Whatever Wednesday: Family Meal Planning (for the school year)

We're trying to live on a better budget. One that includes accounting for every penny (well, that's how I look at it, my husband says almost every penny is ok too). 

To help our budget, we are planning out our meals. The only problem is that we don't all enjoy the same things. 
Don't get me wrong, we like a lot of the same things, but my teenager would prefer to have pizza and hotdogs at most meals, my husband and daughter, Mexican and Chinese, and I would like to have casserole type dishes. 

So, we sat down and passed a piece of paper around giving each person a chance to write one thing down. Then pass it on to the next person to write one things down, and so on and so forth. 

First we started with main dishes.
Next we added our favorite vegetables and fruits.
Then our desserts (because we HAVE to keep that in!) 

It turned out pretty well and we are now ready for good meals, that we can agree on (because we each know that our favorite meal will be coming soon) that won't break the bank.