036: Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping
Can you even believe there are only 3 episodes left to get through the entire Working Mom Happiness Method program?!!
After that, I'll move into interview episodes where you'll hear from women whose lives have been changed by the program, plus live coaching sessions. I think you'll find through these episodes that we all struggle with the same things.
This episode is short and sweet and where we get tactical and deliberate about the things in life that must be done, even though we don't love doing them.
We'll break down some tips and tricks for simplifying the process of meal planning and grocery shopping.
Click here for the grocery shopping app I mention in the episode.
To check out The Working Mom Happiness Method coaching course, visit my website at https://www.womensbestlifeuniversity.com/working-mom-happiness-method
Learn more about The Working Mom Happiness Method course here!
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Hi, my name is Katy Blommer and my passion is helping women learn how to put themselves first, I learned all the tools for success on my own 12 year journey that has led me to finally figuring out how to live my best life. My journey included overcoming body image issues, and yo yo dieting, climbing the corporate ladder to a multiple six figure career, navigating mom guilt through a 60 hour workweek turning around marriage issues, and much more. Now, I'm truly living my best life. And I've pretty much become obsessed with teaching others my tried and true methods for creating balance, maintaining healthy habits, improving your relationship, career development, and how to stop tying your value and worth, to the way you look and how you serve others. I'm so passionate about helping others learn this, that I created the working mom happiness method to help you get there too. So if you're ready to learn how to live your best life, pull up a chair or put on your walking shoes and get ready to dive in. This is the working mom happiness method podcast.
Hi, and welcome to the episode that's all about meal planning and grocery shopping. Before we jump in, I want to do a quick check in on where we are with the overall working mom happiness Method program. Because I can't believe this but we're only three episodes from the end, we have this one and two more. If this is the first episode you've listened to, I highly encourage you to go back to the very beginning. Because the working mom happiness method is a method that is meant to be taken in sequence starting back in episode number one, the method is values, goals, boundaries, tools for success and an underlying theme of body image. And I promise that if you go back to the beginning, and you commit yourself fully and do the homework, it will absolutely change your life, it will lead you to living your best life. And that is what this is all about. As cheesy as that sounds. It's really a thing and happened to me. It's happened to the ladies who I've coached and who've taken for the program. And I get messages so often now from ladies who are listening to the podcast all over the world, hearing how it has changed their lives, too. And that is that's why I do it. I'm so excited about that, like so excited. So passionate. It's why I do it. Because I didn't want other people to have to go on this painful 12 year journey that I did. I wanted to share the Cliff Notes. And that's what we're doing. So go back to the beginning, jump in and listen. So what's about to happen now is that all the way up to this point in the program, for the most part, we have focused on mindset, okay, some tactical things, but mostly mindset. These last three episodes are all about getting tactical. And they're really about how do we tackle some of the things in life that none of us really want to do. But we just have to do them. So it's the meal planning, the grocery shopping, the laundry, the yard work, the cleaning. And then in the last episode, we're all it's all going to culminate the whole program into, you're going to create what I like to call your best life schedule. And we'll get there when we talk about it. But what I want you to do in this episode is some of the decisions that you're going to make about meal planning and grocery shopping. Just jot them down somewhere where you can revisit them in that last episode, because that's going to play into scheduling. Okay, so we'll talk about that in just a minute. But for now, let's go ahead and jump into the episode all about meal planning and grocery shopping and cool thing about this episode is going to be short and sweet. I really think the last three episodes are going to be very short and sweet. And hopefully you can take something away from it that will help you in your life. Okay, so the first area that I want to start with is meal planning. Okay. And what I want you to do start with with meal planning is do you want to try if you don't already some kind of meal delivery service. Okay, so we think about the home chefs, the blue aprons, I mean, I could go on and on. There are so many options out there now. And if you haven't already tried one I highly recommending recommend experimenting with them, because they can be game changers for saving time and energy. So energy as it relates to planning what you want to eat with your family because they just have the list of meals that you can select from. And then time because you don't have to grocery shop for the things