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The Meal Plan Rotation Hack that will Save You Time

August 8 // 8 Comments // 5 Minute Read

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Don’t start from scratch every week! Personalize this monthly meal planner template and never again ask “What’s for dinner?” in the panic of 5pm!
 This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy here.
 
I did it. I ditched the weekly meal planning for a rotation instead! No more starting from scratch every week. Which means I'm never again asking, What's for dinner? It only took me less than half an hour to set up my monthly meal plan since this article has a template you can easily copy and personalize! #mealplanning #rotatingmealplan #monthlymealplan

My dear friend, Rachelle, and I share a mutual love for efficiency. She edits all sorts of KB content (and she also has three historical fiction novels to her name!), and today she is sharing her meal plan rotation system with you.  You are going to lose your mind over her brilliant ideas for turning meal planning into less of a chore. Please give Rachelle a warm welcome!

***

I am a planner to my core, but I struggled with meal planning for almost three years.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying; it was that we were trying so many things! My husband’s dietary restrictions meant we were constantly experimenting with elimination diets in order to pinpoint which foods triggered him.

(I don’t know if you’ve ever tried an elimination diet like Whole30, but it’s so hard!)

Finally, we’ve settled on what to cook that nourishes us both—a mostly paleo-ish diet with no uncooked vegetables and little to no flour or sugar.

(Though I’ve quite the sweet tooth, so we definitely indulge every once in a while in the baked goods I adore! #moderation)

My breakthrough moment

Once we finally figured out what he could eat without getting sick afterward, I did what I’d been wanting to do for years: I ditched the weekly meal planning for a monthly meal plan rotation instead! No more starting from scratch every week.

Which means I’m never asking, What’s for dinner?

If you dislike that question, too, I’d encourage you to stop meal planning every week as well. Instead, try reusing your family favorites on a rotation. It took me less than half an hour to set up my monthly meal planner template, so let me walk you through the process. (Or keep reading for a secret tip on how to skip the set-up entirely!)

And if you’re worried about getting bored, don’t worry! I build in opportunities to try new recipes! Here’s how to get started:

1. Make a list of your family’s favorite dishes.

Whip out a sheet of paper (or take notes in your phone) and write down a list of dinner ideas. Include those meals your kids are always asking for, the go-to recipes you don’t even have to read anymore, and don’t be afraid to list “take-out” or “pizza!”

Organize your recipes into one easy-to-reference notebook using the Printable Recipe Binder Kit.

Aim for listing at least 20 different dinner ideas, and you’re set! That’s a different meal for each weeknight in a month, with room to repeat your very favorites.

I took it one step further and grouped our top 20 favorite meals into categories by theme (Italian, Asian, Mexican, American, etc.). This step helped me avoid monotony within any one week’s meal plan. Because if left up to me, we’d have chicken every night for a week. I’d never notice, but my husband would get bored!

2. Decide on your nightly themes (optional)

You can survive without this step, but I find that having a theme structure helps me tremendously!

Using the categorized menu you just created, assign each to a night of the week.

For example, the themes in my house are:

  • Mondays – chicken
  • Tuesdays – Italian (Wks 1 & 3) or roast (Wks 2 & 4)
  • Wednesdays – American or Mexican
  • Thursdays – marinated fish or chicken
  • Fridays – wild card (new recipe or appetizer!)
  • Saturdays – chili or rotisserie chicken
  • Sundays – Asian

Pro Tip: When you’re deciding on nightly themes, think about the rhythm of your week.

For example, since Mondays are, well, Mondays, I always make a simple chicken meal that doesn’t require much thought. Tuesdays are a packed day for me, too, so I often plan a crockpot meal. But Wednesdays I have more time, so I’ll make tacos or burgers and prep whatever meat marinade we’re having on Thursday. Fridays are my work-from-home day and we like to have friends over, so I often try a new recipe!

