I am a busy mom that is trying to run a business from home. My days can get crazy and overwhelming! I know I am not alone in feeling like this. When the day starts winding down, the last thing I want to do is to be scrambling for dinner. It makes me stressed and I feel like I’m not being a good mom if I am constantly getting my family take out or fast food.
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I recently started doing something that people have been talking about forever but I just kept ignoring, meal planning. This one little thing has made such a big impact in my daily life and it has made my life easier!
I would see posts about it on Pinterest or Facebook and I would just keep scrolling. I thought that in order to meal plan you had to take a few hours and sit down, write everything out, plan you shopping lists, match up what was on sale, etc. I really didn’t have time for all of that!
I will admit that I am pretty good at keeping our freezer and pantry stocked with all the basic ingredients that we use. I know what the stock up prices are on meats, veggies, fruit, pantry staples, etc. so that when they are at the lowest price, I buy enough to get us through to the next sale.
By doing this I already have pretty much everything I will need to actually make the meals so I’m not running out to the store to get a ton of ingredients. This saves me time and money!
What about all the time it takes to do the planning? That was the thing that was keeping me from getting started. I learned that if you just do one week at a time, it isn’t so bad.
You can even get all of the planning done for you with $5 Meal Plan. This service is amazing! Every Friday you get an email with a week’s worth of meal plans with recipes and cooking instructions.
The best part is that all the meals are super affordable, some even cost less than $2 per serving! This will help save you a ton of time and money since you aren’t having to grab pizza or takeout.
To help make sure that you can really benefit from this service, they offer a free 14 day trial. You will get 2 weeks of meal plans for free!
If you really want to save yourself some time and get everything done in one day, the FreezEasy plan is what you need.
I love doing freezer meals because I spend one hour, maybe two, and have everything chopped, sliced, and put together for an entire week!
Just by making this one little switch in my life I have noticed such a change not only in myself, but in the rest of my family as well. My fiance can grab a meal out of the freezer and get it going if I’m busy doing something else. We don’t have to argue about who is going to make dinner.
I have more time to play with my daughter. We don’t have to rush home from the playground because mommy has to run to the store or spend an hour or more cooking dinner.
Not to mention the affect this has had on our budget. I am saving so much money by meal planning. When you grab takeout, it is easily $8 or more a person. With meal planning, I can make us a much healthier dinner for less than $5 a person!
We are going to start taking the money that we save from eating out and put it in a vacation fund!
I didn’t realize how much stress I was putting on myself over something that should be simple, dinner. By just being more organized and doing a little bit of prep one day a week, the rest of my week goes smoothly. I am seriously amazed and I really wish I had started doing this sooner.
Don’t get me wrong, we still eat pizza and grab Chinese once in a while but it isn’t all the time. I usually will put in a “take out day” on the menu every other week.
Meal planning doesn’t mean making everything from scratch, either. I will buy a frozen store bought pizza or lasagna to have something quick to make. The point is that I still planned the meal and had everything I needed on hand. I wasn’t scrambling to find something for us to eat.
I have really fallen in love with meal planning and I will continue to do this in the future. If you want to get started, make sure you sign up for the free 14 day trial so you can see just how easy and affordable $5 Meal Plan is.
It will make your life easier just like it did mine!
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