A meal planner template with a grocery list puts the week’s meals and the shopping for them on the same page, so the list comes straight from the plan instead of from memory. Every weekly page of our Weekly Planner Spreadsheet has breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack for each day, plus a grocery list with quantities and checkboxes. It suits households that shop once or twice a week and want meals planned around the rest of the week, in Google Sheets or Excel.
What the Meal Plan Spreadsheet Tracks
- Meal plan. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack for all seven days.
- Grocery list. One list per week, with a quantity for each item and a checkbox to tick as it goes in the cart.
- The rest of the week, beside it. The hourly schedule on the same page shows which evenings are busy. Tasks with a priority hold prep jobs like “defrost chicken”, and due dates flag the bake sale before you shop. Birthdays and holidays you enter on the setup tab appear on the calendar tab, so a birthday dinner never takes you by surprise.
The planner lays out six consecutive weeks from your start date, one tab each. That gives you six weeks of meal plans to look back on: when a week worked, reuse its dinners later.
Example: A Family Week of Meals and Its Grocery List
Here is a week for a family of four with two school-age kids. It uses two theme nights (tacos on Tuesday, pizza on Friday) and two cook-once-eat-twice nights: Monday’s extra chicken becomes Tuesday’s wraps, and Wednesday’s double batch of chili is Thursday’s lunch.
| Day | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | Snack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Oatmeal with bananas | Turkey sandwiches | Sheet-pan chicken thighs, potatoes, green beans (extra chicken) | Apples, peanut butter |
| Tue | Scrambled eggs, toast | Chicken wraps | Beef tacos | Yogurt cups |
| Wed | Oatmeal with bananas | Turkey sandwiches | Black bean chili, double batch | Carrots, hummus |
| Thu | Scrambled eggs, toast | Leftover chili | Spaghetti with meat sauce | Apples, peanut butter |
| Fri | Oatmeal with bananas | Turkey sandwiches | Flatbread pizzas | Yogurt cups |
| Sat | Banana pancakes | Cheese quesadillas | Chicken rice bowls | Popcorn |
| Sun | Scrambled eggs, toast | Fridge clear-out | Baked salmon, rice, green beans | Carrots, hummus |
The grocery list below covers the main items used in more than one meal. Each quantity is the sum of what those meals need, using example amounts for four people.
| Item | Quantity | From these meals |
|---|---|---|
| Eggs | 26 | Scrambled eggs Tue, Thu, Sun (8 each), pancakes Sat (2) |
| Bread | 36 slices | Sandwiches Mon, Wed, Fri (8 each), toast Tue, Thu, Sun (4 each) |
| Bananas | 9 | Oatmeal Mon, Wed, Fri (2 each), pancakes Sat (3) |
| Rolled oats | 6 cups | Oatmeal Mon, Wed, Fri (2 cups each) |
| Sliced turkey | 36 oz (2¼ lb) | Sandwiches Mon, Wed, Fri (12 oz each) |
| Chicken thighs | 5 lb | Sheet pan Mon (3 lb, including 1 lb for the wraps), rice bowls Sat (2 lb) |
| Ground beef | 2 lb | Tacos Tue, spaghetti Thu (1 lb each) |
| Shredded cheese | 5 cups | Tacos Tue (1), pizzas Fri (2), quesadillas Sat (2) |
| Large tortillas | 8 | Wraps Tue, quesadillas Sat (4 each) |
| Apples | 8 | Snacks Mon, Thu (4 each) |
| Yogurt cups | 8 | Snacks Tue, Fri (4 each) |
| Green beans | 2 lb | Sheet pan Mon, salmon Sun (1 lb each) |
| Rice | 3½ cups dry | Rice bowls Sat (2), salmon Sun (1½) |
| Carrots | 2 lb | Snacks Wed, Sun (1 lb each) |
Everything else goes on the list the same way (potatoes, black beans and diced tomatoes for the chili, small tortillas, spaghetti, pasta sauce, flatbreads, salmon, hummus, popcorn), plus a quick check on pantry jars like peanut butter.
Two things this list teaches:
- Write what the meals need, then round to what the store sells. 26 eggs is three dozen with 10 to spare, or two dozen if you already have two at home. 36 slices is two loaves only if each loaf has at least 18 slices, so check the bag.
- Repeats go on one line. Chicken appears in three meals and bread in six, so each gets one line with the total, not one per recipe.
