How to Improve Your Meal Planning Skills If You Fail Every Time

Raise your hand if you’ve tried meal planning and given up in the first week? I always start with the best intentions, but then life happens and everything falls apart. If this sounds like you, please know you’re not alone! Meal prepping and meal planning both have great benefits if you can follow through. I personally struggle to stick with my meal planning goals, so I’ve made a list of ways to simplify the process.

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Give Yourself Grace

How you feel about something greatly influences your motivation levels. If meal planning is something you always beat yourself up about, it’s unlikely you’re going to wake up one day and ace the process. If you’re kind to yourself, it will be easier to implement new habits. It’s always easier to accomplish goals when you adopt a positive mindset.

Set Aside Your Unrealistic Expectations

It would be awesome if you could make a meal plan for the next 6 months and stick to your outline. It would be even better if you could batch cook and stock your freezer. Maybe you’d even take it a step beyond that and start canning too!

These goals are all achievable, but only if you start small. Just as you don’t master a new hobby in a week, learning to become an expert meal planner takes time. Habits can take a few weeks to a few months to form, so be patient with yourself as you build this new skill. Ultimately, if you set aside unrealistic expectations, you’ll experience a greater sense of accomplishment when you tackle smaller tasks.

Consider Your Goals and Make a Plan

Once you identify your goal, it will become more obvious how to improve your meal planning skills.

If your goal is: more freezer food

Then: Make an extra-large batch of food and freeze the leftovers. This will feel much more manageable than trying to plan out numerous new recipes.

If your goal is: meal prepping for the week

Then: Try a new recipe or buy a family-size meal from a store and meal prep. You don’t have to try 5 new recipes a week to meal prep; one is enough.

If your goal is: changing up recipes to reduce food boredom

Then: Buy a cookbook and try every recipe. Record your family’s favorites to enjoy in the future.

If your goal is: automating meal planning

Then: Start writing down your favorite recipes in a calendar and reuse your dinner ideas the following year. If May 5th you ate tacos in 2025, why not eat tacos again on May 5th in 2026? If waiting an entire year and recording all your meals sounds unbearable, you can automate instantly by using AI. You can start by typing a meal planning prompt into the AI software and adapting the results as needed.

Get Organized

Organization might feel impossible in a house full of kids’ toys, but it is possible when it comes to meal planning. The obvious step would be planning out all of your meals and assigning them to days of the week, but I recommend simplifying the process further.

Getting organized can look different for everybody. I’ve decided to start small, since I want to improve my meal planning habits in a realistic way. These are the two steps making a world of a difference so far.

Step One: Labeling all food in the freezer

How many times have you frozen food only to realize you never added a label? Then, weeks or months later, you’re left wondering what it is and how long it’s been there. The end result is usually the same. You either make a lackluster meal because you don’t truly know what you’re working with, or you throw it away due to freezer burn.

If you start labeling your foods before freezing, then it will make meal planning and prepping easier, allowing you to improve your overall experience.

Step 2: Creating a spreadsheet of meals

I love a good spreadsheet, and creating a system for organizing all of my favorite digital recipes and notes has been a game-changer. I’ve always had a hard time following directions, which is probably why I’m prone to editing recipes while cooking. With the help of my handy spreadsheet, I can now link the exact recipe I used, along with any changes I made and any changes I think might improve it in the future.

With the help of this handy system, I no longer have to stare at my Google search results wondering which waffle recipe my family loved and which I thought was too dry. Now I’ve got my favorites all linked in one place and divided by meal planning categories.

Maybe it’s nerdy, and it sounds a bit excessive, but it makes my life better, so I consider it a meal planning win!

Start Building Habits That Make Meal Planning Easier

With the right supplies and habits in place, you’ll find that improving your meal planning skills can become second nature.

Get the supplies you need to maximize your time

It’s hard to bake a cake if you don’t own a cake pan. Taking stock of what you own and what you need can help make meal planning a reality. If you want to stock your freezer, check that you have the items you need before making an abundance of food.

Make sure to only purchase must-have items so you don’t go overbuy. Having too much kitchen clutter will only make meal prepping more difficult.

Look for grocery sales

With costs skyrocketing every day, it’s so helpful to check the grocery sales paper before making your shopping list. Even if you don’t have a dedicated meal plan, a quick review of the sales paper will help you determine what dishes to prioritize.

Most stores still make paper fliers, but I use the Flipp app to view digital copies of all of my favorite stores’ sales papers, and it has been a game-changer!

Please note: I’m referring to the advertisement, sales papers, and couponing app. Not the social media video shopping app.

You can improve your money-saving strategy by also using platforms like Fetch Rewards, Ibotta, or Rakuten to get cash back or points for the items you already plan to purchase.

Bad today, but better tomorrow

If you’re bad at meal planning, you’re not alone. BUT who says we have to stay this way forever? With these 4 changes, I feel like meal planning can be achievable for anyone, even busy parents.

What’s one change you’ve made to simplify meal planning in your life? Leave a comment below or reach out to me on social media to share!