Who has their October meal plan ready to go? Don’t worry, I got you boo! (I’m all in on Halloween starting tomorrow, can you tell?)

I’m a freak that loves meal planning. I feel like I’ve got it down to a science. Here are my tips (or you can copy my meal plans, it’s cool):

Step 1. Don’t overthink this.
Step 2. Don’t overthink this.
I meal plan monthly. I spend about 30 minutes once a month. I used to do weekly but I would often fail to make the time to do it. It was also taking me about 20-30 minutes to do it weekly (yes, about the same as monthly) because I’d get sucked into the Pinterest rabbit hole of meal planning. Don’t do that.
I keep a list of our favorite easy meals like spaghetti, homemade pizza, burgers, etc in a Google drive folder. I have a Pinterest folder and Google drive folder for other saved recipes or recipes to try.
I usually pick themes (roughly) for each day of the week. This month Sundays are “soup”, Mondays are “Instant Pot recipes”, Tuesdays are “pasta”, Wednesdays are “breakfast”, Thursdays are “sheet pan” and Friday/Saturday are “fill in later”. This isn’t set in stone but themes make selecting meals way faster.
I print a free Google calendar. I cross off the days I know we’ll be eating out and then I fill in the rest! (We generally eat out once or twice a week.)
If later in the month I decide that a meal sounds gross/doesn’t fit into our schedule/etc, I skip it or replace it. No big deal.
We cook Monday’s and Tuesday’s meals during the week-end so I tend to plan meals that reheat well for those days. I usually pick one meal that’s quick (or hands off, like Instant Pot recipes) and one time consuming meal. This way we don’t spend all weekend cooking.
We often double recipes and freeze the extra. I look at my freezer stash each month before planning. If we have a busy weekend planned, I’ll plan on pulling from the freezer for that week.
I’m not afraid of simple meals like ravioli, chicken strips, etc. Again, this doesn’t need to be complicated! The family just needs fed!

Because it’s 2019, I feel that I need to add some disclaimers. We don’t follow any specific diet. These recipes all contain some poison like gluten, dairy, sugar, carbs, meat, etc, etc. Yes, we could eat healthier. We could also eat worse. We do, however, eat in moderation. If the below recipes don’t contain vegetables, we have a vegetable as a side. Our kids eat what we eat. We don’t make separate meals. Phew!

Without further ado, October’s meal plan! A “*” notates a recipe I haven’t tried yet so I can’t guarantee it won’t be terrible. We can fail together! :) I’ll also note if they freeze well. If so, double the recipe and stock that freezer!