Your family needs to eat, and you need to find a way to manage all the menus, shopping, and cooking! This is the first podcast in a series all about meal planning for your large family!
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This week’s episode is sponsored by:
Homeschool Magnet
In this episode:
- Questions you need to ask yourself when finding a meal planning method that works for you.
- Why you should avoid comparing your grocery budget to someone else’s.
- My meal planning methods over the years.
Resources mentioned:
- Large Family Meal Planning (blog post)
- How to Use Evernote to Meal Plan (video)
- Family Favorites Meal List (blog post with video!)
Alison says
Hey Amy, thanks this podcast was really good. I have 10 children, one lives on his own, one is off at college, so that leaves eight here. I totally agree that meal planning changes as children grow. It also changes based on our current state and life and our different responsibilities. Meal planning and cooking has increasingly become more stressful for me and as we head into the school year I have been contemplating how I can have my children pick up some of the cooking for me. I have two teenage daughters and I think my 12-year-old son I think could actually handle things as well. What were some of the ways that you got your kids started taking over the prepping and the cooking of the meals? This is my disconnect I can’t imagine how to do it. I’m sure my normal way of just jumping in and making people do things could be done better, with just a little planning.
I have always felt bad about not teaching them more in the kitchen, but after teaching everyone all day long cooking dinner often offered a quiet time to have some time to think as I made dinner, or I just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible.
Thanks!
Alison
Amy says
You sound EXACTLY like me! My next podcast is actually going to be on this, so stayed tuned!
Diana says
Loved this post! I completely agree about meal planning and/or cooking styles changing SO much over the years as your family grows and changes. I have seen this – i.e. starting out with “one 8×8 pan is too much for us!” to today’s “two 9×13 pans is totally not enough!” It’s definitely one of the many areas in which large-family mums have to learn constant flexibility.
I love the bit about outsourcing your cooking to the kids. I thought I’d seen a lot of mention of your kids doing a lot of cooking in the weekly posts! I love that! And here’s the reverse – I’ve actually been feeling guilty because I have NOT been doing that, and I think my eldest is decidedly weak in cooking skills. I need to change that.
I don’t have any particular questions, but for me, you can’t do enough shows about meal planning – and about large family homemaking in general. The demands of homeschooling + homemaking are intense! I have gotten many helpful tips from you through the years that have helped to cut down on the insanity, and I would love to learn more!!
Amy says
I will definitely be doing more Meal Planning podcasts! I don’t have it all figured out, and everyone does things so differently, but I figure I can share what is “currently” working for us (because nothing works forever! lol), then maybe someone else will get some good out of it.