Ballin on a Budget: Meal Prep

Make the Most of Your Time & Money

Whether you’re making minimum wage, or living a lavish lifestyle, these weekly guides will serve as a way to help you reach your goals, make the most out of your time, money, and resources, or just provide you some tips and tricks to live a happy and healthy life. This post’s Budgeting topic: Meal Prep and Planning.

After moving to a new city and starting a new job I found myself wanting to re-prioritize how I spent my time and money.

When you spend 8 hours every day working, it’s easy to want to simply get into your car and hit the drive-thru on the way home. Or swing past the grocery store and grab a pre-made meal rather than spending another 30-60 minutes making something after you get home. We have all been there.

The Trends

A huge trend has emerged recently. If you scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed I’m sure you’ll come across a few posts talking about meal prep.

Meal prepping can be incredibly useful for those looking to maintain a specific diet (or those looking to get ready for the summer). Outside of feeling the many health benefits of meal prepping, your wallet will start to feel the benefits too.

That is why this Budgeting focuses on meal prep and planning. While it may seem like could be a quick trend, there’s a lot that we can learn and apply to our routines.

Save $250 a month

One of the best things that I’ve been able to accomplish thanks to meal prep is reducing my monthly food/grocery budget by about $250.

By simply preparing my work lunches I’ve been able to reduce my daily weekday lunch spending from $10-12 to about $4-5. This changes my monthly work lunch spending from $240 to $100. Not only does this reduce my spending by over half, but it also means that I only spend about $150 for breakfast, dinner, and weekend meals.

If you’re New Here, You can sit with us.

For those new to meal prepping, the easiest way to start is to figure out what form of planning works best for you.

There are plenty of meal prep apps available, I know a lot of people use Pinterest. These apps can help you find new and exciting recipes to keep your meals exciting. For me, I don’t mind eating the same small selection of meals every week (or so). However, some people definitely enjoy having more variety and it can make long term prepping more feasible.

To fit prepping into my schedule, I’ve set aside Sunday afternoons as my grocery shopping and meal prepping day. I’ve found that setting aside a day and time to prepare for the week helps me stick to my routine. I don’t have an excuse for not having the time or being too busy if it is the only thing I have to accomplish that day.

It’s important to remember that any new habit will only be successful if you actually want and enjoy it.

There are certainly days that I don’t feel like prepping. I allow myself one day within the week to go out for lunch. If my coworkers want to go out or if I feel like getting something from the office cafeteria, then I can.

I don’t feel bad about going out and spending a little bit more, because I know that I’ve planned for it, and it gives my week a little more variety.

Tell us how it goes!

Meal planning has a lot of benefits, only one of which is its effect on your budget. If you have some amazing meal prep tips and want to share some of the things you’ve learned along your journey, don’t be afraid to share them in the comments.

We love hearing what works best for you, and you never know when you might find something interesting to include in your next meal. Check back for more Budget topics every week on Ballin on a Budget and let us know if there is something you’d like us to cover.