Weekly Planners

I am so very grateful for the services out there that provide weekly planners. They help me make things in my home run much more smoothly. The photo in my weekly gratitude template is pretty bad (I know), but I wanted to show what my two favorite planning services look like.

1. Motivated Moms – When I moved into my new home I willingly gave up a cleaning service. My service only came once a month to my old home, but it was enough to help me keep it where I was happy. It’s pretty amazing how nice it is to see your reflection in your toaster. But, I was determined not to spend money on that and to do it myself. It has taken me a long time to finally find help with how to plan my household chores and keep them doable, without allowing life to take over and the guilt to set in. I purchased the yearly plan (which is broken down into weeks) from Motivated Moms. Each week there is a day by day plan of things to do. Some days are heavier than others, but I have, yet, to find a day where I wasn’t able to accomplish the list. My favorite item on this week’s list is to “sort children’s clothes – donate or box and save for yard sale”. I have been meaning to do just this with the beautiful change in weather and now I have to, since it’s on my list. For me, this is one resource I will continue to use and purchase year after year. It’s been a true time and sanity saver for me. You can view a weekly planner page here.

2. The Six O’Clock Scramble – This one has been a huge life saver for me. My least favorite thing to do is to grocery shop. I do not enjoy planning out weekly meals and then building a grocery list around those meals. When we discovered how many allergies my youngest has, it made this task that much more difficult. The Scramble is a service that provides a weekly menu and the grocery list for it. Over the years it has really improved to the point where you can now create your own meal plan or make substitutions to the current plan. I usually create my own plan based on needing to stay away from certain foods I cannot substitute and it is really quick and helpful. The food is always healthy and has a lot of flavor. This was the first meal plan I found that didn’t have processed foods as meal ingredients. These meals are healthy and take me less than 30 minutes to prepare.

I print out the meals I plan to make for the week and put them on my refrigerator. To make things easy, I purchase frozen wild salmon, tilapia and organic chicken in bulk from Costco and put it in my freezer. This helps me plan out my week quickly knowing I have my protein already. I purchase ground turkey or turkey sausage at the grocery store when needed. These two small things have helped save me money and time, which is why I would be lost without this fantastic service. You can try a sample weekly menu here.