WORKING MOM – MEAL PLANS

Here is an honest mom moment.

I have 2 littles aged 5 and 22 months.

I work and have a commute.

I spend 10 hours Monday-Friday in commute to and from work. It is a job I love and really do enjoy my 40 some odd hours a week doing. But the hard truth in that is that I really only spend 4 hours with my 22 month old and 8.5 hours with my kinder during the work week (calculating the time & writing that out just killed my mommy heart).

In that time I also have to make dinner each night – so really time is of the essence!

Enter Meal Planning! I will be completely honest here and say our meals are farrrr from fancy or high class. Typically on a Sunday I write down the food we are going to eat each night for dinner to make it a no brainer once we are home from work. We previously would try and use the slow cooker as much as possible setting it up in the morning before leaving for work – then for Christmas I bought my husband an Instant Pot (Holy Canoly that thing is pure magic!)

Let me lay the week out for you, starting at the weekend – because why not.

Saturday – Grocery day! We live in a smaller town so I do biweekly large trips to the neighbouring town and hit up some of the bigger stores and stock up on cupboard foods and lunch snacks. On the off weeks we get all our produce and fresh items at the store in town.

Sunday – Make lunches for the week ahead. I will try and make a batch meal and get it in tupperware for the week so that each morning it’s easy to grab my own lunch while I prepare my daughter’s lunch box for the day. These nights dinner goes 1 of 2 ways. Either a super easy meal because we are all feeling lazy or something fancy so start a new week with a nice family meal.

Monday – Left Overs from the weekend or an Instant Pot meal

Tuesday – Ground beef something (the kids like Taco Bowls)

Wednesday – Frozen Meal or Instant Pot meal

Thursday – Chicken Fingers or Fish and Fries

Friday – Take Out Night

I have added a new section to the site for recipes. So check it out and see some of the things we are cooking up in the kitchen – if you have any go to meals or recipes please leave them in the comments below.