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Don’t you just hate that time of the day when it’s time to start thinking about what to make for dinner? Or the dreaded question from the family: “What’s for dinner?” If this sounds like you, you should try meal planning. Choose one day to plan your meals and shopping for the week and you’ll be amazed at how much easier your life will become! Meal planning will prevent the stress and chaos that comes from last minute scrambling and make you so much calmer. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; check out all the other advantages:

1. Less stress. This one is obvious!
2. Organization. Meal planning requires you to be organized, which makes everything so much easier.
3. No more guesswork. It’s all planned in advance so you don’t have to think about it.
4. Easier shopping. When you know what you’ll be cooking the whole week, you know what you need to shop for  and you can limit your shopping to one or two times per week.
5. No surprises. Because you’ll plan around your family’s likes and dislikes, and because they’ll know what to expect, you will (hopefully) get no complaints.
6. Great for your budget. You can plan your meals around what’s on sale that week, and you won’t spend your money on expensive meals out.
7. Great for your health. Planning your meals makes it much easier to eat healthy. You’ll design meals around your nutritional needs and won’t have to resort to unhealthy takeout.
8. Waste less food. When you plan your meals in advance you shop for what you know you’ll need. That means no surprise wilted lettuce you thought you were going to use.
9. No emergency trips to the store. Because you’ll be so organized you’ll have all the ingredients you need for the week. This will save you time and money- no impulse buying, and you’ll save on gas.
10. Time management. Since you know what you’ll be cooking each night you’ll know what needs to be done. You can be way more efficient and you’ll avoid midnight dinners.
11. Involve the family. Besides the many benefits of a family meal, you can involve everyone in the meal planning and prep.

I think these are seriously great advantages of meal planning. What are your favorite meal planning tips?

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