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Pinterest Meal Planning Introduction

By Kira Lewis 30 Comments

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How many of you find meal planning to be one of the MOST difficult parts of running your household?

Is your hand up? Yeah, me too!

I can’t tell you how many times I get to 4 in the afternoon and suddenly realize that I have not clue what I’ve making for dinner. Talk about serious stress. Half the time it means we end up eating out, which usually isn’t planned for in my budget. Plus, then I tend to end up throwing out lost of unused food at the end of the week.

It also turns into a terrible cycle, because the more stress I feel about planning and making dinner the less I want to do it. BUT I finally decided that this couldn’t go on any longer. There are SO many things I can’t control that make my life crazy, but dinner isn’t one of them. That is when I developed my PINTEREST MEAL PLANNING solution.

(affiliate links included which help support S&H) 

Hate meal planning? Want to make getting dinner on the table easier!? This post has a NEW approach to meal planning that does everything but cook the food for you. 4 weeks of meals all tested and family friendly (kids included!) Recipes and printable shopping lists all organized for you using Pinterst boards. Visually pleasing, easy and fun! Pinterest Meal Planning Introduction. SunshineandHurricanes.com

Pinterest Meal Planning

THE MEAL PLANNING PREDICAMENT

Most of us know how much easier (and more affordable) meal planning makes our lives, and yet somehow it seems to always be one of the toughest things to sit down and do. I will often find myself at the grocery store just sort of randomly buying what I think I might want to make for dinners the upcoming week. Then, when it comes time to actually making dinner, I’m always missing something, or I forgot to thaw the meat or b/c I don’t have a good plan, I just put it off until there is no time left to make dinner and we end up eating out.

WE’VE DONE THE WORK FOR YOU

Well, after too many months of dining out bills that were totally throwing our family budget out of whack, I decided it was time to try something new and different.  What does that mean for you?

Well, basically, I’ve done the work for you and come up with what I think is actually a NEW and EASY approach to meal planning that might appeal to people who have visual brains like mine.  I find Pinterest really useful for organizing my life and keeping track of things.  So, I figured why not use it for meal planning.

FOUR WEEKS OF MEAL PLANS WITH PRINTABLE SHOPPING LISTS

Over time, I have created FOUR Pinterest boards, each with one week of meal plans on them.  Some of the meals come from our blog and some from other sites that I like and follow. For each week, there is a good mix of recipes that include chicken, beef, pastas, slow-cooker, etc. Plus, many of the recipes are easy to double to create leftovers for later in the week or to freeze for a busy night down the road. Oh, and I’ve ACTUALLY MADE  these meals and fed them to my family, so I know that everyone likes them. Yes, even the kids!

HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:

Weekly Recipes

You can choose to follow our boards  OR create four of your own boards (title them weeks 1-4) and pin the recipes to your board.  Whatever works for you!

Here’s an example of our Meal Plan Week One Pinterest Board.

Follow Sunshine and Hurricanes ‘s board Week 1 Meal Plan on Pinterest.

Printable Shopping Lists

On the weekly boards, you will also find a pin that links to a printable shopping list for that week of meals. Here’s an example of what the shopping lists look like.

Looking for an easy way to meal plan? How about having someone do all the hard work for you? That's exactly what we've done and then we've created a super easy way for you to manage it all with Pinterest. Recipes, shoppingl lists, all organized on Weekly Pinterest boards. Family friendly pre-tested recipes that are easy and sure to be hit. Dinner is DONE!! Pinterest Meal Planning Shopping List Week One. Sunshineandh

Every week, just print off your shopping list, check off which items you need for that week’s recipes, add any other grocery items you need  and head to the store.

Then, each day, simply pull up that week’s Pinterest board to grab the recipe for that day and you are good to go!

You’ll have four weeks in all when it’s done, so a full month’s rotation of easy, family friendly meals. Yay! I’m officially proclaiming Dinner SOLVED! 

Okay, so are you ready to get started?

 In total, you’ll have a four week rotation of meals, which is a good variety over time.  Click on the weeks below to access the pinboards and printable lists for each.

Week 1 Meal Plan and and Printable Shopping List

 

Week 2 Meal Plan and Printable Shopping List

 

Week 3 Meal Plan and Printable Shopping List

 

Week 4 Meal Plan and Printable Shopping List

 

Looking for other meal planning resources? Be sure to follow our meal planning Pinterest Board.

