I love to cook. And lately, I love to be spontaneous. But this spontaneity is costing me a lot of time and money at the supermarket as I whip out to pick up the essential ingredients for the latest dinner creation. So – I’ve decided this week to get back on track and plan my menu for the week before I hit the shops. 

I have a Menu Planner that I created some time back and kept tweaking until it was just right for me. It starts on a Saturday, includes all meals on the weekend (just dinners during the week) and incorporates a shopping list so I am only buying what I know we need. Because I always cook from a recipe I’ve also included a place to record the book or website that it came from.

I have also created a version of this that works from Monday to Sunday. If you’d like to try my menu planner I’d love to hear what you think. Does this work for you? How would you change it to make it fit your life better?

Finally – here’s my scrawled completed version of the Menu Planner & Shopping List (and a heads up on what will be appearing in ‘What’s for Dinner’) for this week.