The Importance of Meal Prep: Budgets, Time and Nutrition

 By now it should be quite clear that I meal prep for two main reasons; to keep to budget and to hit certain nutrition through the week.
Meal prep also means for Mr ATL and I (mainly me), that we only have to spend one day cooking meals for the week and we can do them in bulk.

In the pictures are all the meals that we have made so far and the surplus of veggies that we have from this week's shop.

Prep and cooking day is usually a Saturday as that's my main chore day. One batch will go in the oven and the other will usually go in the slow cooker. As a general rule this means we will have 2/3 different options for lunch or dinner, which granted won't work for some people

Why Meal Prep for Budgeting?
In my main weekend post I highlighted how much I spent on our weekly shop and how much our lunches worked out to per portion. In the end for the casserole it worked out to £0.30 (without rice) per portion (with rice as we bought in bulk it averages about £0.33 per portion).

Now working this out if you bought your lunches on a supermarket meal deal:
£3 x 5 = £15 per week
£15 x 4 = £60 per month
£60 x 12 = £720 per year

So that would mean for Mr ATL and I, if we bought our lunches for a year that would cost us at least £1040 - I say at least because it really depends where you buy your lunches. For us that would be a good chunk of a holiday, just saved through not buying our lunch.

Nutrition
This one is really a no brainer. I control what we eat. Ratio of carbs/fats/proteins can all be worked out easily and stuck to - something that will fluctuate if you are buying your meals. There's also salt etc that need to be taken into account - I can vary ours as we need or we can add as individuals, if it's pre bought we really have no control over it.

This week's lunch and dinner meals include:
Left over risotto from Saturday night with chicken - for Mr ATL post gym (x2)
Sausage casserole with rice
Roast chicken with garlic and herbs and veggies
BBQ chicken with veggies

I batch boil our weekly eggs - so I will prepare 3 days worth at a time and I make Mr ATL's little snack of celery and peanut butter the evening before.

Our fruits this week from our £1 bag buys at our Asian supermarket included 4 mangoes (yes 4 for £1!), limes, bananas and flat peaches.

Breakfast is easy enough in the ATL household. I have 2 boiled eggs (and maybe some fruit/a piece of toast - if bread was cheap enough) and that's me done. Mr ATL needs a bit more with the gym so his works to:

1/2 cup oats
200ml milk in oats
250ml milk to drink
On training days 1 scoop protein in oats

In summary, it really isn't that hard a job to meal prep. I'm no expert but I manage to keep someone who is training and myself who is dieting fed without starving ourselves on a budget.

Cutting on a budget: Week 2 Meal Prep

Having gone through mine and Mr ATL's bank accounts - I was horrified that we have spent so much in Sainsbury's over June and July (I couldn't cope going back further). Horrified. Needless to say cutting on a budget needed to happen, I'm just glad we planned it before going to look through the finances so the motivation was there before the need.

This week's shop is going to be a little bit different as we picked up some reduced sausages in the week and they are in the process of slow cooking so lunch meals. Just a reminder we already had some staples in the cupboard such as rice and oats so we don't have to factor those in for the next three months.

Leftovers from last week to be used:
1 courgette from Sainsbury's, 1 donated courgette, 1kg carrots, 1/2 bag mushrooms.

Our list is as follows for this week:

Sainsbury's
Basics Chicken Portions - 2.5kg £4
Basics Courgettes - 1kg £1.75
Sweet Potatoes - 1.25kg £1.50
Celery - £0.60

Asian Supermarket
Canned tomatoes x4 (on offer all the time) £1
Mushrooms - £1
4 x fruit/veggies bags - £4
Milk 6 pints - £1.79
Eggs x30 - £2.69

Week Total (without any reduced goods): £18.33
NB - We spent £22.50 this week in total, bring us £2.50 under our weekly allowance of £25

Lunches for the week: Slow Cooker Sausage Casserole


(Image Step 1: Cook veggies on high for 1hr)

Ingredients:
32 Sausages (55p x4 packs of 8) = £2.20
Onion - FREE
Courgette - FREE - with still over 3/4 of it left!
Carrots - 200g from a 1.5kg bag = approx. £0.05 (6% weight ish of a 75p bag)
Canned tomatoes x2 = £0.50 (from last week's shop)
Black beans - From cupboard store - was £0.25 when on offer a few months back
Price total = £3.00

It really depends how many sausages you want per lunch and if you wanted to bulk out with some rice but the breakdown is as follows:
At 4 sausages a lunch = £0.37 per meal (8 meals)
At 3 sausages a lunch (with 2 sausages spare) = £0.30 per meal (10 meals)
At 2 sausages a lunch = £0.19 (16 meals - you may want to add rice!)
At 1 sausage a lunch = £0.09 (32 meals - you may definitely want to add rice or pasta!)

We'll be working on the 3 sausages approach so we'll be eating at £0.30 per lunch.

I'm in a mood for limited faff today with the cooking and meal prep so all that's going to happen with this is:
1. Chop veggies
2. Open cans
3. Cook veggies on high for 1 hour
4. Add sausages (if you prefer brown them off first)
5. Cook for further 3hrs
5. Box up and pop in fridge or freezer

Evening meals
The plan for these is to either have zoodles or coodles with the chicken and some of the vegetables from the week. Tonight I am making risotto so will post that a bit later - and work out if we can make enough to freeze for in the week.