As for the weekend, on Saturdays we make brunch together and I also grocery-shop (I faithfully use Walmart grocery pick-up!) so we enjoy rotisserie chicken I’ve bought that day or chili in the crockpot I prep in the morning as we enjoy brunch.

Whatever your week looks like, plan your menu around your busy schedule and you’re much more likely to stick to it!

Related: How to Streamline Your Grocery Shopping So You Don’t Hate It

3. Plug your themes and dishes into your meal plan

Here’s where it gets fun!

I use a Google spreadsheet for my monthly meal planner template, and I’ve labeled the different tabs Week One, Week Two, Week Three, and Week Four so I can easily toggle between them when I make changes (more about that in a minute!).

monthly meal planner template
Click to copy this meal plan template

Once a month, I print out each tab and stick all four on the fridge so I can easily see what’s for dinner and grocery-shop.

But you don’t have to label each night! Even though I enjoy having the stability of the nightly themes, you can take a more freestyle approach and simply list the meals within the weeks. This gives you the flexibility to make tacos on Monday if you’re really craving them, instead of waiting for Taco Tuesday.

Note from Kalyn: I shared on Instagram Stories how I set up and customized Rachelle’s template with my own recipes. Some of you were interested in that template which includes a Grocery List AND a Prep List in addition to the meal plan. You can download that version HERE.

Secret Tip: Skip the set-up

Not interested in spending half an hour creating this monthly meal plan rotation from scratch? Girl, I hear you. Here’s the way to bypass all that:

  1. Simply meal plan as you normally would once a week, but…
  2. Save those meal plans

Instead of wiping clean the dry-erase board or tearing off the perforated sheet on your fridge menu pad, save those menus! Take a picture or stack somewhere you can find them in four weeks and then simply plop them into your spreadsheet easy-peasy.

Bonus: Plan Everything!

If you haven’t already guessed I’m a planner on hyperdrive, this may convince you:

One way I eliminate decision fatigue is by planning every single meal: breakfasts, lunches, and even snacks, too!

I often deviate from the plan. So why do I do it? Because I find that just having something planned for breakfast eliminates fifteen minutes of fridge-staring as I try to decide what I want.

If I’m not in the mood for what’s in the meal plan, having it staring at me from the printed sheet is enough to prompt me to think, Yeah I don’t want that. I want this.

Plus, I eat healthier when I plan before I’m hungry.

The Question at the Back of Your Mind

You may be wondering, Do I stick to my monthly meal plan religiously?

Of course not!

We regularly have people over for dinner and I modify based on their preferences. We change it up based on what produce is in season, and whenever I find a new recipe we just love, I add it into the meal plan (usually by removing a duplicate, although eventually I hope to work up to 6 weeks’ worth of menus!).

And of course we definitely don’t stick to this during the holidays, but having a plan eliminates that age-old question what’s for dinner?

Which makes it all worth it to me.

Don’t forget to make your own copy of the monthly meal planner template right here!

Rachelle Rea Cobb signed her first book contract right after college for a trilogy of historical romance novels. In addition to historical fiction, she has also written Write Well, a short writing guide designed to teach the structure of good writing. She loves working with other writers as a freelance editor, working on her fixer-upper first home with her husband (who shares the same first name as the fictional hero in her first three books!). Rachelle is a huge fan of chai and lemonade (though definitely not together). Visit her online at her blog here.

Let’s chat about meal planning:

Do you prefer a thoroughly planned menu or a more freestyle approach?

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. Read my full disclosure policy here.

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Comments

  1. Pat says

    September 13 at 6:30 pm

    Thank you!

    Reply
  2. Kara says

    September 18 at 7:11 am

    I’ve been planning weekly, but it’s a pain and I love finding new ways to combat decision fatigue. I might give this a try.

    Reply
    • Kalyn Brooke says

      September 18 at 1:42 pm

      This has really been revolutionizing the way we meal plan!

      Reply
  3. Milena says

    April 8 at 12:48 am

    Wow, this is such a useful blog post! Thank you so much 😀 Could you maybe tell me how you only show the rows that you use in google sheets? Like in your version, the rest to the right is grey, which really makes it such a pleasure to print and would love to be able to do this to my other google sheet documents!

