Simple outsourcing and batching strategies to make meal-time a simple, healthy habit.
Love the idea of those delivery meal kits but hate the price? Do you need a few more hours in your week or just can’t do another long grocery store trip with the kids?
Whatever the reason, we have a three-step plan to make sure dinner time happens every night, with minimal work. You in?
Step 1: Create a menu on Mealime
Mealime is a simple, free meal-planning app that automatically adds the ingredients to a shopping list. You can easily check off what you already have, and go on with the rest. There are convenient filters for just about every diet, so you can easily follow yours with plenty of choices.
Cost: Free, unless you upgrade to pro. But there really isn’t a reason to. Cheers!
Pro-tip: “Outsource” the task to family members to ensure everyone likes what’s on the menu. Meals are balanced, so it would be hard for someone to pick something you don’t approve. Picky eaters can even remove ingredients that ruin recipes (goat cheese and ginger here) by changing the preferences.
Step 2: Order Groceries online
Mealime has integrations to Walmart Grocery & Instacart. I personally prefer H-E-B, so Instacart it is for me. If you want to save some money, order directly on the H-E-B app, since Instacart makes you input your own quantities anyway. Order and have delivered or schedule a pickup. Hours saved.
Cost: Walmart has free grocery pick up all day every day, making it the most economical, but requires a $30 minimum. Use code FRESHCAR to get one free delivery from Walmart. After that, it will be $4.95 and up for local delivery. Not bad at all. H-E-B has rolled out free next-day delivery if you can plan ahead enough. Otherwise, it’ll be $4.95. Delivered. Groceries. Free. Are you on board yet?
Pro tip: Order new ingredients you’re unfamiliar with online first. You won’t spend endless amounts of time trying to find that ingredient for your new diet, and when you do need to get it yourself, you’ll at least know what it looks like.
Step 3: Prep groceries right away
Or schedule it at the very least. You make it easy on yourself to cook during the week by having your ingredients prepped and ready to go. You really have to prepare yourself for success in every way. Save 10-20 minutes of peeling, cutting, grating every day, plus the dishes that accompany that, by doing it all in one day.
I feel like such a TV chef when I have all my ingredients laid out on the table, ready to be cooked. I am totally willing to batch a couple of hours of work each week to get to enjoy cooking every day.
Pro tip: Older kids can help here too. Prepare easy to eat snacks for the week ahead and make healthy options front and center. The easier it is to grab-and-go, the more likely they will choose that option. They can fill containers with baby carrots for the school week ahead or break off cheese sticks to have them be lunch-box ready.
This may seem like an odd topic to discuss here, but we also know that you value (and are responsible for) an organized, happy, healthy home so we make sure to incorporate that into our conversations.
Congratulations on flexing your muscles in these critical entrepreneurial skills: batching (meal-prep), delegating (letting the family pick the recipes) and outsourcing (paying someone to pick your groceries) are all small ways to work these big muscles that will make you successful whether you’re an entrepreneur, working mom, or a stay-at-home-mom.
Until next time, friends!
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