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I am super excited for this year’s Fill Your Freezer February Challenge albiet a little late getting started this month due to snow storms here in Indiana!. This year lines up perfectly for me, because baby number 6 is due at the beginning of April! So, I will be specifically focused on freezer cooking on items that will help my life be a little easier when I’m consumed with baby snuggles!
The Rules:
We use our normal monthly grocery budget. I know a lot of people eat out of their pantry in January to either save money from the Christmas expenses that added up or to eat down/rotate the food in their pantry. The Fill Your Freezer February challenge was designed with that in mind — I’m not trying to make you spend all the money you saved after a pantry challenge!
Since we are using our normal grocery budget to eat for the month — yes, sometimes we have to get creative on what we can make to fill the freezer up– but there are strategies you can follow. I talk about this in my NEW (and FREE!) 5 Day Email Freezer Cooking Mini Course:
Decide WHY you want to do this Fill Your Freezer challenge. This is year, my biggest motivation is because baby #6 is coming in April and I know life will be simpler if I make the time now to freezer cook– for ease, to save money, and the nutritional benefits from homecooked food. But maybe it’s because you get home late and don’t have much energy to cook. Or the kids complain they are starving by lunch because they love to eat cereal for breakfast, but actually needs something more sustainable to eat in the mornings.
A follow up question would be — what specific kinds of food would you like to stock up in your freezer? For me, after having a baby, I find that breakfast is the hardest meal for me to get prepared and to the table. I’m often tired from being up at all hours of the night, the baby needs changed and fed when they wake, and my family doesn’t like to wait to eat breakfast at 10 a.m. I like to have snacks too. Not only can I grab something on the way to the couch to nurse the baby, but it’s also an easy option to satisfy hungry kids when I’m running behind at mealtime.
Tip: If you bring a new mom a meal — remember dinner isn’t the only meal the family eats —healthy snacks and breakfast are great options too!
Buy INGREDIENTS. Our grocery budgets can stretch farther if we are buying ingredients versus boxed or packaged food. Even a box of brownies or cornbread seems small at a dollar or two, but when you have the ingredients on hand it’s mere cents on the dollar to actually make! Not only that, but ingredients are versatile and can be made into a multitude of recipes using the same few ingredients. I still fall into the trap of buying convenience food too, but this month we want to make sure we refrain as much as we can to help stretch the grocery budget this month.
Grocery Shopping.
You can do this many different ways, but since “my rules” say we are stretching the normal grocery budget, I will shop the way I normally buy groceries. This helps make sure I stay within budget, but feel free to do a separate grocery trip for your freezer meals.
Are you ready?
I’ll be adding to my freezer from now until baby comes 🙂