Have you ever struggled to come up with dinner ideas for a week? How about two weeks? Let’s discuss the benefits of creating a master dinner list and why you should make one. As a bonus, I have added five of our favorite dinner list items at the bottom of this page.
Prevent the Repetition of Meals
Creating a master dinner list can help prevent the repetition of eating the same meals every week. The more meals you add to the list, the more variety of foods you can plan for the week.
Before creating our list, it felt like we ate hot dogs every week. Spaghetti was also a big weekly meal to eat.
Help with Budgeting
A master dinner list can help with budgeting groceries. You can save money by purchasing your groceries for a week or two all at once. We noticed a difference in food costs when buying groceries weekly instead of every other day.
Inflation sucks in 2023. If you want to eat cheaply, picking the cheap meals on the dinner list is the way to go.
Is Readily Available
A maintained dinner list is readily available. There have been numerous times when it was time to shop for groceries, and I hate having to think of meals for the week. When this happens, I pull out the dinner list to help speed up the process.
I use a spreadsheet for the dinner list. I have a cell that calculates the number of Xs placed next to the meals. You could also use another column to leave a note about what meals are cheap, so you don’t have to hunt for them.
Conclusion
To conclude this post, having a master dinner list can help in several ways. You don’t have to stress on eating the same meals every week. As your list grows, you can help budget and combat the inflation plaguing the country. Lastly, you get to keep your sanity by not beating your head against a wall while trying to think of that last meal for the week.
As promised, here are the five dinner items we enjoy eating:
- White Chicken Enchiladas
- Unstuffed Pepper Casserole
- Baked Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Green Beans
- Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli
- Mexican Haystack