and the recipe just comes with everything you need in it. The I would say for us. So we've experimented with a lot of these different things. And remember, you have to have abundance mindset with money here. Okay, as you might have already thought, well, they're so expensive, okay. They are more expensive than grocery shopping. Absolutely. However, remember you are worth it to spend money in ways that make your life easier and save your energy and create that mind space and open it up where you can be more strategic at work, put more energy into quality at work. And I really believe taking care of yourself in that way. Having the courage to spend money in ways that make your life easier will Do you make more money and the whole last episode was about that. So go check it out, I go way deeper there, if you haven't already, okay. But I highly encourage you to see if this helps you with your stress level your to do list by using a meal delivery service. Now, as we've gone through experimenting with these delivery services, we've kind of gone down this road of we started with I think it was like Blue Apron. And I think we've tried a couple of others. Honestly, I'm it's not coming to the top of my mind all the ones that we tried right now, but I think we've tried three or four of them. And the one downside I will say is that they take a long time to make. So even the recipes that say like 20 minutes can take up to an hour sometimes, because some of them you're chopping all the food now some of them the food comes chopped for you already and they're a little bit quicker and a little bit faster. There is also an option to do like fresh delivered meals. Now those are even more expensive. So, you know, as a reminder, from the money mindset episode, I would never encourage you to do something you truly can't afford. The thing is most of us can afford it, we're just telling ourselves that it's too extravagant or society has taught us that it's too expensive. And then if we can do it ourselves, we should air quotes do it ourselves, most of us can't afford it. But if you truly can't, I would never tell you to do something that you can't afford. But these fresh delivered meals are even easier because they're already made, and you just pop them in the microwave or heat them up. And we've done that too. And they're delicious. We've used a company called veestro. The challenge with those after we tried them for a while is there are only so many options, and we got a little tired of them after a few months. The meal service we're currently using is called beehive meals. And I've really loved it so far, we've only been using it for a few weeks. Basically what it is, is it frozen crock pot meals prepackaged frozen, they're fresh made, but then they're frozen. And then you basically store them in the freezer. And when you're ready to cook it, you just dump the whole thing in the crock pot. So super easy. You don't have to remember to put it in in the morning or midday. But super easy because then it's done after work. And they're delicious. So we've been loving that. And I love that they can store in the freezer for a long time to a few months in the freezer. So experiment and play with these, you are worth it. Okay, so that's kind of the first decision that I want you thinking about and making as it relates to this stuff. The second decision that I want you to make is who is going to do what so when I say what we've got meal planning, meal prepping, grocery shopping, and we're going to talk about grocery shopping specifically in just a minute. But the reality is, and studies have shown that working moms tend to do the majority of the work around the household too, even when their partner is also working full time. It's not okay, it is absolutely unacceptable. It's not okay, we have to be cycle breakers here, we have to show our children, both boys and girls, that the working moms don't have to do all the things around the house too. Because chances are very, very high that we watched our moms do all the things and our dads do whatever they wanted when they came home from work, okay. And we have to break that cycle. And it is not easy. Okay. So what I want us to start doing what I want you to start doing is being very deliberate about these things. Don't just get in the cycle of doing all the things because you don't want to argue with your spouse about it. Sit down, have the hard conversations, go back and reread. Listen, listen to the episodes on relationships, because I talk all about this, how to get your spouse to help out more around the house because we have to stop doing all the things. It's not sustainable. We're burning ourselves out. We're overwhelmed, and we're exhausted. And that's what this whole program is about valuing yourself enough and having the courage to have these conversations and get super deliberate and stop doing all the things Okay, I just got on a little soapbox, I will get down but as you can tell, I'm super passionate. So have a conversation with your spouse with your partner about who's going to do what are you going to trade off is somebody just always going to do one thing and the other person does another thing and all of that good stuff. If you are single and don't have a spouse or a partner, what I want you to do is be really deliberate as well on maybe paying for the help of a meal service. We're going to schedule these in in ways that save your energy which we're going to talk about in a little bit further.
