I'm joining Mix & Match Mama & A Little Bit of Everything today to share how I meal plan.
In our house, Adam does 95% of the cooking and I do 95% of the grocery shopping/pickup, meal planning, and cleanup.
Grocery 'shopping'
As we run out of staples I add them to the cart in the WalMart app {that link will give you $10 off your first order}. Then on Thursdays I try to do a big pickup on my way out of the city for the week. Fridays I go to other 'specialty' stores if needed. Fareway or Dayton's Meat locker for meat {not often since we buy beef and pork every year}. If I get seafood we go to HyVee {unless we're making sushi, then I get that a Waterfront since they fly it in daily}. McNallys has awesome cheese and is only 20 minutes from our house. For last minute stuff, we have a little grocery store 5 minutes from our house. They don't have a huge selection, you have to watch their expiration dates, and they're pretty pricey but so convenient! Also, they have a good selection of alcohol {excluding wine!} for a good price. Not that I need that right now {currently on a 30 day 'water only' streak -- Aquatober}
Meal planning
I make a monthly meal plan. I insert any days we're out of town and then plug meals in from there. Every Tuesday night our friend hosts us for dinner. This started once we moved to the lake. We call it Burger Night but it's evolved and now she makes all kinds of dinners. It's incredibly sweet! Plus she's a great cook and loves trying new recipes, so it's always a great night! {Trust me, we don't take this for granted!}. Other than that, we used to get pizza once a week {before we moved to the middle of nowhere}. Also noteworthy, we just use this a a guide when we don't have a different idea, so we probably only eat 75% of these meals, and rarely on the day it's listed. If it's cold we pull a soup or slow cooker meal from the list, if it's hot we will pull a grillable meal, etc. It's mainly just some of our favorite 'go to' meals. We're currently doing soup every Sunday in the fall and hope to start doing a big family style dinner every Sunday after football season. 
