough to get your creative juices flowing!

This isn’t to say that you can’t be super successful on your own with meal plans.  I still like joining one of these services every now and then to expand what we’re eating and make meal time a little more exciting!

If you liked this post, grab my feel meal planner today:

Send me the Menu Planner!

We never share your information with third parties.

And check out all of my other meal plan posts:
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