Ever since reading Simplicity Parenting I have wanted to put together a meal plan. But I also kept putting off creating it until I had more time to think about meals and the flow of our week and eating healthy and all the other things that go into a well thought out meal plan.

Then one day I just got fed up waiting for the right time to come, and put one together on the fly in about five minutes.  It has a few flaws in it, but it’s such a big improvement over nothing, that I can’t believe I waited so long to start doing this.

This meal plan is not meant to be copied – in fact I hope you won’t. Rather, I am sharing this in the hopes that other time-strapped parents will feel inspired to come up with their own simple meal plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect or a work of art! My children didn’t like the order of breakfasts, so they cut them apart and rearranged them (with a little input from their dad).

Our meal plan is also very flexible. During the summer we don’t do casseroles or stews and might do a barbecue instead; for soup night we might do a pureed zucchini soup or something like that. We tried to set this up to match our schedule – I often take a class on Wednesdays, so that is a good night for pasta (quick!). We use the leftovers for lunches or we freeze them so that we can have some nights where we don’t have to cook at all.

Committing to a meal plan might appear restrictive. In fact, I find that I have more time to get creative because I am not struggling to figure out all the meal details every night. Now that we have an official “soup night” I have been trying all kinds of different soups, where before I only had a handful of recipes.

Joan Kahn lives in Central Vermont with her husband, two children (ages 8 and 11), two goats and various other pets. Recently she has been spending a lot of time simplifying her home environment, in an effort to continue to make do in a house that is small for four people.

Joan leads Simplicity Parenting groups and helps families with one-on-one coaching. More information about her group can be found at www.timetoparentvermont.com.