As a numbers person, I’m pretty careful about how we spend our money. The one item in our budget that has always bothered me, though, is the grocery bill. We don’t eat out much, so our grocery bill will be higher than other families, but for a small family, we spend way too much on groceries.

A few years ago a friend showed me how I could save money on our grocery bill by planning our meals ahead of time using the grocery store ads, the food we already have on hand, and my family’s favorite recipes. I was very excited when I realized the potential to save money with meal planning.

Meal planning has many benefits, but the greatest one to me is the money we can save on food each month. By doing meal planning, I know exactly what I need to buy at the grocery store, and I don’t waste time or money buying things we won’t eat. Before I started planning our menu a week ahead of time, we wasted a lot of food because we never got around to eating it. I also go to the store much less now, and when I do go, I don’t make silly impulse purchases. So for me, the money we save on groceries each month is worth far more than the time it takes to plan our meals each week.

The next advantage to weekly menu planning is the time it saves you. First, because you spend less time figuring out what to cook for dinner (or surfing the web for ideas). Second, since you already have everything you need to cook dinner (for the whole week!) you won’t have to run by the store after picking the kids up or on your way from work. Imagine how much time you’ll save just from eliminating daily trips to the store. If you’re like me and go to the store several times a week, you could save a couple of hours of time just by planning your meals ahead of time.

A benefit of meal planning that you might not have thought of is that it helps you eat healthier. I don’t know about you, but when I’m scrambling for dinner ideas, I tend to either throw something together using processed foods (cheese, box dinners, etc.), or I go out to eat. Either way, you tend to eat out more often and eat fattier foods when you don’t plan your meals ahead of time. Meal planning can greatly improve your family’s diet because when you cook at home you’re more likely to use fresh, healthy ingredients, and when you plan your meals ahead of time, you’re less likely to run through the drive through on the way home.

You’re convinced that meal planning is a good idea. After all, you can save time, money and even eat healthier when you meal plan. But how do you actually do meal planning? Here are some tips on how to get started meal planning:

1. Keep a recipe book or file with all of your family’s favorite recipes. I use a 3-inch binder for this, but you could use recipe cards or even a computer file to organize your favorite recipes.

2. The next step is to look through the sale ads from one or two grocery stores in your area. You have two goals here. First, to find dinner ideas. Second, to plan your meal around items that are on sale that week. This is one way that meal planning saves you money.

3. Take an inventory of the food you already have on hand. Do you have any perishable food that needs to be eaten right away? By planning your meals around food that you already have, you’ll spend less money at the grocery store, and you’ll waste less food.

4. Write out the meals you plan on cooking for the week (a weekly meal planner worksheet works great for this), and fill out your grocery list for the items you don’t have on hand.

5. Almost done… the last thing you need to do is to post your menu for everyone to see, and then cook your meals. By posting the menu on the fridge or in the kitchen everyone will know what to expect for the week, and you might even get some unexpected help from your kids or spouse!