But be be very deliberate about this either way. Okay. All right. Do you want to prep any food ahead of time and what is that look like when I say what does that look like? Do you just want to try out some veggies maybe pre cook some meats or do you want to actually fully like meal prep your lunches and take them to work meal prep your kids lunches like however you do it what works for you but I want you to have a plan because having a plan and staying consistent is a game changer here. It's a complete game changer winging this stuff takes up so much more energy than having a plan does and staying consistent. And Okay, the next thing that I want you to decide on is how many dinners per week? Are you actually going to cook as a family, like get cooked in your house? And that could be meal delivery service, you know that you actually cook and make that sort of thing. But what I'm talking about here is like, how many dinners are you actually going to cook in your home? versus how many are going to go out to dinner? Or like order? DoorDash GrubHub? That sort of thing? How many are you going to order in? And this one is important, because there's a lot of subconscious programming wrapped up in this from the diet industry. And not even the diet industry, like parenting, all that sort of stuff that like all this pressure on us, especially as moms, I think that for the majority. I think stereotypes are real here. I think the majority of dads aren't really stressing that much about what their kids eat. But we have so much pressure on us as moms to like make a home cooked meal every night and sit together as a family and eat it. And we've heard about like all the benefits that come from that. And don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing there are benefits. All the Health's physical, mental spiritual, all the helps to sitting down as a family and eating dinner together and eating like a home cooked nutritious meal. There are benefits to that I'm not arguing that. However, what I am arguing is that the pressure and the stress we put on ourselves, to do it every single night is negating those health benefits because stress and exhaustion and burnout is so much worse from your health for your health than not sitting down together as a family needing a home cooked meal every night would be detrimental to your health. Right? Does that make sense? What I'm saying like we are, we don't we need to take more seriously the amount of stress we have in our life and how that impacts our health. And so I don't do shirts very often, okay, actually, I hate shirts. But this is a shirt that I feel really strongly about. Unless you love to cook, and it is your passion. And it is self care and relaxation for you.
I don't think you should plan to cook more than four nights a week. I don't and challenge yourself. Because if that makes you feel super guilty and triggered, then you've got some pressure on yourself there from wherever it's coming from. But I am giving you full permission to not plan to cook and you don't have like a sit down home cooked meal. Try to do it for less than I would love to challenge you to do it less than four. Okay, that's I think that would be a great goal, because we put so much pressure on ourselves. The other thing I want to give you permission to do is DoorDash. This is a money mindset thing, right? Because DoorDash is more expensive. There's a delivery fee, and then the food costs more we know this right? And so are you sitting in scarcity, money mindset in an area where you could save a lot of time and energy, especially on those days where you're extra exhausted, or maybe it's like your hard PMS days, that kind of a thing. Allow yourself to take care of yourself in this way you are worth it. And remember, like I said before most of us can afford this, I would never tell you to do anything that you actually can't afford. Most of us can afford to do this and spend a little bit of extra money sometimes once or twice a week and have the food brought to us. And then if you're worried about nutrition, you can actually DoorDash nutritious foods, you can go out to dinner and eat nutritious foods. So be deliberate plan that in think about it that way. But also give yourself permission to go through the damn drive thru. Right? go to McDonald's, go to Wendy's go to these places that we've been taught are horrible and going to kill us, right? Like, I'm telling you, the stress we put on ourselves to do all the things is way more harmful than once a week going to get some fast food. Okay, I really believe that I think it's so true. And anyway, it's just real. I'm so passionate about it. So give yourself permission on the night where you need to go off your schedule off your plan, because you're just exhausted and you need to take care of yourself to go get some fast food because it's convenient, and it's easy, and you're probably doing work and then kid things and there just wasn't time to do dinner. It's fine, you're normal, that doesn't make you a bad parent. Go for it, do it and work on the guilt that comes up breathe through