Free Meal Planner & Grocery List Excel Template
Stop staring into the fridge at 6 PM. Plan all seven days of meals on one tab, then work through a categorized grocery checklist on the next — checking items off as you shop.
What's inside
- 7-day meal grid: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for Monday through Sunday
- Grocery list with category dropdowns: produce, dairy, meat, pantry, frozen, bakery
- Quantity and unit columns so you buy the right amount the first time
- Check-off column with green highlighting and a live remaining-items counter
- Yellow input cells throughout — type, shop, eat, repeat
Opens in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No signup, no watermarks.
How to use this template
On the Meal Plan tab, fill in the week's meals. Do not overthink it — repeat favorite breakfasts, plan dinners around what is already in the freezer, and leave a slot or two for leftovers night. The grid is deliberately simple: the goal is a decision made on Sunday, not a decision made hungry on Wednesday.
Flip to the Grocery List tab and translate the plan into items. Pick a category from the dropdown for each item so the list groups naturally by store section — produce together, dairy together — which is how you stop backtracking through the aisles. Enter quantities with units (2 lbs, 1 dozen) so one trip is enough.
Shop with the list open on your phone (Google Sheets works well for this) and mark items Y as they go in the cart. The remaining counter at the top ticks down, and checked rows turn green. When it hits zero, you are done — and the week's dinners are already decided.
A few principles make the grid work harder. Build dinners around a shared base — a grain, a protein, vegetables — and vary the seasoning instead of buying entirely different ingredients nightly. Plan one clean-out-the-fridge night per week for leftovers. And shop the pantry first: crossing off what you already own before writing the list is the fastest way to cut the grocery bill.
Frequently asked questions
Is this meal planner really free?
Yes. Download it, use it forever, no account or payment. It is supported the same way as our free tools — advertising on the site.
Does the grocery list fill itself from the meal plan?
No — and deliberately so. Free-text meal entries cannot be reliably parsed into ingredients, so the list is a fast manual checklist instead. Translating the plan takes about five minutes.
Can I reuse it every week?
Yes. Save a copy per week (name it with the Monday date) or just clear the yellow cells and start over. Many people keep a few favorite weeks saved as templates.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open with Google Sheets; the dropdowns, check-offs, and counter carry over. It also works in LibreOffice.