Rock Your Summer Meal Planning

My daughter Aily graduated from kindergarten today. It's a bit anticlimactic since she still has two weeks of school left, but sweet none the less.

I don't know about you, but she has been antsy and cranky this last week, and I think it has everything to do with the end of school approaching and the excitement of summer.

As summer break approaches, it is a great time to reset your home, look for things that aren't working and prepare yourself for the challenges and excitement of the coming season. I find that what worked for me in the colder months, meal-planning wise, don't always work as well in the summertime for all kinds of reasons. Here is what I do to keep my family fed all summer long - let me know what works for you!

- I create categories for each day of the week and plan our meals for the coming week each weekend. Our schedule is pictured above.

This way I have broad, easy categories to build more detail into as I do my planning and create my shopping list. You'll notice that most of these categories are pretty easy and don't require the oven to be on a long period of time, which is strategic because of the weather! I also make sure that lower maintenance meals are scheduled for Tue and Thurs, when Aily has soccer.

For each meal I plan a main dish and just keep fresh fruit and veggies on hand for sides.

When fall comes, I will switch out grilling with pasta and sandwiches with something else for variety, but the general categories keep me from having to think too hard and relitigate the decision-making each week.

Pro tip - If you choose slow cooker as one of your categories, use a crockpot liner for easy cleanup.

One more thing - we do grocery pickup to save the time in the grocery store, but I find that getting produce and flowers from Trader Joes, with the rest coming from Walmart is the best combo of budget friendly and best quality. I also create a list of the items we need from Costco which is pretty limited - paper products, household items like lightbulbs, batteries and pet stuff - and get those every few months because I think it's so tricky to budget for Costco. I hate the crowds and most bulk shopping doesn't make sense for our small family, so that works best for us.

All that said, do what works best for your family. I think the valuable part of all of this analysis is the ability to be proactive instead of reactive and really think about what works for YOUR specific situation.

Let me know your thoughts about summer meal-planning in the comments. If you have a go-to meal, I would love if you'd share it!!!