A few years ago we bought a beautifully simple pad of menu planning sheets. Month at a glance, had a little tear-off piece for writing down the shopping list, no dates so each sheet served for any month. It even had a magnetic strip on the back (or we stuck one on) so it lived on our fridge for quite some time.
Of course, it took us a while to really get into the habit of properly planning a whole week’s menu, but it made such an impact on budgetting, organisation, quality, etc. If you don’t do this, I highly recommend you start.
Anyway. It ran out, and I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement. Ridiculous but true. There are whiteboard versions (I don’t want the plastic nor the ever-running-out markers), notebook versions (can’t stick it on the fridge), etc. We’ve been without for weeks and now that we’re back to work we really need something to help with the planning.
So I caved and started looking for something sensibly digital. I wanted simple, straightforward, nothing fancy, no recipe suggestions nor ads, just something my wife and I can both read and edit. It doesn’t need to create a shopping list, it just needs to be viewable on both iPad and Android devices.
Well, I got fed up with what I found and suddenly realised that I could build my own. I started with a Google Slide, but then decided I liked the idea of a Sheet better (I like Sheets, a lot).
Of course, I had to use formulae. You always have to use formulae. If anything has to be repeated at any point in some systematic way – you have to have formulae. It’s a golden rule.
I’m rather pleased with what I came up with.
Choose the month and enter the desired year (4 digits) and it will automatically adjust the dates and shade out the unused blocks
Writing to Think 