I’m a planner. Along with planning appointments, workouts, vacations, kids camps and activities, I like to plan out nightly dinners to avoid the inevitable question of “What’s for dinner?” When I grocery shop, I think through what could I make for dinner each night. But this has become overwhelming and frankly, I can’t keep it all straight in my head. Which is why I created a weekly menu.
A friend said to me, “Doesn’t this put a lot of pressure on you?” Absolutely not!! This menu is merely a guideline for what to do. If we have tacos on Tuesday like planned…beautiful! If we are running around and don’t have time to have Taco Tuesday but instead eat out… oh well. Save the ingredients for later in the week or the weekend.
Having this menu has brought me peace of mind and organization to my life. Making this menu is extremely easy and cheap!
The menu board itself is actually a long piece of cardboard covered in self adhering shelf liner, but you can use contact paper too. Because I did not have a lot of wall space and wanted to place mine between my pantry and basement door, I chose a slimline design. Other menu boards use picture frames and the same general idea.
I printed out the signs using matte photo paper and glued them on to the board with an Elmer’s glue stick. It’s easier to space things out if you have all the index cards and signs laid out and then glue the signs down.
For the recipes, or really just ingredient cards. I used basic 3 x 5 index cards…white on one side and ruled on the other. To hold them on the board, I used clear Command fridge clips. To hold the board on the wall, just use Command medium picture hanging strips.
To store your ingredient/recipe cards, get a simple index card holder. Now when you buy groceries, plan out your menu for the week and then make your grocery list from the ingredients on your cards. I have found this is a time saver, a MONEY saver, and a headache saver!!!
