/**/ The Purposeful Wife: Menu Planning Board

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Menu Planning Board


My apologies for failing to post yesterday! I am officially a 31 Days cheater... Instead of blogging during naptime yesterday, this sleep-deprived mama followed husband's orders and took a nap :). And it was totally worth it! 

When I decided to tackle a month's worth of Pinterest projects, this menu board was my first pick in the project line-up. 

I am a religious weekly meal plan maker... but so often I find myself in a rut, making the same things over and over again. My poor husband is not very picky, but he has two requests when it comes to dinner: 1) Variety, and 2) Meat. I was seriously letting him down in the first category!

The idea of this menu board is to pick 7 different dinner themes, one for each night. Here's my thematic line-up, just to give you ideas for a starting point:

Sunday- Soup and Bread
Monday- Italian
Tuesday- Comfort Food/ Homestyle
Wednesday- Mexican or Asian
Thursday- Vegetarian or Fish
Friday-Homemade Pizza
Saturday- Sandwiches/Grill/Junk Food

Other possibilities include slow-cooker, salads, breakfast for dinner... whatever you and your family like!


After I came up with categories, I proceeded to pour over my cookbooks and dig through my recipe box, writing each {approved} meal I've made in the past under the proper category. To my shock, I came up with somewhere in the ball park of 70 meals! That is a whole lot of dinner options. How did I forget about all of these recipes???


Each dinner idea got its own half of an index card. I made sure to include accompanying side dishes and veggies. On the back of the card, I wrote out the ingredients needed for that meal.

Meal planning is now a breeze! All that I need is in one place. I quickly inventory meats and meal staples in my freezer and pantry, then sit down with the board, pick my meals, and make my shopping list. Brilliant!

As I make each meal, they go in the bottom box on the board. Once I've made all of the meals from the top box, I'll just start over again making each one. This should give me almost two months of a different main dish each night. 

The original pin used a picture frame for the board. I just used a heavy piece of cardboard, and hot glued magnets to the back of it so that it can be displayed on my fridge. I covered clothes pins in paper and hot glued them to the board. The meal card holders are paper covered crayon boxes.

It was fun to make, and has proved to be super handy so far. I also love how it looks in my kitchen.

How do you go about meal planning at your place? Be sure to check out our series "Meal Planning: A Week in the Life" for more ideas from a handful of women on what they make for dinner!

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