Meal Prepping: A Financial & Nutritional Cheat-code to Success
Updated: Sep 13, 2021
Meal Prepping is the act of setting aside time to prepare your meals in advance. Prepping our meals can help us to optimize time & energy efficiency because we are creating time-intensive things in large batches. Meal prepping also gives us access to incredible savings, not only through bulk purchases but reducing food waste!
Simply Put: How can meal prepping benefit your lifestyle?
It gives you more free time to spend doing things OTHER than cooking!
You’ll have things already portioned out, which will waste less food.
Buying in bulk; avoiding impulse buying can save you money.
Less stressful because we already have made the choice. (Avoiding the dreaded 2 o’clock, “What am I making for dinner?” )
Eat healthier - we tend to make better choices when we plan in advance!
Let’s look at our cost breakdown first:
Prepping meals for one week on average costs between $60-$100. This may seem a bit pricey for one-time purchases, but we are looking at the cost-save advantage overall.
This amount may also seem overwhelming if you are used to paying for meals at a minimum of $5.00 per visit.
Doing a quick division problem:
$75 / 21 meals = $3.81 per meal.
Compared to spending $5 a visit it may seem insignificant to the majority of the population.
Let’s say that you meal prep for an entire year and spent $3,900 on food 3 times a day instead of spending $5,040 on a few meals a week, per year.
This quick math of $5,040 - $3,900 equals $1,140 saved per year on food! You could take those savings and invest in quality kitchen products that will outlast its competition.
Time to consider: “What is a Kitchen Investment Worth Making?”
To buy or not to buy? That is indeed the hundred-dollar question. It’s easy to become hypnotized by items like the “Big Boss Oil-less Air Fryer”, “Ninja OP301 Pressure Cooker” or “Go Chef 8-in-1 Cooker” as seen on tv.