Many moons ago when we were on our debt free journey I was a Meal Planning Queen. Everything was cooked, portioned and packed on Sundays and we just went in the fridge and grabbed what we wanted to eat throughout the week. Fast forward to debt freedom and now Baby HutchLife is here and I’m pregnant with LittleBit HutchLife and meal planning has gone out of the window. But so has shopping smartly lol. As I think about the next 6 months and LittleBit on the way meal planning has come back to the forefront of my mind. Main reason – it allows me to easily stick to a budget.
When we were on our debt free journey we were plant based without planning on it and we were in the best shape of our lives. I’d like to be in great shape even during this pregnancy and the best way to do that is to monitor what I eat and to eat healthy and wholesome. So meal planning it is.
What does meal planning look like?
- Determine what you want to eat during the week
- Look for recipes that contain the ingredients you want to use
- See if you can find sales/coupons that will allow you to get what you want for less
- Pick a day to cook and focus on that without distraction
- Make sure you have the containers to pack the food you’re making
- Cook and pack your food
- If there are leftovers see if you can freeze them for future use
Sounds simple enough but boy is the cooking part time consuming – UNLESS you are using one ingredient for multiple dishes, which is a good hack. Next week I’ll be starting meal planning and prepping based on the different tastes of the HutchLife family.
Baby HutchLife has specific foods she is not a fan of at this particular time but as with previous foods, it just takes a few tries for her to like the food we give her. It’s such a blessing that we don’t have to buy formula anymore – boy is that expensive. We are looking forward to actually sticking to a food budget going forward because it is so easy to spend money on food especially if you’re shopping more than once a week and also eating out, which we were doing. Refocusing as we have re-evaluated our financial goals and our financial timeline.
Do any of you meal plan? What are some of your staples? What foods do you use in multiple meals? How do you stick to your food budget?
