Preparing for long days
This is the hardest lesson I had to learn when planning my shopping trips and staying prepared. When going to the grocery store I would tell myself to only buy ingredients and no premade items. I would tell myself that it's cheaper to make a pizza than it is to buy frozen. Or to make homemade pasta sauce instead of buying a jar of premade.
Well this is a lie!
Let me explain. When I wouldn’t plan for those days that everything went wrong and left no time for cooking supper it would cost us over $50. Because no meat would be thawed out, we would both be exhausted and ordering pizza was the only choice we had left. To feed a family of 6 that adds up very fast!
No matter how well you plan ahead or meal plan there is always going to be one of those days…or several of those days in a month.
Once I learned to plan for those days we were able to eliminate ordering out unless we just wanted to order out.
How do you plan for those days?
First find a quick meal that you all enjoy eating that takes about 20-30 minutes. About the same amount of time it takes to go get food anyways.
This can be frozen pizza, or keeping cooked ground beef or sausage in the freezer to add to a box of mac and cheese or spaghetti. Maybe you like frozen burritos or one of those frozen skillet meals.
Whatever you can cook without much thought and energy on those long days that you just can’t control, make sure you keep plenty on hand!
Don’t just plan for one of those days. Plan for a few. I plan for about 3 a month. To do this I just try to keep 12 frozen pizzas in our freezer. Some months we don’t eat any, some we eat 2 meals worth and sometimes we just need a quick lunch and use these for that.
Is it healthy? No. Do we love it? Not really. Does it feed us and keep the kids happy? YES!!!
These days happen and they will always happen. And that's okay! Just embrace the chaos and throw a pizza in the oven because you’ve already planned it in.
This step is an important part of planning and budgeting for your meals. It often gets overlooked because scheduling in crazy days is just hard to do. And they are unpredictable. But the fastest way to break your food budget is an unplanned fast food order.
If you get in a pinch and run out of your meals remember that a pound of ground beef or pork or sausage can be thawed out fairly quickly in a bowl of warm water. If you get it mostly thawed out and need to cook it quickly just put in a skillet with a little water and put the lid on. The steam will cook all sides of the log of meat and cook it faster, plus the water will cook out soon too.
With a family and a farm these crazy unplanned days happen a lot and I know they happen to you too. By planning for these days ahead of time it just makes the end of the day a little easier to handle.
Share with us your super quick meals that help you get through those crazy days.