I couldn’t find a menu planner that was just right…

Dawn,

You are way ahead of me! Although I have planned menus for years, it just occurred to me that it would be smoother if I put it my planner with everything else instead of on the foreign door. My husband cooks a night a week, but I tell him what to make, or at least give guidance-make something with hamburger-so it's not as of he looks at it much. Trying that when I paln for next month!

I meal plan the old fashioned way. I use a notebook. I write down the days of the week, then next to them I write anything that's going on that afternoon or evening so I know what time dinner needs to be served, or whether it will need to be simple and fast. When I write down a recipe that comes from a book, I'll abbreviate it with initials and put the page number. I always write comments in the recipe book regarding how well the kids liked it, any substitutions, how long it took to make, etc. As time goes by, I will frequently look back and repeat dinners that worked well.

If any of you are not meal planning yet, I will say that meal planning has saved my sanity, especially on work nights. It only takes about 20 minutes and I'm done thinking about "what to eat" for the rest of the week.

Have you tried PlanToEat.com? I know some other bloggers have recommended it... I'd definitely be interested on your take on it since there is a monthly fee, but I'm wondering if the time savings and the grocery savings would make it worth the fee...

I use the same method my mom used, and it seems to work pretty well.

We have one family calendar hanging in the kitchen for everyone to write their schedules upon. So, the kids' swimming lessons, MOPS, homeschool events, days when B knows he's going to be working late, church events, etc. I do better with a calendar with lines on it, so we use a vertical wall calendar from At A Glance. It's a bit larger than some other calendars, so there's plenty of room for schedule-writing while leaving 2 lines at the bottom of every day for me to write in the menu.

The reasons I've continued my mom's tradition: 1. I can see what's going on that week while I'm making the menu without having to pull out any other calendar or electronic item. 2. Everyone can see the calendar. When I was a teen, the standing rule was whoever got home first started dinner, as both my parents worked. My kids aren't old enough for that yet, but my husband is! Really helps cut down on the before-dinner snacking, too.

The other rule is if it isn't on the calendar, you can't expect me to know about it. Again, my kids are too young for this to matter yet, but growing up it meant my mom and dad had an "out" for those last-minute projects or field trips or evening events. If we didn't get it on there, they weren't responsible for our transportation. Really helped us learn to be responsible for our own schedules, too!

I've been using Ziplist lately and I love it. You can meal plan up to 30 days and it's free and web-based. The have a huge recipe index plus you can add new ones either manually or capture them from webpages. It also generates shopping lists and organizes them by grocery section. You can also tag recipes to quickly re-find favorites.