Quick Question: What does a real monthly meal plan actually look like?

Our real monthly meal plan isn’t a perfectly color-coded calendar with brand-new recipes every night. It’s a working document.

In our December meal plan, you’ll see:

repeated meals (because they work)
crossed-out ideas (because plans change)
simple dinners like pizza, spaghetti, and chicken
grocery lists that evolve week to week

This isn’t about cooking everything from scratch or sticking to a rigid plan. It’s about having just enough structure to feed a family of five without the daily stress of figuring it out from scratch.

A Real-Life December Meal Plan

December isn’t the month where I try new systems or reinvent how we eat. It’s the month where I lean hard on what already works. This post is a real snapshot of our December meal plan, the same handwritten pages I used all month to plan dinners, track groceries, and keep feeding a family of five without losing my mind. There’s nothing fancy here, just a simple, flexible system that keeps decision fatigue low and meals on the table.

How I Actually Planned December

I don’t sit down and plan an entire month at once. I always go week by week, taking into consideration our work schedules (hubs and I both work), after school schedules, school events … all the normal family things.

December was planned in chunks, week by week, using the same printed pages I use year-round.

Most of the planned meals we made, I did have a whole week I didn’t follow my plan because I was solo parenting, and a lot of dinners repeated because they already work for our family.

These are the actual pages I used throughout December.

Some meals stayed on the plan, some got crossed out, and some weeks looked nothing like I originally planned — and that’s exactly how this system is meant to work.

A meal plan that works with real life, ingredients that can be used for different meals not just one specific meal, and keeps a large family on budget.

What We Ate on Repeat

December isn’t the month where we try to add variety for the sake of it. It’s the month where we repeat what already works.

Instead of planning something different every night, I leaned into a short list of dinners I know our family will actually eat and that don’t require a lot of mental energy to make happen. Repeating meals isn’t a failure of planning; it’s the whole point of making the month manageable.

I also didn’t get down on myself about having to ditch a weekly meal plan for an entire week. I knew going into December that this particular week was going to be tough.

My husband was traveling for work, it was the last week of school for all three kids, and everyone had Christmas concerts and award ceremonies, all at different schools, in different parts of town, sometimes with as little as 45 minutes in between.

This month I welcomed repetition. We had a lot of the same dinners over and over again. That is ok, especially in a house where predictability and familiar foods help everyone feel more regulated and supported.

pizza
spaghetti
chicken (baked, mojo lime, balsamic)
simple sides and leftovers

These are meals I can adjust based on how much time and energy I have that day, and they’re flexible enough to work whether I’m cooking for everyone or getting something on the table quickly.

Repeating meals keeps decision fatigue low and makes grocery shopping simpler. When I know what we’re likely to eat more than once, planning and shopping stop feeling like a daily problem to solve.

How Groceries Fit Into This Plan

don’t do one big grocery haul for the entire month. Groceries are tied to how the weeks actually unfold. Some weeks require a full trip, some weeks are pantry-first, and some weeks are a mix of both.

My grocery lists change as the month goes on and we eat up what we have at home. Meals get crossed out, items move between stores, and not everything on the list ends up in the cart. That flexibility is intentional. The list supports the plan, not the other way around.

One of my actual grocery tracker pages from December. I cross off Walmart items as I add them to our order. If you see a squiggly cross out it means we didn’t get it that week or from that store.

Why This System Works for Real Life

This system works because it’s built around how our life actually functions, not how I wish it did on a calm, hypothetical week.

I don’t need a perfect plan. I need something that can flex when schedules change, kids melt down, work runs late, or energy is low. Planning in pencil instead of ink gives me enough structure to stay out of decision fatigue without locking me into something I can’t follow through on.

The combination of repeated meals, week-by-week planning, and evolving grocery lists means I’m never starting from zero. Even when a plan gets abandoned, it’s still doing its job. Keeping meals simple and stress low.

If You’re Curious How I Do This Each Month

This December post is part of an ongoing monthly series where I share exactly how I meal plan in real life, the handwritten pages, the repeated dinners, the weeks that go off the rails, and how I still keep food on the table without starting over every Monday.

Each month, I’ll be sharing:

what we planned
what actually got cooked
how the grocery list changed week to week
and what I adjusted based on time, energy, and family schedules

If you want to see the bigger picture of how this works month after month, you can start here:

What We Cooked in November 2025 (How I Meal Planned for a Family of 5 Without Losing My Mind)

I use the same simple meal plan and grocery tracker pages every month, the same ones you see in this post, to plan dinners, track groceries, and reduce daily decision fatigue. Nothing fancy. Just enough structure to keep things moving.

How I Meal Plan for a Family of 5 (Without Strict Recipes or Schedules)

Once the kids are back in school, I’ll also be documenting this process in real time, sitting down to plan, prepping lunches and snacks, and walking through how I use these pages week by week. Those videos will live alongside these posts so you can plan with me, not just read about it.

When the channel is live, you’ll turn that sentence into a link to your YouTube channel or a dedicated “Plan With Me” page.

If you’re a busy mom who just wants a system that works most of the time, without perfection, color-coding, or cooking something new every night, this series is for you.

Our December 2025 Meal Plan (How I Meal Planned for a Family of 5 Without Losing My Mind)