Title: "A Practical Approach to Meal Planning." Subtitle: "How to keep things interesting whule buying only what you'll use." Photo is a screenshot of a Pinterest account, which displays boards titled, "this week," and, "yum: snacks & extras"

A Practical Approach to Meal Planning

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Do you struggle to keep your food spending under control and/or to use up all of the food that you buy?

For me, the answer is no, and it all comes down to this easy, practical approach to meal planning.

I have been using Pinterest to organize recipes and plan my weekly meals since 2016, when I graduated college and decided that I maybe shouldn’t be eating pasta every night for the rest of my life. This idea – pinning recipes – is certainly not unique or revolutionary. The magic is in finding an effective and easy-to-maintain method of organizing your pins and putting them to use.

My method includes sorting different recipe types (meals vs. snacks, for example) into separate Pinterest boards, and then moving anything I’d like to make in the coming week to a board titled, “this week.”

I think you’ll find that this meal planning strategy is simple, flexible, and customizable. I have even included links to my own Pinterest boards in case you need some inspiration.

Get organized with Pinterest

Before your next grocery shopping trip, I encourage you to create a few Pinterest boards and try out my meal planning approach for yourself.

Here is how to set yourself up to success:

  1. Create a “yum” Pinterest board and fill it with recipes that you already use.
  2. Create a “to try” Pinterest board and fill it with recipes that look promising.
  3. Create a “this week” Pinterest board.
Next, follow these steps to prepare for the week ahead:
  1. Move several of your saved recipes to your “this week” board.
  2. Open up your shopping list app (or pull out a pen and paper).
    • If you don’t already have a go-to app for grocery shopping, I recommend AnyList. It automatically sorts your list into customizable categories and can be shared with others in your household.
  3. Populate your grocery list with ingredients to make the recipes that you selected for your “this week” Pinterest board.
  4. Head to the grocery store and stick to your list!

Try cooking my favorite meals

To get you started, here are a few of the meals that I like best and make most often:

Note: I have been eating very little meat and animal products ever since my AmeriCorps days, and my pins reflect this; most of the meals I pin are vegan or at least vegetarian. If you are a meat eater, these are some tasty options:
 

A few optimization tips

Pinterest Optimization

In order to keep everything organized and easy to find, I would also recommend adding sections to your “yum” and “to try” Pinterest boards to fit your needs. Personally, my sections include:

Shopping List Optimization

Aside from the staple food items (apples, oatmeal, etc.), I like to include even the most basic things that I am planning to make in my “this week” board. Even though I there are some meals where I don’t need a recipe, I’ll just find any random recipe of that type and use it as a placeholder.

When you do choose to copy recipe ingredients into your shopping list, remember that you only need to follow the recipe to the extent that it is helpful to you! If you don’t have a spice, consider Googling a substitute or leaving it out entirely – at least until you know for sure that you like the meal.

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