Do you find yourself scrounging on the cabinets and scratching your head around dinnertime each night? Do you have trouble finding breakfast for your family each morning? Do you hate to even add up how much money you've spent eating out in the past month? Then, you probably can say that you need help with the meals in your house, and that you could stand to save some money in the process.

If you agree, then most likely, you could benefit from menu or meal planning. Meal planning is simply deciding on your meals for a week or more at one sitting, and then shopping for those particular meals on your next trip to the grocery store. Meal planning allows you to know ahead of time what you'll have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and even snacks if you choose to go that far, and it helps you to save yourself, time, money and even a little sanity as you're traveling the isles of the grocery store, because you will be prepared.

Planning your meals out ahead of time is a very easy practice. Just sit down one night a week or even one night a month and plan the meals for the following month or week, whichever you so choose. You will want to take a look in your pantry, fridge and freezer if you have one, in order to see what you already have on hand that you might use in your meals, this too will save you money.

Then you will sit down with a pen and paper, and begin compiling a list of the different meals that you plan to make. Keep in mind those busy nights where your kids have soccer practice or you have to work late. Those are the nights when you want to plan to fix something easy, or throw something in the crockpot that morning.

Once you have your list of meals, you create a shopping or grocery list from that list and then you go shopping. It is that simple.