it. Remember, guilt and shame are serious and go back and listen to the mom guilt episode where I go way deep into that. They're not good for our health and they're very real. So full permission to do that. Okay, that was a little soapbox moment, too. A lot of like I said a lot of mindset stuff worked in here too, on getting tactical, being deliberate. Okay. So after all of that you've thought about how many nights a week do you want to plan for dinners? Okay. And then do you want to involve the kids? So that's kind of the next decision to make. Do you want to have the kids choose one of the dinners? Do you want to have them help cook one of the dinners. I have tried this throughout the years just being fully transparent. And for me, it has always ended up being more energy than what I thought the benefits were worth. Because my after work time is like my lowest energy time of the day. And cooking dinner is like hard enough, but then having to fight with a kid about participating in cooking dinner just like, pushed me over the edge, and I couldn't do it anymore. So just being fully transparent, but, you know, maybe your kids enjoy cooking, I do think there are a lot of good benefits to kids in doing something like this. I just personally have chosen to protect my own energy and my own health and not do it that way. But do you want to involve your kids, and especially if you are a single mom, you know, that could be super helpful, especially if your children are old enough to add value and help in this way. That's awesome. And I absolutely love that. So lots of great things to think about here. Okay, and then what I want actually, let's talk about grocery shopping first, and then we're going to talk about some tips and sequence on timing that might help. Okay, so grocery shopping. What I want you to think about and decisions I want you to make are, how many days per week? Does it make sense for you to grocery shop? Is it once? Or is it twice depending on how often you cook and where your grocery store is located? And, you know, do you or do you live in a city where you walk and you can't carry a ton of groceries, right, be deliberate and then be consistent. I just I can't stress this enough. Having your grocery shopping days be consistent, and it's okay if you get off schedule because something comes up no big deal. But try to get back on stick be consistent, it's a game changer for the amount of stress that will come up in your lives be super consistent and decide on those days and stick to them. Okay, the next thing and this can be a little bit of money mindset, too, is how do you want to do your grocery shopping, there are so many options in today's day and age, especially post the pandemic, that you don't actually have to drive to the store and walk around the store to get your groceries anymore. Now some of us really like doing that. It could be me time you leave the kids at home, you go get some quiet time and you walk the grocery store and look at all the foods that's great. By all means, if that's how you feel, do it. For me personally, switching over to online grocery shopping has changed my life, it has completely changed my life so much faster. And also, it does save a little bit of money because you don't do those impulse buys you stick to your list. However, we know it adds a little bit of money to because you some online grocery shopping, there's a fee, my store will do it for free if you pick it up if you go schedule a time and you pick it up. But now I've even moved on to having it delivered, which does cost a little bit more. But again, spending on myself because it saves my time and my energy. And I am absolutely worth it. And I believe and I know well, it's not that I believe it has led me things like this to making more money in my life. So love that. So decide how you're going to do it, experiment with it, see what works best for you. And again, who is going to do it, you don't have to be doing all the things, make sure you're having a conversation with your partner, with your spouse about who's going to do what and how you're going to share these household items and these household chores, okay. All right. So now you've got your meal planning decisions, you've thought a little bit about meal prepping, and how much you want to do versus not do. And then you've thought about grocery shopping. And so now what I want to do, I don't know about you. But for me, I go through these periods throughout my life where I do want to get really serious about like actually prepping the meals. So like on a Sunday, getting all the meals situated getting them prepped in a container in the fridge. And I do think there are a lot of convenience benefits that throughout the week and a lot of health benefits as well. But no pressure to do it. If it doesn't work for you, I don't do it. Full disclosure, I use a lot of the tips that I'm telling you here and that I'm about to tell you with timing. But for me, I have just not hit like a stage in my life yet where I can sustain that. But I have found other ways to save my energy and to you know, eat nutritious