on the go Archives

By: Marla Bautista Ever wanted to find easy ways to survive busy days and maintain healthy eating habits for your family? In this article, I will give you a few tips that I use to feed my family on the go, stretch my family’s grocery budget, all while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I have a typical family size, five people; myself, my husband, two sons and a daughter. We are grazers. We like to eat small portions of food throughout the day. Which mostly keeps us satisfied. I do cook dinner every evening. On a normal week, our family’s activities include five days of therapy for my son who has Autism and gymnastics for my daughter. My normal is probably most peoples, busy.

I use Sundays to meal prep for the entire week. I juice fruits and veggies for my husband, make breakfast sandwiches, and snack items for the children. I have not started to meal prep dinners because… I have no clue why. For lunch during the weekdays my husband takes a juice that I prepare in our swanky Breville Juicer. I love this juicer because it is easy to use, easy to clean, and it is durable. I purchased it on Amazon along with glass bottles to store the juice. I use a simple recipe that includes kale, spinach, apples, lemon, cucumbers, ginger and celery. I prepare enough for the week, freeze them and take them out daily for his lunch. The items cost about $20, which is less than eating out daily.

For breakfast meal prep, I make a variety of foods. Today I’m going to talk about breakfast sandwiches. I usually make breakfast sandwiches with English muffins, every now and then I use bagels, but I feel like they are often too heavy to eat every day. I use a recipe called Morning Muffin Makers from Allrecipes, it is easy and cost effective. You can swap out the items as you please, this recipe is fail proof. Check out the link below!
I love prepping snacks, it’s my favorite, and the options are endless! My children will pretty much eat any snack food you put in front of them! The meal prep containers I use are small and colorful. I purchased them on Amazon. If you haven’t noticed by now, I kind of an Amazon Prime mom! When I prep the kids’ snacks for the week, I rotate between cold and room temperature snacks. Our refrigerator space is limited, I try to do all cold snack items one week and all room temperature items the next. Cold items are usually a yogurt or cheese, some pepperoni or salami and a fruit or veggie. Room temperature snacks consist of crackers or Chex Mix, Raisins or Prunes, and beef jerky. These are a great after school snacks, it’s budget friendly and will suffice their appetites until dinner time.
Although, I currently do not prep my dinners for the week, I do try to plan what I will cook. Some days I will put a frozen London Broil in the crockpot with some veggies and make potatoes or rice as a side dish. I am sort of envious of all the Instant Pot hype I’ve been seeing. What do you think? Should I dive in, or will I have an Instant Pout?
A few tricks or alternatives when grocery shopping can often save some families hundreds of dollars per month. Using coupons, I believe, is the number one way to save during your shopping trips. You can get coupons from your local Sunday Newspaper, Coupons.com, and many stores have a loyalty card that can be used for increased savings. Make a meal plan prior to going shopping. If you have a visual note of exactly what you need, you’ll less likely buy junk food or other random unneeded items. Try to limit your shopping around the 1^st and the 15^th of every month. My husband gets paid around those dates and the price of food is usually a little higher at this time. I like to shop on the weeks outside of payday, unless we absolutely need something during that time.

There are endless meal planning and prepping options. Try a few and choose what works best for your family. Your meals can be whatever you want them to be. If they are nutritious and convenient for you and your family, that’s what matters. Conquer your family’s busy schedule and mealtimes without a fuss!

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