    Reply
    • Kalyn Brooke says

      April 13 at 4:03 pm

      Sure Milena,

      Simply click on the column letter to highlight the entire column, then right click and select “delete column.” You can also highlight several columns at the same time and delete them all at once.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. My Top 5 Favorite Things Lately | Rachelle Rea Cobb says:
    March 31 at 4:47 pm

    […] I used to spend 2-3 hours per week writing out my grocery list after creating my meal plan, rewriting my list according to the layout of the grocery store I was visiting, and then I’d […]

    Reply
  2. Meal Planning On A Budget - Tiny Adventures Journey says:
    July 20 at 12:45 pm

    […] Some people prefer to have a general idea of what they will be eating each week (you can check out this post by Kalyn Brooke for an example). Other people, including myself, prefer to have specific meals […]

    Reply
  3. Save Money With These 7 Free Meal Planner Spreadsheets says:
    January 14 at 5:23 pm

    […] This is why I love that Kalyn Brooke includes a section specifically for prep work on her meal planning spreadsheet. […]

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Kalyn—a recovering perfectionist who nerds out about organizing systems, personal productivity, and helping you prioritize what matters over the pressure to do it all. I have a feeling we’re about to become the best of friends! Learn more >>

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I wrote this in my journal the other day: 📓⁣

I wrote this in my journal the other day: 📓⁣ ⁣ “I’ve been thinking about what tech boundaries I want to instill, including boundaries related to work and productivity. I’ve become less careful about my media consumption, and it’s having a negative affect on my mental health.” 💞⁣ ⁣ Have you ever felt a similar tug? ⁣ ⁣ I can’t begin to tell you how many times I pick up my phone because I’m bored or lonely or jealous or unhappy. It almost always makes me feel worse. And yet...I struggle to stop. 😝⁣ ⁣ Here are the ideas I’ve been trying this month and I’m already seeing a positive effect:⁣ ⁣ ➕ No logging into social media after 8pm. I need to wind down for the night, not get lost in my phone! 📲⁣ ➕ Open Instagram with a purpose—either to post or to interact. Stop endlessly scrolling.⁣ ➕ My only screen time before 9am should be for Bible Study apps or News. 🗞⁣ ➕ Turn my phone on Do Not Disturb during Tiger Time (when I need the most focus for work) 💪⁣ ➕ Work no more than 4 hours on my business per day. If a task isn’t complete, push it to the next day. This time frame has really helped me prioritize! 💻⁣ ➕ Watch one show per day (or two if they are short!) and leave movies for the weekend. 📺⁣ ⁣ What tech boundaries have you set up? Are any new as of this year? I’d love to hear your ideas! 😃

What’s one thing you budget for that other peopl
What’s one thing you budget for that other people might not? I always find those interesting. 😃⁣ ⁣ You might have a mortgage. I budget for campgrounds. You might want a separate clothing budget, while I’m fine combining it under “Beauty and Style.” Recently, we also added a new line item for our motorcycle—something I NEVER thought would appear in our budget. ⁣ ⁣ See, we’re all different! ⁣ ⁣ Recently, I rearranged my budget categories and created this “cheat sheet.” Sometimes I forget where things go, like picking up new wall art for the living room. Does this item belong in the categories of Household Items or Home Maintenance? 🤔⁣ ⁣ Now I know! And I save time processing receipts each Friday. 🧾⁣ ⁣ What budgeting categories do you use? Share one of your random budget line items with me in the comments below! 😃

