February Week 1: Meal Planning and Prep System

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 Hey everyone!

 

So I am hella late with posting this goal and blog post. Theo started his 4 month sleep regression HARD and it has now been 14 days since I have gotten more than 2.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I think one magical night I got a 3 hour chunk. But that’s it.

 

SO! Without further ado, February’s goal is:

 

Create and use a meal planning and prep system!






Truth be told, I have been looking into this a lot the last couple months, especially in preparation for going back to work full time when having two children and trying to eat healthy unprocessed foods.

 

I also was able to, for this week, take advantage of the fact that I have the MOST AMAZING MOTHER EVER and have all our meals be from the stash of freezer meals she made for us when she was here for 8 weeks when Theo was born.

 

Yes. You read both of those things correctly. And yes. I do in fact have the best and most bad ass mother around.

 

Needless to say, eating fresh cooked healthy meals is a crap ton of work. It takes time and effort. Trying to find things that use fresh ingredients that are fast, not labor intensive, and NOT super expensive is a challenge.  

 

This is what I want: a database of recipes that are healthy that I can choose meals from, that will automatically create a shopping list of everything needed, and list out all the prep for each meal and when to do that prep.

 

Now I have looked for companies that do this. And I have found SOME but I am having a hard time justifying the cost. Normally, I do NOT have an issue with paying someone to do these kinds of things for me.

 

For example, I have wanted to hire a cleaning service for YEARS. When I think about monetizing my time paired with the fact that I would rather spend that time taking care of myself emotionally or spending time with my family, that one seems like a no brainer. I don’t enjoy cleaning, and the financial cost doesn’t outweigh the time I would save to do things that fill my cup WHILE also having a nice clean house (which I find the older I get, the more I want.)

 

But cooking feels different. Planning and cooking doesn’t feel as emotionally labor intensive as cleaning. I dunno though, I haven’t really examined why it feels different yet. Perhaps I will do that over this month.

 

Anyways. What I am going to try to do this coming week is to actually find meals and plan out the prep. I am already very good at the shopping list. It’s shopping, I don’t care WHAT I am shopping for, it’s shopping and I love it. I just want to see how much time it all takes.

 

So there you have it. I will post my meal and prep plan this weekend, and let you know what's up. 


Have you found a system you like? Maybe a company that does something like this? If so, post in the comments! I'd love to check it out!

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 5, 2021 at 2:36 PM

    I agree this is such a hard thing to plan well AND keep costs down! We have a spreadsheet and shared folder with our favorite 20 or so recipes that we both can cook well so we can equally trade off cooking dinner every other night. Most of them are Instapot recipes like indian Dahl or Pollo Verde served over rice. Nearly all of the meals are made with staple ingredients so we don't have to fuss too much over shopping; once something is out we know to automatically add it to the shared shopping list (we use Google Keep). Each time we cook we make double the portion and freeze the extra. That way we only have to cook for one week, then we have 7 meals already made in the freezer for the next week giving us a whole week "off" from cooking dinner! We allow for take out 2-4 times a month and Costco frozen pizzas approximately every other Friday. We'll see how well this system holds up once baby #2 arrives soon but it works well for us + 1 toddler!

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