foods, that sort of thing. But I just couldn't ever really get to where it felt like it was the best use of my time and energy. But I don't want to negate that there are lots of lots of different health benefits, mental health, physical health, nutrition, all the things there are benefits, but I don't want to put any pressure on you. But what I would encourage you to do is experiment with instead of trying to do it all at once, because I think one of the main reasons we don't sustain meal prepping is that we try to do it all at once. And it takes like a half to a full weekend day. And that's a bummer when you work so hard all week. And then you have to spend such a big chunk of like your Sunday or your Saturday, doing all the meal prep stuff that's really, really difficult to sustain. Especially when that's like the only time you have for me time or time with your family, that sort of thing. And so what I highly recommend trying is breaking it up into smaller manageable chunks throughout the week. And so let me give you an example. One way you could do it is on Thursday, you could block out like 15 or 20 minutes maybe on your lunch hour or just after work or something before you know the kids are needing things your family's needing things. And you could just use that time to plan your meals for the following week. You plan your breakfasts, lunches, dinners, because now you already know how many dinners you want to make each week, that sort of thing. And you can even write down like, what nights you're going to cook, what nights are you going to DoorDash. And we're going to talk about this stuff when we get to the scheduling episode into more episodes, but so you're just doing during that 1520 minutes ish, you're just writing down,
maybe you're looking for ideas on Pinterest, if you want to cook a meal, that kind of thing. But you're just writing down what you're going to have, you're not even doing a list of groceries, anything like that, just what you're going to have on what day escape, and that should be fairly quick. And then on Friday, same thing, maybe on your lunch hour, or maybe right after work, you can take 1520 minutes to go back and reference that list and write down what groceries you need to buy. So then you've got the list. Oh, and by the way, quick tip. One of the things that has really helped my husband and I here is we have got an app that allows for a shared grocery shopping list. So we each have the app, it's called key ring, it's free. Also, I'll put a link in the show notes to it. And but I don't think it's like the best app for this, they're probably better ones. Honestly, I don't know where you spend a couple of bucks that are better than this. It's very basic, but it works great for us, because we can keep a running list that either of us can add to and then the other one can see it. So you take this time on Friday, and you take this 15 to 20 minutes, and you put it all in your app. So you've got the list there. And that should be pretty quick, because you've already decided what you want to eat. So then you got your list. Okay, that's it. And then on Saturday, you go to your grocery shopping. And you've got since you've got the list, and maybe you do it online, maybe you do it, you go to the store. But either way, it shouldn't take more than like an hour because your list is already prepared. And then on Sunday, if you want to do any sort of prepping, you've already got all the stuff on hand. And so depending on how much prepping you're going to do maybe one to two hours, but then it's not taking up your whole weekend, you can still do fun big things on either one of those weekend days if you want, right or do lots of TV watching likes what I probably wouldn't do, instead of doing your whole meal prep, because you've broken it out into doable chunks, which I absolutely love. Okay. All right. So anything that you wrote down any decisions that you made as you thought about that, or maybe you're going to do it after maybe you're listening, you're walking or doing whatever, and you're going to now go write down these decisions, I want you to hold on to because the rubber hits the road, when we get to the episode on creating your best life schedule, you're going to sort of plan all this stuff in Okay, so hopefully this was helpful. As always, if it was please spread the word. Like I said, I love getting messages from women that this has changed their life. So it's just about getting it out to as many as many women people as possible. So and also if it's helpful, please I would love it would mean so much to me. If you go and leave a review, if you leave a five star review if you love it and you leave a comment that helps the podcasting platform show it to more women and that's what it's all about. So, thanks for listening. I'll talk to you in the next episode. Thanks so much for listening to the working mom happiness method. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from listening for show notes or to enroll in the working mom happiness method coaching courses, visit www dot women's best life university.com
