changes

Upcoming Changes to Weekly Meal Plan Posts…

Abby H.

0a5e9dab796cea8a07eabe4eb4795b9e.jpgI’ve been posting weekly meal plans here and on IG for over 7 years. I was reminded by an IG memory today of our weekly meal plan 7 years ago this morning.

I kinda stopped about Thanksgiving. I’ve been busy with my day job, juggling the children’s various weekly appointments, and life besides being a parent (spoiler: it’s hard y’all).

Here are a few changes I’ve made to save time, and money, and keep food waste down.

I have changed our Yasukochi Family Farms CSA box subscription to twice a month. I prep all of the produce the afternoon we receive it. That looks like:

  • Make a fruit salad
  • Make Salsa
  • Roast two sheet trays of veggies
  • Chop and prep any Cruciferous vegetables (specifically broccoli and cauliflower) for stir fry or soups.
  • Make up 2-3 bags of mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) for soups.
  • Make a veggie-based soup, this one is a current favorite.

Next up: I spend a few hours on Sunday  (or Monday in the case of three-day weekends), doing the actual prep. Planning meals, pulling recipes, making lunches for myself for the week, and making a few main dishes, or at least putting them together.

This week I prepped Pot Sticker bowls. a bag of frozen pot stickers, a bag of peas and carrots, rice, water, and teriyaki sauce. I had little takeout packets of teriyaki left, but if I needed to, I would use the tiny condiment containers I have (like these) to store the teriyaki sauce.

I made rice, fried the potstickers, and steamed the veggies. Portioned out four servings into reusable containers, and set on the counter to cool. Once they are room-ish temp, they get stashed in the fridge. DO NOT PUT HOT FOOD INTO THE FRIDGE.

I also cut up Cara Cara oranges, divided mini carrots into Ziploc bags, and pulled tiny hummus cups from the freezer. Yes, you can freeze hummus.

I also made sure that we have all of the veggies cut up for stir-fried orange chicken this week (chicken is already grilled and cut up in the freezer, all I have to do is defrost and heat it). I’ll cook some rice while the veggies are cooking, and dinner will be ready to go in less than 30 minutes.

I pulled a couple soups from the freezer this week too. When I make a batch of soup I freeze half of it for a future meal. This is an easy dinner that I can pull together with a fruit salad, a green salad, and garlic bread.

This week’s soups are: Split Pea and Chicken Noodle.

I pulled the half package of breakfast sausage I had in the freezer and we’ll be having breakfast for dinner one night: Sausage, fruit salad, hashbrowns, and waffles. The waffles I make using Kodiak Flapjack mix, milk, and an egg for a little added protein. I usually buy it at Costco, but Amazon has it too.

One night we’ll have a quick dinner: Beans and rice bowls, grilled cheese and fruit, salad, macaroni and cheese.

Friday is take-out night, and one night we do leftovers.

Because I have been prepping and planning for years and I have a pretty good inventory of our pantry and fridge, this process is fairly streamlined.

I do 99% of my shopping at Aldi these days, with a quick stop at Grocery Outlet if needed. I cook a lot more from scratch as of late to keep our grocery budget to a small fortune (about $150/week). That’s for three people, three meals a day, plus snacks.

Just like before, breakfast and lunch are pretty much the same:

Breakfast: I’ve been really into protein coffee lately. It helps me hit my protein goals and keeps me full until lunch. I use premade protein shakes like these. The kids request bagels and fruit most mornings. The big kid is on a smoothie kick; his favorites are here. 

Lunch: I have a plastic tote full of self-serve snacks. I buy treats and snacks in bulk and fill up snack-sized zip-top bags. I have a post here about our lunches. While lunches are free in California schools, my kids prefer to bring their lunches from home.

So, overall, not much has changed here for me, just streamlining systems, and I feel like unless I make something really yummy and cool, I may not come back to posting weekly meal plans for a while.

How I’m Saving Time and Money in 2023 and Beyond!

Abby H.

I’m posting a lot less these days because I now have a full-time job outside the house, and y’all- I’m freaking exhausted at the end of the day. weekends are spent doing family stuff (mostly playing with legos and drawing), and doing kid activities like martial arts and girl scouts.

I wanted to share with you some ways you can save money, score freebies, and even earn some money each month without running all over town, spending hours of time doing little penny surveys, or scanning your entire grocery order to earn points for junk (looking at you Neilson panel).

This is how I’ve been doing it for years, and now that I have even less time, I’m leaning on these more.

Automate

  •  Use the calendar in your phone to remind you of appointments, neighborhood free food distributions, sales, and even coupon events: I seriously put the Bath and Body Works coupon dates in my calendar so I remembered to use them.
  • I bought a subscription to  Yasukochi Family Farms CSA boxes. This way my fresh fruit and veggies are delivered to my door each week.
  • Set up auto-shipments for most needed household items. Vitamins/supplements, specialized food, and even pet food. There are all sorts of companies that offer this service including Amazon, Chewy, and Vitacost are just a few.
  • I order from Dream Dinners once or twice a quarter. Now that they have lower minimum orders, I can grab a few favorites and try a new meal with greater ease. I order online, and pickup is so easy- I drive up and they deliver to my car!

Organize

  • I reorganized the kitchen over Winter Break. I have printables available for free. If you are interested, please drop me an email and I can send them to you. They print in color or black and white.
  • I meal plan weekly. I may not have time to post them on the blog each week, but I’ll still have pics up on Instagram each week- it helps keep me accountable. I spend about an hour on Monday evenings meal prepping fruit and veggies that come in our weekly CSA box.
  • For more organization tips that work in our home, check out my post about managing a household with neurodivergencies here.

Disconnect

  • This one is hard, but I am trying to consume only meaningful media. Don’t be afraid to disconnect from Social Media Platforms, people, or advertising that does not serve you or your life. Unfollow people and brands, delete or pause apps as you see fit. Engage with media in a manner that serves you and fulfills you. Do what feeds your soul and makes you a better person.
  • Unsubscribe from emails that don’t serve you. It will make your inbox smaller and you won’t miss information and freebies that you actually want. In my case, it’s freebies from Social Nature, PinchMe, and research study invitations.
  • In the same vein, I am trying to consume less physical media, specifically, mail and advertisements. If I don’t see sales, I won’t be tempted to shop. Junk mail and sale fliers go directly into the recycling can next to our group mailbox.

Saving Money

This is the big one, the reason you wanted to read this post. All of the above will help you save money, but here are a few specific ways that I use to save money on top of all of the above.

  • Use the notes section on my phone to keep a running list of our stockpiles: Toiletries, laundry soap, canned goods, and paper products.
  • Use the notes section of my phone to keep a running grocery list for the week. As we run low on items, I add them to my list. Right now I shop at three stores: Food4less, Grocery Outlet, and Dollar Tree (for specific items that are cheaper there). Unless I have coupons or freebie offers for other stores-usually from Social Nature, I stick to those three. At this point with inflation, we eat meat once or twice a week.
  • Use money saving/rebate apps. My list is here, and it’s pretty up-to-date. Fetch, Ibotta, and Shopkick are my go-to apps, and they yield me the biggest payouts.