What's for dinner?

One of my least favorite things is to plan dinners. Several years ago I started going to Dinner Afare to prepare my meals. I LOVED it! I got to choose from a bunch of yummy entrees. We ate a nice variety of meals and it made my life simple. Each morning I would grab an entree from my freezer and place it in my refrigerator to defrost. All I had to do was come up with some side dishes and heat up our entree.


Well a few years ago, the Dinner Afare that I went to over in the Avenues of West Cobb closed. I had gone back to work around the same time, so dinners became a problem. Fortunately, there were still Dinner Afares in the area and they started delivering. So I still got to select my 12 entrees and fill my freezer with a nice variety of dinners. Life was good.

Then last May, I was let go from my work. I had been a part-time teacher in Cobb County and with the poor economy, the county let go all part-time teachers. With this change in our finances and my time, I no longer felt that ordering our dinners was feasible.

For the first few weeks of my unemployment, dinners weren't too bad. It was grilling season, so we got a lot of use from our new grill. But it didn't take long before we were in a dinner rut. We were having a lot of repeat meals and carry-out dinners, the latter which wasn't really financially helpful.



Around the time the new school year started in August, I purchased a small magnetic white board with the days of the week on it. I made a list of the 20 or so meals that my family liked the most. On Mondays, I select the meals for the week. I often ask the kids for their input. I try not to have the same meal repeated the next week. Then after I've planned the meals for the week, I make my shopping list. When selecting the meals for the week, I make sure to note any evening activities that may affect our dinners. For example, Mondays are usually Boy Scout nights. On those nights, we don't eat as a family. We will either have leftovers or "on your own". On Wednesdays, my daughter has dance. We carpool with another family, but I usually do the bring home drive, so we get home right at dinner time. I usually plan a crock pot meal for those days.


My white board is nothing fancy, but it has made a difference. The kids have stopped asking me "What's for dinner?" because I now tell them to go check the board. We also go out to dinner or have carry-out a lot less. There was one month recently when we hadn't gone out to dinner at all, so the next week I decided to put a "go out to dinner" on our meal board.

My 9 year old is a vegetarian, so I try to plan at least 1 completely vegetarian meal each week. Sometimes I will list her veggie entree separately on the list or sometimes (like the week I have pictured above), I don't get around to it.


I'm also trying to try 1 new recipe each week. If it's successful, then that recipe gets added to our list of meals that we choose from. I am proud to say that we eat dinner together as a family most nights at our house.