Meal prep. It’s all over the internet. Before, it was just known as ‘packing your lunch’. It’s gotten intense out there–there’s diagrams, everyone has the best routine, and creating weekly menus are no big deal. It’s a lot. The first step is figuring out what you actually want to eat and I’m assuming you want to eat healthy because no one ever really prepped for a pizza or a Whopper. Those things just sorta happen.
My active prepping (not just packing my lunch for the next 3 days) began last year. I’m still not a pro. Before that I would pack most of my lunches and snacks for work in an effort to save money. I thought I was doing pretty well too. This intense meal prepping I do now makes that look like basic bitch work. I sit here and laugh at my old self. I knew nothing.
Some weeks I have 4 breakfasts, snacks and lunches prepped Sunday night. Other weeks, it’s Tuesday and I’m like “Cutting vegetables for snack?? Ugggghhhh….”. Again, it goes all back to ORGANIZATION. Some people have it and some people don’t but most can learn. Containers have been a big help and I really love the Sistema brand (you can find at Macy’s and Bed Bath and Beyond). There’s an oatmeal container that I take with me
every morning and can pack for the week on Sunday so they’re all lined up and ready to go. I just add blueberries before I leave in the morning.
I usually start planning on Saturday what I want to make for the week so I can cook as much as possible on Sunday if I’m actually home. It’s good to have all the ingredients ready to go so all you have to do is cook on Sunday and it’s only a couple hours of your life. I must say, it is a lot easier to just take out a container and heat it up when I need dinner on Monday or Tuesday. That also means I have time after work to workout or write instead of going home to cook for 2 hours.
Grocery shopping is usually done on Saturday and sometimes I do little things like roast vegetables, brown ground turkey and/or make a pot of rice. Then, when I have to start prepping on Sunday I’m not so overwhelmed with everything I have to do and it’s easier to just throw things together in a container and label. My labeling system right now is a Sharpie and a piece of masking tape but I would love Sistema to create containers with erasable labels on them (HELLO, ARE YOU LISTENING?!) I found if they’re labeled I can tell what meals are missing that I have to make and also know right away what I’m going to eat and when.
We should all be able to cook ahead of time because it’s pretty appalling how many companies are out there that will meal prep for you and the amount of people who pay them to put food in containers! But I applaud those people because they found a niche and then went for it before the market was saturated–that’s what business is all about–getting ahead of that curve and profiting from it. You think I still have time to get in on it? I wouldn’t mind staying home all day and cooking and then delivering meals to people.
So if meals are $8-12/meal and snacks go for $8 then that means for your 5 day work week (5 breakfasts, 5 lunches, 5 dinners, 10 snacks) you pay about $230-260 a week. That’s $1,000 a month for food!!!! I just died. That’s the same price as eating every meal out. My monthly grocery budget is about $225—delivery ends up being 5 months of food!! Wow. I watch people at work constantly ordering food which is 1. extremely expensive and, 2. extremely unhealthy. It’s insane how much people spend on food and how easy it is to cut that cost with a little prep and a little organization. Breaking up the week to start is an easy way to do it: prep on Sunday and do meals for Sunday-Tues then start adding on days. Once you get an idea of how best to do things and if you have enough container to store everything (you never have enough containers) then it gets easier.
My interest in meal prepping also began because we were trying to make a conscious effort to not eat out in order to save more money to put towards the wedding fund. Our average is about $225 per month for 2 people depending on the month and we still eat out averaging about $200 per month as well. And I always feel guilty when we do it, but damn, that wedding money Big Mac was worth it sometimes. Speaking of Big Mac I can’t remember when I last had one. Sometimes you gotta treat yourself. Maybe this week..
Off to do some prepping for the week. Wish me luck!
Life With Purpose (And Other Things) 