Meal Planning on a {TIME} Budget

People ask ALL THE TIME where I get my recipes from, how I form a grocery list, ensure food doesn't go bad (hate cleaning out that produce crisper...), and making time to cook it all. 

I only pick meals that can be prepped and cooked in roughly 30 minutes. By the time I pick Liam up from day care, I have TWO HOURS to cook, eat, play, bathe, and get him to bed, so I don't have time for laborious and drawn out gourmet recipes. 

Saturday is generally my meal planning day, where I look through my recipe book, cook books, and Pinterest. I watch YouTube videos on how to alter recipes - making prep easier, use less time, and make them low carb and low cal, if they are not already formulated to be this way. Meal planning takes roughly one hour so this happens during nap time.

I really only plan my family's dinners because breakfast is already accounted for - Shakeology with fruit - and lunch is almost always left overs from the night before. 

My first step in planning our meals for the week is to break out my Skinny Taste Cookbook (STCB) and flip to the contents page. I've only had the book for a few weeks so right now I'm predominately using the "Perfect Poultry", "Lean Meat Dishes", and "Veggie-Licious Sides". We are big meat eaters and our diet reflects that, with our high protein, high vegetables, and low carb menus. Once a week I cook a meatless dinner, just to try them out, and this cookbook has a whole section dedicated to just that! 

I always look for recipes that use similar ingredients, and the STCB makes this SUPER easy. Most ingredients are already staples in our home. 

I buy all my meat at Costco - staples include boneless skinless chicken breasts, ground turkey, a package of two whole chickens (that’s $10.00 for TWO chickens!!!), pork chops, and if the price is right, flank steak. I just got 3.15 lbs for $20 and that’s a great deal!

Sundays is my grocery shopping day. All of my produce comes from Trader Joe's. I have found this to be the best bang for my buck. I’m a convenience type of person -- as a mom, you already know that every minute counts, and if I can save 10 minutes and watery, burning eyes from chopping an onion, it's worth the price to me, which not to mention is not much more than a single onion at a chain store. I love that I can get almost everything prepared for me.-- chopped onions, shredded carrots, or a fresh stir fry - just add EVOO and heat in a pan! All of this is prepared and priced to sell. Giant (or other chain stores) simply cannot compete! Grocery shopping takes exactly one hour, door to door. 

For the 6 day meal plan I created for this week, I already had all the meat, so today I bought everything else. Fruit, veggies, grains, etc. I spent $82.45 – this same grocery list costs me about $160 or more at Giant…hence why we only go there if TJ’s is closed or they don’t have exactly what I need. The one thing I won’t buy at TJ’s is milk. While cheaper, it tastes weird to me. Can’t pinpoint why, so we just buy the milk at Giant.

People have complained that while cheaper, you have to be careful at TJ’s because the produce expires more quickly. This is true – check the dates! Yet this still works for my family because we eat a lot and we eat it fast. By shopping once a week, I’m not giving the produce a chance to go bad. I am always so bitter when I have to pitch produce because I didn’t use it fast enough. This is also the reason I find recipes with similar ingredients because there’s nothing more annoying than a recipe that calls for “a pinch of fresh basil” and then you’re left with a whole container of it that will end up in the bottom of your crisper, shriveled and untouched.

Stayed tuned throughout the week as I publish each meal, with the grocery list, recipe, and instructions for cooking.