September Focus Results

After the first week of meal planning, which I wasn’t really sure if it was a success… I took some of the advice I received and continued, though I didn’t concern myself as much with things staying on the exact day they were assigned…

Here’s how things went…

Week 2:

My meal plan in my bullet journal didn’t really get any prettier, but I think it was a bit better laid out…

Monday, I made my dinner plan be “my husband”… He had the day off work, and I had a meeting right after work, so we got him to do the meal plan and cooking.  Rather than force him in to cooking a specific thing, I left it open for his creativity/desires.  We ended up with BBQ chicken skewers, which were delicious!

Tuesday, we followed the plan to a T.  (Where does that saying come from anyway?)  We went out for a nice breakfast at the local cafe (we have become regulars there since the beginning of our renovations), then we each had some leftovers from the dinner my husband made for our lunches, and for dinner I made chicken and baked potatoes on the BBQ.  Success!

Wednesday worked out well too, but we had leftovers, so we didn’t need to eat the burritos for lunch that day… We saved those for Friday…

Thursday was okay, except I don’t know what we ate for dinner that night… I think my husband ate out… Or got pizza or something… And I think I just scrounged for random leftovers and bits and pieces from the fridge… So dinner was definitely not a success…

But, the meal planned for Thursday night was moved to Friday, so we didn’t have to order pizza and all was not lost.  I’d call Friday a success.

Week 3:

I followed the same layout as Week 2 for my meal plan, but with a work trip planned for a couple days mid-week, there were some blanks.  I didn’t plan anything for my husband.  He can figure out his own meals while I am away… I’m pretty sure it was mostly take-out, but I’m not going to argue.  He works long days and has little energy at the end of the day to cook, especially for only 1 person.  I totally get that.

 

While I feel a bit like it’s cheating, I’m going to call this week a success.  The meals that were planned were pretty much followed, and we didn’t have to randomly order in or whatever on any of those nights.

Week 4:

The last week of September I was actually away for work the entire week… So, that left my husband to fend for himself… And my goal of meal planning sort of pointless… So I’m not sure if I’d call this a success or a failure… is there some sort of neutral answer to that?

So, Success or Failure?

I’m hesitant to really give myself a pass or a fail on this, as it was a focus, not really a definitive goal… But I’m going to say that my focus was successful.  I had plans and we pretty much followed them and we ate out a lot less than we did without a meal plan.

And, What’s Next?

Well… Because I still feel like meal planning is a work in progress, I’m going to try and stick with it for the month of October.  Is it cheating to have the same focus?  I don’t think so, if it is something that will be such a good benefit when it becomes a successful habit.  I also want to explore some different layouts for meal planning in my bullet journal, to see if I can make it prettier and have some more fun with it.

It’s obviously quite far in to October already, so I could start to review how I’ve gone so far, but I’ll leave it for another post…