After our mortgage and day care, food is the number one biggest expense in the OBH budget. And eating out is the biggest budget buster of all. Take out can run $30-50 and a sit down meal at a restaurant can easily be double that. We rely on meal prep to help us stay on track with our financial goals. It also helps with our fitness goals too, which we will be hitting hard along with everyone else come 2018. I’m going to be sharing our family’s actual weekly meal plan for the week, complete with recipes. Check out our grocery haul video for more info on what we bought at the grocery store this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5VHOU7Yx4

I generally cook one day a week and either refrigerate the meals or freeze them in individual portions. This saves me time during the evenings after work because I don’t have to spend time cooking. It also saves us money because Joseph and I aren’t tempted to purchase lunches when we are at work.

We buy most of our groceries from Costco, so when I meal prep I choose recipes that allow me to use up our bulk staple ingredients. For example, this week I bought two roasting chickens so this week’s recipes call for two roasting chickens. We also prioritize having a diet filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and healthier meats. This means you won’t find a lot of processed or convenience foods in our meal plans. We also tend to purchase a good amount of organic food which shows in our higher grocery bills.

In a typical week, I will make three recipes that serve as our lunches and dinners. We also will make homemade pizzas once a week. I make a weekday breakfast in advance. On the weekends we usually have breakfast as a family which consists of eggs, a breakfast meat, and a carb (bread, pancakes, muffins) that we usually make from scratch.

Here is this week’s meal plan.

You can download the meal plan here: December 2017-2 Meal Plan

Here are this week’s recipes:

Slow Cooker Banana Bread Steel Cut Oatmeal

One Pot Black Beans and Rice

Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Arugula & Apple Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Roasted Chicken with Rosemary Garlic Sweet Potato Fries and Roasted Zucchini and Mushrooms (coming soon).