Organized Cooking

I've had some friends want to know how I organize dinners for the family. It's pretty simple. First I compiled a list of 30 dinners that my family will eat. 30 seems like a lot, but just ask around for recipes that other families like. I keep an index card in my recipe book. The card is divided into four columns. Each column is for one week of the month. In each column there are 5-6 dinners listed. I also have a little note on the bottom of recipes that we like, but don't make every month.
> Using my palm pilot (cause I loose little pieces of paper I make notes on) I write down which dinner I'll make each day. I cook dinner Monday -Thursday. Friday and Saturday nights are either homemade pizza/grilled cheese/ leftovers etc. Sundays are our "breakfast" dinners- pankcakes, waffles, scrambled eggs, etc. My husband and daughters even made crepes.
> Once you have all your dinners listed, make a list of all ingredients used. I use my master list to shop for my three month supply of food storage. I broke mine down into 1 month, 2 months and 3 months.
> When I need to stock up on storage items, I go to my list and see where I'm short. In posts to come, I'll list each week and the dinners I cook. If I can figure out how to post a link for recipes, there will be recipes as well.
>Sometimes a new recipe will replace an old one that we're tired of eating. This system also helps cut way down on the food bill. That makes this momma very happy!