“I am so sick of coming home and having leftovers or pizza after working.” This was a recent quote I said to my husband after working a 14-hour day at the hospital. I was over it. He was wasting money by not cooking and I hate unhealthy dinners. He knew this, so we had to change our direction on meal planning. *Affiliate links in this post*
Meal Planning for the Freelance Mom + Nurse
Look at your Budget
We have a monthly budget for food. He wanted convenient meals because he gets home from work, right at dinner time. The kids are hungry, and so is he. I am starving at work from 4p-8p, hoping my lovely husband made dinner. See what your budget is and work with it. We like Sam’s Club for some meals, we are Aldi shoppers though!
What we use for our budget – Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover
Have a PLAN!
If you don’t do meal planning, then you run into what happens to my husband, panic mode. The kids are hungry and they want food NOW. We had become better. A couple of steps to the meal planning process: Plan the meals for grocery shopping (4 or so is not practical, and it is wasteful) – We use Pinterest for ideas, other blogs, and meals I have made in the past.
Follow me on Pinterest: WriteRN
Think about dinner the a.m. – If you have something to defrost (I am defrosting ground turkey for meatloaf tonight). Also, pull your ingredients from the pantry because if you have to cook when you get home, things will be readily available.
Stick to the Plan
As I said, we have a plan, and we need to make sure it WORKS! We are not very picky, but I am conscious of making sure our meals are healthy. Some ideas we came up with:
My Crockpot (YES IT HAS WIFI)
- Crockpot meals
- Freezer meals (make from scratch by me)
- Leftovers from the meals I had made on the days I was off
- Cheap and Quick (but healthy)
- Tastefully Simple (My sister is a seller and she has meal parties where I make meals and bring them home to the family)
- Convenient freezer meals (my least favorite — chicken nuggets, ravioli, etc)
Let me know what you do in your household. I would love more hacks! Being a writer and a nurse, I don’t have time to think about dinner every day of the week. I don’t like doing takeout if I don’t have to. Meal planning is really a life-saver! Apart from meal planning, I also do 4 convenient things that make my “freelance mom life” easier!
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