How Meal Prepping Can Help Your Weekly Food Budget

It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Thursday. You just got home, you open the fridge and you find … nothing. So, you call for take-out for the entire family, again.

Does this sound at all familiar to you?

We’re lucky to live in a world full of conveniences, including breezy ordering systems, fast food drive-thrus and quick meal delivery. Unfortunately, these meals can get pricy and, perhaps worse, unhealthy if they happen routinely. That’s why many families have turned to meal planning in order to have a home-cooked meal on the table every single night. Read on to find out why – and a few ways to do it.

Meal Prepping Saves You Money

Not only are home-cooked meals widely regarded as the most delicious kinds of meals, but they’re also more cost-effective if you plan them in advance. Imagine that you eat out for every single meal; breakfast might cost $5, lunch $10 and dinner $15. This means you’d spend $30 per day, $210 per week on food for one person. Unless you go wild at the grocery store – which you won’t – you won’t even come close to matching this while shopping for yourself.

Meal prepping also saves you money because you waste less. With a full set of meals in mind, you buy only what you need to prepare them. Many consumers find themselves throwing away perishables, especially fresh produce. These items can be costly, especially if they’re organic selections. You won’t lose a penny of your investment if you cook and eat it all by week’s end.

Meal Prepping Saves You Time

Your weekly food budget doesn’t just include the money you spend; it also includes your time. This is especially true if you cook without planning ahead. You’re probably running to the grocery store multiple times throughout the week, grabbing the ingredients you need. Then, you head home to prepare everything. In short, you’re wasting a lot of time.

Meal prepping requires you to set aside a day – for most preppers, it’s usually Sunday – and plan your week. First, write up your weekly menu. This can be something as simple as dinners only, or a more detailed plan with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

Some people might fear that meal prepping might take the excitement out of cooking, but this simply isn’t the case. If you thrive on inventive meals, though, perhaps you can leave side dishes open to your whims and whip them up as you please. Either way, you’ll have a general idea of what you’re cooking, which is the most important part.

After shopping on a Sunday, most meal preppers take time to think about how to make each night’s meal go by faster. For example, if you’re planning to eat a soup or stew one night, you could prepare that ahead of time on Sunday and refrigerate or freeze it for the rest of the week. If you want to sauté or steam vegetables another night, you could chop them all on Sunday and have them at the ready. With everything prepared in advance, you’re less likely to stray from your plans.

Throughout the week, meal preppers cut time in other ways, too. Perhaps the best way to do so is to master the art of a one-pot meal. You’ll have all of your ingredients ready, thanks to a weekend prep session. You can then throw them all into a single pot and cook them, leaving you only one piece of cookware to clean when you’re done. How’s that for saving time? You can also learn a few crockpot recipes that’ll cook while you’re working, only to be bubbling and ready when you walk in the door.

So, kick off your shoes, grab a plate and dig in: It’s time to eat. If you are really time limited, you can even explore methods to order your food online with companies like Vitacost to really kick things into high gear.