Follow Sunshine and Hurricanes ‘s board Meal Planning Resources on Pinterest. 

Maybe Pinterest meal planning isn’t for you, but you still need some kind of a solution.  Freezer meals are another fantastic approach and you can get everything you need for this simple solution at Freezer Meals 101. 

Freezer Meal Plans 728x90 white background

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Filed Under: Meal Plans, Recipes Tagged With: easy dinner recipes, easy recipes, family dinner, kid friendly dinner recipes, meal planning, Pinterest, Pinterest Meal Planning, printable shopping lists, recipes

About Kira Lewis

Kira Lewis is a mom to a strong and sassy 8 year old girl and a funny, soccer playing teen boy.  Her career has included everything from corporate ladder climbing to teaching yoga. She's settled for now on free-lance writing and blogging where she covers topics like motherhood, parenting, technology, Florida travel and raising tweens and teens.Keep up with her parental musings by subscribing to sunshine and hurricane's weekly newsletter HERE.

You can also find her on social media:

Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest 

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Comments

  1. Leann says

    December 7, 2015 at 2:07 pm

    Pulling out your meal plans to help with meals this week. Such a huge relief to have these!

    Will there be more?! My family loves the recipes! And they are hard to please.

    Thank you from a busy, busy mom and wife!

    Reply
  2. Yavrig says

    September 15, 2015 at 2:43 am

    I actually do this and I plan our meals one month at a time. I’ve been doing this for a year now and we have not only found new favorite meals, but we’ve also cut our grocery spending by 30%.

    Reply
    • Kira Lewis says

      September 15, 2015 at 6:54 am

      That’s fantastic. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years as well and I definitely find my life is SO much easier when I follow this system. It works for me too, because I’m such a visual thinker and bc I’ve got pinterest on my phone so I can access everything anywhere in case I forget my list or whatever. Great minds think alike. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Leann says

    September 1, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    I am looking for the shopping list for weeks 3 & 4 for the pinterest meal plans. I have already found the recipes on your pinterest board. The shopping lists are super help! Thanks so much for sharing this with your readers! I have signed up for blog posts.

    Reply
    • Kira Lewis says

      September 1, 2015 at 5:02 pm

      Hey Leann – so life gets a little crazy sometimes and things need a bit of re-working. However, GOOD news. The rest of the Pinterest meal Planning will be out this week. 🙂 Sorry for the ridiculous delay.

      Reply
    • Kira Lewis says

      September 4, 2015 at 11:22 am

      Okay, again my apologies for the delay, but all four weeks are there now. If it continues to be popular we’ll add more weeks as we go! So, if you have recipe requests, let us know!!! Here is the link that will take you to all four weeks. https://www.sunshineandhurricanes.com/pinterest-meal-planning-introduction/

      Reply
      • Leann says

        September 9, 2015 at 10:01 am

        Thank you, Kira! I have them all printed now.

        Reply
  4. Aileen says

    June 18, 2015 at 11:10 am

    Wow, what a great way to improve meal planning! I love how visual it is with the Pinterest board. Thanks for sharing. ☺️

    Reply
  5. Michelle says

    May 31, 2015 at 2:30 pm

    Looking for the shopping list for week 3!! Thanks.

    Reply
  6. Tove Maren says

    May 16, 2015 at 7:53 am

    You guys are geniuses! This is an awesome way for me to try new foods with the kids! I will definitely be doing this with you!

    Reply
  7. Krayl @ An Appealing Plan says

    May 14, 2015 at 7:51 am

    Great idea! Love the done for you shopping list and already pinned recipes!

    Reply
  8. Lauren says

    May 13, 2015 at 8:57 pm

    I always meal plan and ever make the meals. Great tips!

    Reply
  9. Nicole Keener says

    May 13, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    Meal planning and I have a love hate relationship. I always try it but it never ends the way I wish it would.

    Reply
  10. Jessica says

    May 13, 2015 at 1:42 pm

    GREAT tips for meal planning!! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m definitely using this next week.

    Reply
  11. Saira@MomResource says

    May 13, 2015 at 10:48 am

    Clever chickens! Thanks for sharing 🙂

    Reply
  12. Kristen @ A Mind Full Mom says

    May 13, 2015 at 8:12 am

    Meal planning saves time and money! Great tips.

    Reply

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Hi There! We’re Michelle and Kira, two Florida moms who know that parenting is full of sunshine and hurricanes. So glad you are here. >>>LEARN MORE





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