I've dabbled in meal planning before as find it saves time and money but it used to consist of jotting down a weeks meals on a Monday ad hoc. I started saving the bits of paper and got 4 different ones. I then decided I wanted to include each week; a roast, a pasta meal, meal with salad, meal using mince and a slow cooker meal. (Some meals may count as either/or). I then wrote down roughly 4 different meals for above categories. My older 2 dcs are at their dad's mon and fri eves and every other weekend overnight. So that affects what we eat, but we do have lo (1 yr) who's always with us.
When I'd done that, I numbered weeks 1-4 and then saved in my phone meal for each day, repeating every 4 wks if that makes sense. Means I've always got it with me when shopping. Obviously if something comes up I do change things around. So far it's going ok. Some things may need tweaking/swapping as they're repeated the next wk instead of the wk after which might be better. This week's menu is:
Mon; corn beef hash (we had bits leftover in the freezer though because I'm ill at the mo)
Tues; chicken casserole, slow cooker (made with leftover chicken from last Sunday)
Weds; spag Bol, slow cooker (beef mince but some weeks use vege mince)
Thurs; jacket spuds and salad. Usually have beans/cheese, tuna sweet corn and mayo or chilli as toppings.
Fri: fish and chips.
Sat: Lasagna chips/salad.
Sun: roast chicken dinner
Weekend meals may change though because it's dps birthday so we may have a bbq and/or go out. But that's the general idea.