We started making a weekly meal plan in the Rabbit household a couple years ago. I was tired of not knowing what to make each night, and even more tired of throwing out food at the end of the week, because we didn’t properly plan.

I was talking to some friends who were baffled by the whole meal-planning thing, and it made me realize that we’ve been doing it for so long that it’s almost second nature. So I went back and thought about the basics when it comes to meal planning. Here are seven steps that work for us, and hopefully it may help some of you!

Cook what you know and be realistic.

I probably wouldn’t plan on making something new every night of the week, because you’ll (literally) get burnt out. If you make killer quesadillas and grilled cheese, then add them to the menu. If you know you’ll end up having a frozen pizza or call a cereal box “dinner” for a night, then add that to your menu.

Once you get more comfortable with cooking, then start adding in new recipes. On any given week we’ll have two or three of our “regular” meals on the menu. They’re easy to make and we know we like them, so they usually always make an appearance. I rotate them so we’re not eating the same thing, but they’re comfort foods for us. As for finding recipes, I use Pinterest and real, old-school cookbooks. I look for meals that sound good, look good, and have good comments/reviews (I always scroll to the bottom of a posted recipe and read what other said about it).

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Look at the 10-day forecast.

I always look at the weather for the week and try to figure out what I’d want to eat based on the temperature. I mean, who wants to eat a nice, cold, crisp salad when it’s raining all day? Not me! On chilly days I plan on breaking out the crock pot or I put soup on the menu. If it’s going to be nice outside, I plan on using the grill. (And I really mean that my husband will be out there grilling.) I use the weather to help guide me.

Don’t forget schedules.

On nights when I know we’re going to be busy I’ll plan on making something simple, or I use the crock pot since I can get things going in the morning. Take your family’s schedule into consideration. My husband often works nights, so on those days we sometimes have dinner for lunch and then I’ll either have leftovers or make something simple for myself later.

Write it out (and put it on your phone).

Jot down the meal ideas you have and see if it jibes with the rest of your family. Then, write it down somewhere where you can see it. Our menu lives on our chalkboard wall, but a piece of paper works fine, too—just make sure you leave it somewhere visible (i.e. not under a stack of magazines). Actually, after I write our our menu, I retype it and leave it on my phone. That way, when I’m out and about I know what we’re doing for dinner. I like having it on my phone because I can check it at night and make sure I don’t need to take any meat out of the freezer to thaw. Having it in multiple places comes in much handier than you’d think. Once you have a solid menu, you can move on to making your grocery list.

Make a list and check it twice.

We try to hit up the store once a week. There’s nothing worse than starting to make your meal and realizing you’re out of a key ingredient. Once I make our menu I go through each recipe and make sure I have everything we need for it by making one long list. Take stock of what you have in your freezer, fridge and pantry before you go shopping. Again, just as you don’t want to have too little of something, you also don’t want to have tons of leftover food/produce that ends up in the trash at the end of the week.

Be Flexible.

Stuff comes up; life happens, and sometimes a meal you planned just won’t feel right for that night, so be prepared to switch things up sometimes. If I have a meal planned for one night, but notice the avocados are ripening faster than I thought, we’ll move the fajitas up sooner in the week. It’s okay to go off schedule; you can always make that meal another time.

When in doubt, go out.

I barely cooked when we first got married. Someone seriously got me a book called, How to Boil Water when we got married (excellent cookbook, by the way). But around the time I started enjoying being in the kitchen more and making new recipes, my husband and I came up with a great plan: if either of us made something (usually new) that just wasn’t good, there was no need to worry…we’d just scrap that meal and go grab Wendy’s. It took the pressure off cooking something fantastic every night.

There you go—everything I know about meal planning! Do you have any tips when it comes to making a menu each week?