Meal Planning Archives - Page 4 of 10 - I Heart Frugal

Meal Planning

Meal planning at it’s finest and the recipes to boot!

10 Slow Cooker Soup Recipes (You Will Want to Try This Winter)

Slow Cooker Soup Recipes

Slow Cooker Soup Recipes #slowcookerrecipes #Crockpotrecipes #souprecipes
Slow Cooker Soup Recipes

Are you ready to have your socks knocked off this winter? These slow cooker soup recipes listed below are so good you won’t need those socks.

Winter is a time of hibernation. The freezing cold temperature that sweep the nation leave you feeling chilly and stiff. What better way to warm up your body then putting on a crock pot full of hot soup that you can enjoy for dinner!

These soups will warm your body and make it more likely you will get things done this winter. You won’t need to hibernate under a blanket. You will be warm enough to get up and be productive. Not to mention, they taste great and leave your house with a seriously yummy smell all day long.

My fellow food bloggers do not disappoint. Check out these warm winter soup recipes to keep you warm and snuggled!

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50 Thanksgiving Side Dishes for Your Thanksgiving Menu

50 Frugal Thanksgiving Side Dishes You Must Try #Thanksgiving #Thanksgivingsidedishes #Thanksgivingmenu
50 Frugal Thanksgiving Side Dishes You Must Try

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Are you and your wallet ready for the big day? -Turkey day that is. Hosting Thanksgiving is expensive and stressful. Coming up with your Thanksgiving menu takes time, especially if you are on a budget. However, with anything in life, a solid plan will help you nail your Thanksgiving dinner on the big day. We already know the main course, but what about your Thanksgiving side dishes? 

You want something that will wow your guests, but also Thanksgiving side dishes that are affordable and yummy.

Hosting Thanksgiving is not an easy task. Trust me, I’ve done it three times and we have a big family. – Like 8 brothers and sisters on my husband’s side big! Planning out the meal, grocery list, and devising a cooking timeline for the turkey saved my sanity!

Another thing that helped was sticking to a budget when buying the food. No one needs more money stress around the Holidays. Furthermore, it is great to check your local flyers and find the best price per pound on your turkey which is easy because most grocery stores have sales just to stay in the grocery game that week. But let’s face it, hosting any holiday including Thanksgiving is expensive and the Thanksgiving side dishes need to be taken into account within your budget.

So if you are on a budget, like me, you will want to find good deals on side dishes too while still awe-ing your guests with your cooking abilities and unique recipe ideas. 

With that in mind, I’ve created a roundup post with the help of my fellow food blogger’s including 50 plus side dishes that are delicious and still budget-friendly. Just pick a few and plan them out on your shopping list to keep track of your cooking expenses. 

Pro tip: Find a few recipes that share the same spices or ingredients to help cut your costs even more. For example. two recipes may use sage. You can save by only buying one spice pack.

Thanksgiving is usually stressful for the host, so don’t make it even more stressful by going over budget on food. Try some of these amazing recipes and enjoy your time with your family! You deserve it!

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7 Easy Dinners for the Lazy Mom- 10-Minute Prep

7 Easy Dinners for the Lazy Mom

Are you having a hard time getting dinner on the table? It is always nice to have some easy dinners to whip together on those difficult nights.

7 Easy Dinners for the Lazy Girl - 10 Minutes #dinners #recipes #food #frugalmeals
7 Easy Dinners for the Lazy Girl – 10 Minutes

Let me tell you, dinner time used to be one of the most stressful times of day for me. Before I started meal planning, my kids would cry and hang on me as I frantically searched the cupboards for something to make. Sometimes, yes, I fed them chicken nuggets out of necessity. Did I feel great about it? NO!

Would I rather have fed my kids something healthier but also serve something fast and easy? Of course!

The lazy mom is always on the lookout for easier ways to do things. In this case, being lazy means working smarter at dinner time instead of waiting for that next “hangry” tantrum from your kids.

What if you could find seven lazy dinners for the week that took only 10 minutes to prepare and still gave your kids a nutritional punch that they SO need for function, growth, and development?

This post offers seven easy meals for the lazy girl, mom, or in some cases dad – depending on who wears the chef hat in your family. Check them out and be on the lookout for more of these lazy dinner ideas that will make your dinner time a breeze!

After a hard day of working or cleaning and for your kids a long day at school, they probably just want some family time and alone time with you. With these simple meals, you will have that extra cuddle time tonight!

Here are seven easy meals for the lazy mom that will only take around ten minutes to make so you can use your time for something better than cooking.

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50 Make-Ahead Tailgate Foods for Your Tailgate Menu

50 Make-Ahead Tailgate Foods for Your Tailgate Menu

50 Make-Ahead Tailgate Foods for Your Tailgate Menu - Destress your tailgate morning! #football #tailgate #tailgatemenu
50 Make-Ahead Tailgate Foods for Your Tailgate Menu

It’s Tailgating time again! I don’t know about you, but we look forward to the fall season all year long. The weather cools down, we can still be outside and you guessed it, it is football season -GO LIONS! Although tailgating is a fun part of the season, getting your tailgate menu ready can be stressful and make-ahead tailgate foods can help you save time on game day.

Yes, it’s not all beers and bean dips! There is some preparation involved.  However, if you find make-ahead tailgate foods to add to your tailgate menu, your early Saturday (college football) or Sunday (NFL) will be a breeze.

Therefore, I have you covered with my fifty plus tailgate recipes that you can make ahead of time and pop in the cooler or bring your crockpot to the tailgate for some cozy chow.

Let the fun times and food roll as you cheer for your team! I’m a home-team kind of girl, so I will be rooting for the Detroit Lions and Central Michigan Chippewas. – ROOOOAR and GO FIRE UP CHIPS!

Put on those football sweatshirts, pack up the cooler and get ready for the big game with these yummy recipes below!

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Sun Basket and HelloFresh Meal Planning Services Review

Sun Basket and HelloFresh Meal Planning Services Review Guest Post

HelloFresh and Sun Basket Meal Planning Review
HelloFresh and Sun Basket Meal Planning Review

Bio: Russell and Maleah are a husband/wife team that run Unconventional Prosperity, a personal finance blog that aims to help people live an abundant life. They reached their goal of financial freedom in their early thirties and their mission is to help other people to do the same. Follow them on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram.

We do our best to try to eat healthy food, but it can be hard to find the time to shop for groceries and cook at home. We both work full-time on our blogs and it can be hard to resist the temptation to eat out. Cooking at home can help save money and usually leads to better calorie-controlled portions.

Having full control over what goes into your food can also improve your health dramatically. We decided to try out two of the most popular meal planning services – HelloFresh and Sun Basket. The idea of having the ingredients and recipes delivered directly to our door really appealed to us.

Although cost was not a big concern for us during this test period, we do like to get good value for money. We hoped that the meal planning services would save us enough time and effort to compensate for the cost of the service.

We found that the meal planning services did work out cheaper than eating out. So, in this respect, they did help us to save some money. The ingredients were high quality and the meal variety was very good. We enjoyed trying food that we don’t usually eat (especially with Sun Basket meals).

Here is what we found when we tried out Sun Basket and HelloFresh meal planning services.

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