How to Use Free Meal Planning Spreadsheet Templates

Meal planning is a game-changer when it comes to managing your grocery budget & eating healthy meals. And I know you’re on a mission to cut your food bill right now, but let me show you how you can save some cash and still eat good. Even if you have a busy schedule & limited time, using a meal planning spreadsheet template will help.

How? Because you can leverage saving money, streamline your grocery shopping process & ensure that the time you spend in the kitchen actually meets your family’s specific needs throughout the entire week. 

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Why Start Meal Planning?

Now although you can find lots of free downloads all over the internet or even an Etsy offer or two, you first need to understand why start meal planning at all. Meal planning can quickly become overwhelming. But there are numerous benefits like:

• Saving Money: Cha-ching! Plan your meals ahead of time & you can then create a strategic grocery list. And let me tell you, when you start planning this way, you’ll cut out some impulse purchases & last-minute trips to the store. Plus, you’ll reduce food waste because you’ll be buying only what you absolutely need for when you need it. So food doesn’t even have time to spoil!
• Healthy Lifestyle: Maybe you’re not into certain food items yet like quinoa or artichokes. And maybe you don’t have macro targets right now. That’s fine. Having a printable weekly meal planner or one that lasts a full month is great for building the habit of making intentional choices about the food you eat. When you’re intentional, you can maintain a balanced diet of all the best meals your family members really love to eat. Plus, before falling into snacking mode, you can have things at home that will cater to your unique nutritional needs. I mean, after all, snacking is your body’s way of telling you it’s looking for something. 
• Time Efficiency: With a well-thought-out meal plan, you can minimize the time spent on grocery shopping and meal prepping, freeing up time for other activities. Whatever will you do?! I would probably be dreaming of more jars I could fill with food or more jars to buy to fill with food, but that’s just me.

Using a Meal Planning Spreadsheet at the Grocery Store

A meal planning spreadsheet serves as your digital assistant. Don’t you feel fancy? It’s one of the best ways I stay organized & focused in the grocery store. So here’s how to make the most of it:

Or ripping out pages of it while we’re home. Digital meal planners keep your grocery list at your fingertips in and out of the store. So when you’re at home shopping from your 4-corners kitchen, use it the same way.

Master Grocery List: This is the gold right here. If you create a master grocery list within your spreadsheet template & keep it updated, you almost never have to make a list. This master file should include frequently purchased items. This saves you time too because you won’t forget any essential pantry staples when creating your weekly grocery list. Or maybe monthly grocery list. There’s no hard & fast rule that says you HAVE to plan weekly. I’ll share what I do down below.

Tracking Grocery Costs: I love data & tracking things and the household budget categories are no exception. Some women might just track the overall grocery budget amount, but I go deeper. I like keeping tabs on the cost of each item we buy, the amount we purchased & when & other details like that.

I then track it over time so that I can start seeing any patterns. From sales cycles to consumption patterns, it’s all an exercise in learning my family well. You won’t save money or work your way off of dependence nearly as much if you fail to look for the small bleeds too. Trust me. I know how groceries can cause some financial hemorrhaging, but it can be stopped & then prevented! Use your meal planning spreadsheet or one of those menu planners you can find on the etsy app to track your grocery expenses over time. Once you identify trends, adjust your budget accordingly then find more opportunities to save money.

How to Create an Effective Meal Planning Process

To create a meal planning process that works for you, consider the following tips:

Step 1: Assess Your Unique Needs

Take into account your family’s preferences, dietary restrictions & schedules when planning meals or using meal planner templates of any sort!

Consider creating a rotating menu that incorporates a variety of cuisines from around the world for the BEST dishes you probably would never have thought of. But also to try learning how to cook with new ingredients. Because trust me, the only person I ever knew who liked to eat the same thing year after year was my husband’s former boss. He was content with beans & rice everyday for years. But this isn’t most of us.

So be sure to include some meal ideas that get you excited to eat from home! A main dish that’s so much better than any fast food option in your neighborhood.

Step 2: Designate a Day 

Choose a specific day of the week to plan your meals and create your grocery list. Consistency is key to maintaining an effective meal planning routine. If it works out that every Thursday while you & the fam kick it you can just briefly do some kitchen inventory & menu writing, do it! 

Step 3: Batch Cooking 

You’ll hear me singing the praises of this tip night & day because it’s really all that & a bag of chips. Maximize your efficiency by batch cooking certain ingredients or meals that can be used in multiple dishes throughout the week. It doesn’t even have to be much food if you can use it in several meals.

This not only saves you time & possibly anxiety but it’s also a sustainable kitchen practice all across the board. Reduces food waste, cuts down on dishes used & dishes to be washed & gives you the opportunity to really practice some basic cooking skills. Because no, you can’t really practice mincing if all you’re doing is 3-4 cloves of garlic every other week.

Meal Lists and Ways to Plan with a Spreadsheet

You can (& should) use your meal planning spreadsheet to create comprehensive meal lists or plans. Like this:

#1 Weekly Meal Planner Template 

Divide your spreadsheet into sections for each day of the week in columns. On the left-hand side you should have rows for each meal of the day. Like lunch, dinner, snacks if you want. If necessary, give space to jot down breakfast too. This is probably the most common approach to meal planning, but ours is modified.

Since we keep our favorite breakfast staples on hand, (& since I generally am in great…no…dire – need of sustenance each morning after waking) I don’t plan breakfasts. I will however, give some conscious effort towards a bigger breakfast on the weekends when we enjoy it with my husband. His breakfasts during the week tend to be touch & go.

