Julie Sharron is a Los Angeles mom with two jobs and a passion for meal planning. Her company, Busy & Broke, is focused on making meal planning as effortless and enjoyable as possible. With an e-book, private workshops, and one-on-one consultations available, let her help you take control of your time, money, and food.
From Busy & Broke:
“Who The Heck Are You?”
Short answer: just some lady.
Longer answer: my husband and I accidentally started meal planning a few years ago. It was January. We saw a “start your year out right!” type weekly menu on Vox. I don’t think I had even heard the term or knew the concept of meal planning. I grew up in a fast food and TV dinner family; no one really cooked, and while I wasn’t too bad in the kitchen I definitely thought of cooking more as a “fun experiment” thing than a “feed my family without going bankrupt” thing.
By the end of that week, we felt like we had invented the wheel. No food went bad and got thrown away! We didn’t eat out once! We spent a reasonable amount of money! We knew what we would eat every day! It took us a few more weeks to get into planning our own meals instead of finding sample menus, but since we got in the swing of things we haven’t stopped.
Now that we have two full time jobs and a toddler, meal planning has become a necessity rather than a novelty. I don’t know what we would do without it. Seeing how cheap I can get our weekly grocery store trips has almost become a game. For two adults and a toddler, we end up spending about $125 a week on groceries (though I can get as low as $90 if I keep things really basic.) We now save hundreds of dollars a month on food and hardly anything gets wasted. I am never stressed about what I will cook or when.
This guide can work for anyone, whether you’re solo or part of a bigger family. Meal planning has been such a game-changer for us that I’ve become a bit of an evangelist about it. I want other people to have the tools to meal plan if they’d like and to know that it is totally doable, even if you are busy and/or broke as hell.
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E-mail me at busyandbroke@gmail.com
Busy & Broke 