Meal Planning, Time-Planning, Efficiency and Grocery Lists

I am trying to tweak my meal-planning and shopping list in order to be more efficient, save money, and use things I already have in the house.  (And by tweak I mean start making a habit of planning in an organized manner on a routine basis).  Up til now I have been just looking at the recipes I wanted to make and adding those items I thought I needed to my shopping list.  This got me 3 separate things of parsley  from my online direct-to-house grocery order last week.  It's time to change how things are done in the grocery/recipe area.

(Note: the grocery list I have been working with for the last 9-10 months will not be changing.  I wrote...tried....tweaked...tried...tweaked that particular document several times before I settled on one that works for all members of my family.  (Occasionally dad does my grocery shopping when I can't get out of the house, so he was involved in the layout and thought process.  It is laid out according to the aisles of my local store)

Step 1.  Get the husband involved -check. Sent BGS an appointment for every Saturday afternoon/evening.  We will layout the meal plan, check the pantry, and then write the grocery list.

Step 2.  Obtain said meal plan template - I went in searching of a weekly meal planner that would work for us (Ok me, because let's face it I'm going to be the better organized of us and I have the better handwriting). I went to pinterest, I asked google, and I found 3 possible candidates.
   The layout I like the most doesn't have lines for writing.  That doesn't bode well for legibility.  The one that does have lines...well, the lines are too close together for legibility....time to make my own.  *hrmpf*

Things to make sure are on this meal planner in order for it to be the most versatile and helpful for us  me.
1. An area that has the date for this week

2. Days of the week across the horizontal or vertical
3.  Meals and  2 snacks across the opposite axes
4.  One area at the top or maybe along the side to write reminders for things that should be prepped the night before (putting chicken in marinade) and/or things that can be prepped well in advance (chopping carrots/celery/whatever) on Sunday afternoon
5.  LINES for writing - at least 3 lines: protein, starch, veg
6. One area for a writing the reference/resource for a particular recipe if that meal is not ad-hoc
7. Color - I am not color blind, but I almost always do better when the even or odd lines of a spreadsheet-type document is a different color than the others.  eg: Sunday light blue, Monday white, Tuesday light blue, etc.

So here's what we have so far: *note this is not the actual size of my template, I had to make it skinnier to fit the formatting of this page*

I will try it this week and post the success and/or needs improvements next week.

This is the meal plan for the week____________
Notes for the week:__________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________
	Brkfast	Morn. Snack	Lunch	Snack	Dinner	Notes
Sun	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Mon	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Tues	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Wed	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Thurs	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Fri	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________
Tues	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________	__________ __________ __________ __________