How to Set Up the Meal Planner
- Open the Excel file, or make your own copy in Google Sheets from the link in your download.
- On the setup tab, enter your start date and add birthdays and holidays, so a birthday dinner or holiday meal shows on the calendar tab before you plan that week.
- Open the week’s tab and look at the hourly schedule first. Evenings with late meetings, practice or classes get the quick dinners or the leftovers.
- Plan dinners first, since they drive most of the shopping. Then plan lunches (use dinner leftovers where you can), breakfasts (a rotation of two or three is plenty) and snacks.
- Build the grocery list meal by meal. When an item comes up again, raise its quantity instead of adding a second line.
- Check the fridge, freezer and pantry, delete what you already have, then shop and tick each item as it goes in the cart.
- Add prep jobs, like defrosting or cooking the double batch, as tasks on the day they are needed.
The Method: Plan From the Schedule, Shop From the Plan
The order matters more than the recipes. Start with the week’s calendar, not a cookbook: an hour-long dinner is fine on Sunday and a problem on the night of soccer practice.
Cook once and eat twice on purpose. Pick one or two dinners that scale well (chili, roast chicken, pasta sauce) and write the second meal into the plan right away. Theme nights cut down the decisions; “taco Tuesday” still leaves room to vary the filling.
Then shop from the list and nothing else. A list with quantities stops both the second trip for a forgotten onion and the extra bag of apples nobody eats.
Our guide to meal planning for beginners walks through a six-step process with theme nights and a leftovers plan. For the shopping side, grocery list on a budget covers a staples list, quantities and a simple price book, and a family budget helps you set the weekly grocery amount in the first place. If several people eat from the plan, the family weekly planner guide shows how to agree on meals in a short Sunday meeting.
Batch cooking needs a slot in the week. The time blocking template shows how to give a Sunday prep session its own block on the same page.
Build Your Own Meal Planner Template With Grocery List
Minimum columns
- Meals tab: A for the day (Monday to Sunday in A2:A8), then B Breakfast, C Lunch, D Dinner, E Snack.
- Groceries tab: A Item, B Quantity, C Unit, D Store section, E Got it.
For the Got it column, select E2:E40 and choose Insert > Checkbox. That works in Google Sheets and in Excel for Microsoft 365, and both store TRUE for a ticked box. In older Excel, type an x instead.
Formulas that save a trip
Items still to buy, in any empty cell of the Groceries tab:
- Google Sheets and Excel for Microsoft 365:
=COUNTIFS(A2:A40,"<>",E2:E40,FALSE) - Older Excel with x marks:
=COUNTIFS(A2:A40,"<>",E2:E40,"<>x")
The "<>" part counts only rows with an item name, so empty checkbox rows are ignored.
How many meals use an ingredient: =COUNTIF(Meals!B2:E8,"*chicken*"). The asterisks match the word anywhere in a cell, and it works the same in both apps. On the example week it returns 3.
A shopping view with only the unticked items, sorted by store section (put it in G2 so it has room to spill):
- Google Sheets:
=SORT(FILTER(A2:D40,A2:A40<>"",E2:E40=FALSE),4,TRUE) - Excel for Microsoft 365:
=SORT(FILTER(A2:D40,(A2:A40<>"")*(E2:E40=FALSE)),4,1)
Excel’s FILTER combines conditions by multiplying them, while Google Sheets takes each condition as its own argument. Once everything is ticked, both return an error, so wrap the formula in IFERROR with a message such as “All done”. Excel 2019 and earlier have neither SORT nor FILTER; use Data > Sort on the section column instead.
Strike through what is in the cart
Select A2:D40, then add a rule with the formula =$E2=TRUE (or =$E2="x" in older Excel):
- Google Sheets: Format > Conditional formatting, “Custom formula is”, then pick strikethrough and gray text.
- Excel: Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > “Use a formula to determine which cells to format”, then Format > Font > Strikethrough.
Who This Weekly Meal Planner Suits
It suits you if:
- You shop once or twice a week and want the list written from the plan, with quantities.
- Your evenings vary, and you want dinners matched to the schedule on the same page.
- You shop to a fixed grocery amount and want impulse buys easy to spot.
It suits you less if:
- You want a recipe box or calorie counts. This is a plan and a list; the recipes live elsewhere.
- You want a list that fills itself from recipes. Here you write the list, which is quick for a week of family meals but not automatic.
One last tip: order the grocery list the way you walk your store, produce first and frozen last, and you will pass each aisle once.