5 meal prep tips to save time and money

The whole concept of meal prepping is to eat healthier, save you time, and save you money. You will save time by not having to think about what you’re going to eat day to day. You won’t have to spend an extra 10 minutes in the morning before work to pack a lunch or even make food the night before. You will save money because you won’t be as likely to door dash your food, or to pull up to the drive through at Mcdonald’s when you know exactly what you’re going to have for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

If your just getting started with meal prepping here are 5 tips to help you out with the process.

There are so many ways to meal prep

There’s no single cut and dry way to meal prep. What works for me may not work for you, but I can tell you some of ways I have found that make meal prepping easier for me. Let’s start with a few different methods, what method you choose will depend on the time you have to prepare food, the storage space you have in your fridge or freezer, or how often you’re willing to eat the same foods in a week.
The first way to meal prep is to prepare all of your food for the week, and putting each meal that you will have into individual containers. Some people do this all in one day, some people split it up into a few times a week depending on their schedules. It will be up to you to decide how much time you can allocate to making food.

If you’re just starting out there are plenty of inexpensive options for meal prep containers, I’ve gotten a few packages at Walmart for less than 5$ each.

I have a whole post about meal prep containers here!

This method is great if you need to be making a lot of food. It’s great if you need to be making breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Its the most convenient for grab and go if you typically have very little time to plan anything through the week.

Pros

• Best if you need to make a lot of food
• Best if you want to make meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinners
• Ideal for Grab and Go

Cons

• can take up a lot of time
• You need to have space in your fridge or freezer for many individual meals

Another great method to meal prepping is to make a lot of a few foods but not to separate it out into individual containers and packages. This is perfect if you have a little extra time in the morning to separate what you need for just that day. This saves a ton of space in your fridge, but still allows you to take advantage of the other benefits of meal prepping like saving money and time.
This method could be ideal for someone who works from home and doesn’t need to take a container out to work or school.

Pros

• Saves space in your fridge
• Still allows you to make a lot of food at once

Cons

• You may need to separate your meals every day
• can take up a lot of time.

Another way you could switch up how you meal plan would be to have certain days where you eat certain things, or even eating the same thing every day for certain meals.
For example, eating yogurt for breakfast every day. Or eating salads every day for lunch. Having redundant meals can simplify your planning if you aren’t someone who gets bored of their food very quickly.
Personally, I like to do a mixture of these methods and you should also experiment with what works for you and your schedule. Don’t give up if it seems like too much work at first, that just means you need to readjust what you’re doing.

Decide what you need to meal prep and what you don’t

Everyone has a different schedule that changes; sometimes frequently. You will have to take a deep look at your schedule and imagine what you need to meal prep and what you don’t.
You can answer a few questions for yourself.
Are you home for any meals? What are those meals?
How much time do I have to get ready in the morning?
How much time can I give to preparing food during the week?

By looking at your schedule you can get a good idea of what meals you will need to make and when. Maybe you can meal prep smaller quantities twice a week, or maybe you eat breakfast at home and don’t need to plan these things as heavily.
Chances are if you are reading this blog you want to save yourself the most time and money. It is just as important to realize what you don’t need to meal prep so that you don’t end up making more unnecessary work for yourself.
Although you may need to change the way you meal prep multiple times to figure out what works for you, it’s a good starting point to just be realistic with yourself.

Try to think of 2-3 different meals per week

So, this tip is mostly for those of you who are prepping for work or school. You may be able to eat the same thing for lunch every day for a week but after a while you will get bored. Some people can eat the same things always for months and months and if that sounds like you, that’s amazing. But for most of us including me the boredom of food strikes far quicker. I like having different interesting meals each week that I actually want to eat. Even if it’s dinners leftovers.
If you’re stuck on some easy things to make without having to spend so much added time cooking. Even just to switch it up once a week here’s some easy options of what I go for.

Think different kinds of sandwiches. Bagel turkey sandwich, grilled cheese.
Wraps. Salad or chicken salad wraps.
A simple Cesar salad.

Plan for Ease

Going back to my third tip which was to think of 2-3 different meals per week. Planning will make things go smoother than ever. Which would be easier? Making Chicken tortilla soup, beef tacos, and Italian sausage for your week of meals. Or Beef tacos, Shepphard’s pie, and hamburger sliders.
The second option is easier because it’s the same meat.

Make this tip cost effective by choosing your meat for the week that’s on sale/ from your freezer.

Being able to plan to cut off cook time is something that can really make meal planning more realistic for your busy week. It does take a little extra planning before you start prepping.

Make your meals mix and matchable!

Another way to cut on time dramatically would be to have mix and match meals. Lemon chicken and rice? Balsamic chicken and rice? Your only making 1 side but getting a variety of different flavors in your meals. This is important for time management and not getting bored of your select meals. It adds cohesion to your cook time and menu so that you don’t have to have 10 pots cooking at the same time on the same day to make meals for yourself.

Stick to your plan!

The only way that meal prepping is going to be cost effective, and time effective and actually work for you is if your consistent and show up for yourself.
If you buy all the meal prep containers and then don’t actually cook, it isn’t going to be worth it for you. If you make the food but then still eat out without figuring out how to make the cooking more appealing to you, then it’s not worth it.
Meal prepping takes some effort to put in to see the results that you want. You don’t figure it all out at once. I can’t say I have it all figured out either and still experiment as my schedule changes. But the effort for trying to better yourself and putting time into yourself is always worth it.