I call 2020 the Year of Abandoned Books. ⁣
⁣
I

I call 2020 the Year of Abandoned Books. ⁣ ⁣ I’m never afraid to stop reading a book if it doesn’t live up to the hype. Why invest more time in a book I’m not all that excited about when I could be exploring new authors and storylines where I can’t wait to turn the page? 🤷⁣ ⁣ But in 2020, I let more books go than I normally do. I suppose my patience dwindled when I thought the world was ending. Not that I thought the world was actually ending…but you know what I mean. 😉⁣ ⁣ As an Enneagram 1, I hate giving up on a book. I’m prone to the all-or-nothing mentality, even in my reading habits. My eyes could glaze over boring prose and I’d still repeat to myself: “You MUST finish this book!” 😫⁣ ⁣ Why? ⁣ ⁣ No one is adding a plastic star to your Book-It pin, (Remember those?) This isn’t assigned reading from your high school English class. This is YOUR reading life. ⁣ ⁣ And YOU should choose what books deserve your attention. 📚⁣ ⁣ There are too many good ones out there anyway. Like one of my favorite reads from 2020. 😍⁣ ⁣ This week’s newest blog post rounds up everything I read last year (43 books total!) including 5-star psychological thrillers, a delightful royal series, a couple self-help books, and of course, historical fiction.⁣ ⁣ Click the link in my bio to read it! ☝⁣ ⁣ What were your favorite books in 2020? Our literary styles might be a match made in heaven! ✨

My planner/journal lineup for 2021. 👆 ⁣
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T

My planner/journal lineup for 2021. 👆 ⁣ ⁣ These small but mighty sidekicks will be my saving grace this year. 📚⁣ ⁣ 1️⃣ Bullet Journal (Blue) - for everyday planning and goal setting⁣ 2️⃣ Regular Journal (Yellow) - to track gratitude (5 things a day!) and to process ALL the feelings⁣ 3️⃣ Growth Journal (Sand) - a space for me to brain dump everything I learn from books, podcasts, sermons, etc ⁣ ⁣ That last one is new to me as of this year and I can't wait to flip back through all my notes come December! 📆⁣ ⁣ What planners/journals are you using for 2021?

Self-care is just as important as making your famo
Self-care is just as important as making your famous sugar cookies this holiday season. 🍪⁣ ⁣ Because let’s be real. ⁣ ⁣ That Hallmark-esque Christmas magic disappears the moment disagreeable family members annoy you. Or when you feel irritable over too many late nights and little-to-no sleep. Or when expectations over meals and traditions and social activities fall short and leave you feeling disappointed. 😬⁣ ⁣ But instead of dwelling on these stressful moments and using them as an excuse to completely disconnect from reality (as I’m often tempted to do!), view them as an opportunity for you to respond with poise. 💞⁣ ⁣ ➕ Journal your feelings. ⁣ ➕ Go for a walk. ⁣ ➕ Prioritize what’s essential. ⁣ ➕ Remember to breathe.⁣ ➕ And try not to eat your feelings…okay?⁣ ⁣ Here’s your permission slip if you need one: You don’t need to do or participate in everything! Take a time out when you need it. 🙌⁣ ⁣ That’s the best way you can protect your emotional well-being over the next few days.⁣ ⁣ Merry Christmas, friends! 🎄


I know you’re ready for this year to be over. 🙋‍♀️ The last twelve months brought so many hard things into our lives—relationships were lost, our country became more broken and divided than ever, and oh yeah, we walked through a pandemic too. 🦠 🤯 No biggie, right? Ha! 😅 And while it’s easy to look back and wish we could skip 2020 altogether (or at least insist on a do-over), I don’t want this year to be the one where the hard overcame the good. 💕 Just as hard days don’t mean ruined days, hard years don’t mean ruined years. 2020 can still be good. 💪 For me, I want to remember the fun and exciting things we did. The adventures we had. The new shows we watched, and the books we read. The new life hacks and things I discovered that made my life easier or just brought me joy. 💞 You’ll find it all in my latest blog post (link in profile). If you still need to buy a gift for a loved one (or for yourself!), you’ll find plenty of fun and affordable ideas to fill up the rest of your gifting list. 📦 Otherwise, enjoy a stroll down the good side of 2020’s memory lane and leave your favorite things in the comments so I can try them. 👋


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