I have wanted to make a monthly meal planner for a while now, but only recently got around to actually doing it. It still isn't complete, but there are just some finishing touches to take care of. I decided not to make this meal planner a month-specific one (it's not going to have actual dates on it), but rather it is going to have labels that say Week 1-Week 5. I'm keeping it super-flexible, too, so that I can change around dinners easily. I mostly like seeing at a glance some of my family's favorite meals because I often get stuck in a rut and make some of the same things over and over, even though the ingredients to make a lot of these meals are found directly in our food storage, but I just forget about them! This type of meal planner isn't for everyone, but for me, it works! I just used an old cork board, spray painted the frame, used a sharpie to draw on the grid (not very well, I might add, but that's where embellishments come in!), and attached cup hooks in each of the squares. Then I printed off lists of our favorite meals and made cute tags for each of them with my scallop punches and my laminator.
I think I might even make tags to remind me to do a baking day or a freezer meal day. I like to make bread and pizza dough, muffins, and pancakes ahead of time, so that I can just pull them out for quicker baked goods. I also cook and shred chicken or brown ground beef ahead of time to make meals faster to prepare.
