Budget Friendly Meal Planning Tips

Do you feel as if you have been spending way too much money on food lately? If so, you should consider meal prepping. By cooking your meals ahead of time, you can save money. Not to mention, you can also eat healthier. That way, your waistline starts to shrink instead of your wallet.

1. Benefits Of Meal Prepping  

What would make someone decide to start meal prepping? If you have not considered it before, it may seem as if it were a waste of time. However, nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, the benefits of meal prepping can be enormous.

Save Money:
Do you know how much you spent on your groceries last month? Did you also spend money to go out to restaurants? If so, you need to include that in the calculations as well. Typically, you can cut your food budget in half by simply preparing your meals ahead of time.

Eat Healthier:
Most of the time, the food at restaurants is quite delicious. Nevertheless, that does not say anything about whether it is healthy. In fact, most restaurant food is much less healthy than home-cooked meals. Therefore, preparing meals yourself is often the best choice you can make.


More Free Time:
How much time do you spend cooking every night? If you already have a full-time job, it might seem like all of your free time is used to feed yourself. By preparing food early, you can rest after work. That way, you do not feel like your whole life is stressful.

2. Meal Planning Tricks And Tips  

Now, you should have a better understanding of why someone would want to do this. Next, we need to discuss how you can do it. Otherwise, you have a whole bunch of information at your disposal without anything actionable.

Instant Pots:
Did you know that instant pots are some of the most efficient appliances in the kitchen? By using them, you can save money and time. Because they cook things so fast, they use much less electricity. Thus, you can expect to see a corresponding decrease in your PECO electric bill when you use one. There are other appliances that use less electricity as well. We recommend using as many of them as possible. Thus, your kitchen will be as efficient as it can be.


Tupperware:
After you finish cooking, you can begin to store your food using Tupperware. That way, it does not spoil before you have the chance to try it. Thus, you can store a greater amount of food at once. Then, you can heat it up once you are ready to eat. As long as the food is properly stored, it should last for a decent amount of time. However, we would recommend storing food for less than a week at a time. Any longer than this will increase the likelihood of spoilage.


Batch Cooking:
Of course, even if you prepare ahead of time, you still have to cook. Plenty of people do not enjoy cooking. It does take a lot of time to prepare decent food. For that reason, we suggest batch cooking. Gather all the food you plan on eating over the next week. Then, set aside one day to cook everything. By the end of the day, you should have a full week’s worth of food in the fridge. That way, when you get hungry, all you have to do is heat something up.

Meal Prepping on a Budget for Beginners  
Starting a new hobby takes time. At first, you will have no experience. Over time, you will learn the ropes. Ultimately, the best thing you can do is get started. The sooner you do, the sooner you will master the skill.