Sometimes he has a legit one. Sometimes he eats flaxseed & cottage cheese. Occasionally, he foregoes it altogether. But generally he eats some eggs. Nothing much to plan there, though in my early married days I experimented with different egg bakes, hash casseroles & frozen burritos. Come to find out, he doesn’t even like reheated egg. So….ahahaha no wonder the egg bakes always seemed to last longer than I planned. Anyway!

Think about using a color-coding system or different fonts if you use a digital product to differentiate your meals or the times of them. What we’re going for here is almost an at-a-glance feel. So anything that helps jog your memory at a quick glance is good. But it needs to remain uncomplicated so that other family members can plug & play sometimes helping you out too. Take it from the spreadsheet color coding queen, it can get real crazy, real quick.

#2 Ingredients List

Alongside each meal, include a list of required ingredients. And then when you do inventory in your kitchen, simply check off what you have or check off what you need. This makes it easy to compile your grocery shopping list. 

OR you can do this.

#3 Free Monthly Meal Planner

For added convenience, consider creating a monthly meal planner within your spreadsheet. This allows you to plan meals for the entire month, taking into account special occasions and events. This is what I prefer to do & it’s very fluid. Almost like made-to-order items this plan doesn’t pre-make things that sit on sterno until requested. Nahh. It’s hot & fresh every time like the Krispy Kreme light just went off. So if you need structure, you’ll need to tweak this.

I’ll write out the number of meals we need for a month & then build my grocery list from there. Then week to week, I select meals from that menu based on how we’re feeling, whether I have time or not and so on. Some days I forget to pull meat out the freezer to defrost so then I move on to something that didn’t require any defrosting.

Other times the produce is starting to go on me so I’ll move a meal up that was “scheduled” for later in the month. By scheduled, I just mean “I wasn’t intending to make this today but oh look. The lettuce is turning so here we go – lettuce wraps tuh-night!” When you have list of meals in your weekly planner, you’ve just created a meal bank. And that’s the best option ever for maximum flexibility.

What are the Best Meals for Meal Planning?

The ones you & your family members love, of course!

Don’t over complicate this part because this is the really good part. Selecting meals for your meal planning spreadsheet should be fun! But it’s also a way to keep track of the things you’ve eaten that you really really love & want to start committing to memory.

But in the mean time, first things first. You have to choose a few dishes to try, especially if your recipe base is on the shorter side to start. If you’re just starting to take food & cooking at home or cooking from scratch as a beginner seriously, consider these types of meals:

• Versatile Recipes: Recipes that use common ingredients like bell peppers, bone broth or canned tomatoes. These easier recipes can easily be modified to suit any dietary concerns, plus they’re a great way to feel out some pretty popular ingredients. Because the next step? Making these simple inputs yourself. 🙂 Yeah, that’s right. Soon you’ll be making your own stocks & broths, or even growing your own tomatoes!
• One-Pot Meals: I’m recommending these not because they have a ton of 5-star reviews online but because if you’re just stepping into your kitchen, maybe you only have 1 pot. And there is absolutely no shame in that. You can streamline meal prep by incorporating one-pot meals like curries, stews or casseroles. These dishes are not only convenient but also minimize cleanup time. So they definitely get a green light in my weekly menu planner! 
• Make-Ahead Options: You might need to invest a little legwork upfront, but the payoff is incredible. When you look for recipes or reflect on some of your favorites from back in the day, think about what can be prepared in advance then stored in the refrigerator or freezer. Talk about saving time on a busy weekday! Although you’ll probably make every meal with enough servings for that meal time, think about scaling the recipe up. As long as you store the food properly, it should keep for a long time. Regardless of when it’s eaten, one way to curb excess eating (& thus overcooking by accident) is to be sure your water intake is sufficient. If you come to the table dehydrated (which sadly, most of us are), you will overeat. And all of a sudden, that meal that was meant for 4-6 people only feeds 3. Or in other words, maybe you cooked dinner anticipating there would be enough for dinner tomorrow with a lunch to spare. Now as you’re packaging away the leftovers, you realize there’s just going to be a lunch tomorrow. Need to pull another dinner out the bank for tomorrow then!
• Family favorites: These recipes right here should be your bread & butter. Whether they spring from your childhood, your husband’s or your best friend’s, recipes passed down over time have the best flavoring. That’s because they carry so many memories & stories! And when I say “recipe” I just mean a very basic concept of how to make a dish. I don’t exactly mean you need great-grandma’s secret lasagna sauce recipe. Although it might be nice if you can snag it! These meals (& their instructions, no matter how simple they might be) are family heirlooms. Cherish them, celebrate them & eat them…often!

Conclusion

So, to wrap it up, just remember that a meal planning spreadsheet is one of the most powerful tools for saving money, maintaining a healthy lifestyle & managing your grocery shopping process. Even if this is your first kitchen setup. Use a few free meal plan templates available online. Try ’em, then if they don’t work, pivot into another version.

I’m going to share a free copy of my Google docs grocery list template and weekly meal plan template for you to try out just as soon as I can update it a bit. Remember we talked about keeping it simple??? Ahahaha yeah I need to take my own advice. But check back soon because all you’ll need to do is just save them to your Google Drive or desktop.

There are so many various designs circling the internet, but don’t let that overwhelm you. If you opt to use a printable meal planner template, just make sure you keep it in a convenient place for when you need it.

You’ve got this lovely.