When I began prioritizing on my self-care, inner peace and mental health, I had to identify some of the things that I had been raised to believe that didn’t resonate with me personally. My parents, being boomers raised in the 60’s and 70’s, grew up with mothers who didn’t work outside the home and lived very traditional American lives.
Whereas, I live in an age that requires each adult in the relationship to have 2 jobs in order to pay the bills. It’s a very different time and the idea that I should be home cooking at least 5-6 meals per week on top of planning breakfast and lunch for both me and my child when I work 2-3 nights per week. Getting home at 9:30pm and THEN getting us both up to go to school and work in the morning is just plain ridiculous to me. It’s literally not possible for me to be active mentally and physically for 12 hours a day every day.
Many of us are stuck in this mindset that, especially as a woman, we need to be providing our families recipes passed down through the generations when we honestly are struggling not to just bring home fast food and crash on the couch for 15 minutes before the bedtime routine. In today’s world with working parents busting their butts just to try to get by, healthy home cooked meals are a real struggle. I can tell you that I have felt 100% better after throwing out the idea that the 10 recycled recipes that I know need to be the only meals my family eats. Whether you are the best cook in the world or not, it’s likely that you are also proficient in making about 10 really good meals that you have perfected and you just cycle them out over the course of the month.
When I quit thinking that I needed to have the meals and ingredients planned out weeks in advance, which cost me hours of time and stress to try to coordinate, I felt so much lighter. I am not joking. Trying out delivery meal kits really saved my life.
Here is how signing up for meal delivery kits improved my life as a working mom:
- Saves me time: I no longer spend hours putting together a grocery list, searching for new recipes or spending hours cooking.
- No pressure: with all the ingredients in on bag and the instructions clearly written out, I can throw together a good home cooked meal in under an hour with little thought. I also am not feeling the burn of having to make something that I planned even though now I don’t want to because it’s too elaborate.
- No waste: too many times have I thrown away good produce because I haven’t gotten a chance to make the meal I planned when I did the grocery list. It makes me so sad to see the vegetables grow fuzzy and soft.
- Variety: we get to try new recipes every week and I still get to plan them by choosing which ones and how many we order. I also still cook, however I only cook 2-3 times a week now instead of 5-6.
- Clean Eating: deliveries have made it easy for me to put healthy meals on my table when most of the recipes are so straightforward! Opposed to adding a heavy pasta dinner into my weekly meal plan, I can choose something lighter and leaner instead with fresh vegetables.
How about the cost?
Okay, so I pay a little under $90 for 2 servings of 3 meals per week. The 2 servings is always enough for my husband, my 6 year old and myself to share. If you break that down it is about $30 per dinner, which could be the same amount that you’re spending at the grocery store for ingredients depending on what you buy. I usually try to do a steak, chicken and either a salmon or a shrimp per week. Sometimes it differs, but I usually save the vegetarian meals or soups for me to make at home so that my grocery store cost is reduced.
Here are some links to the meal deliveries that we’ve tried so far and I will definitely add more to this post as we continue to try out new ones:
Also, stay tuned for my post that will rate my favorites!
