Meal Planning Made Easy and Cheap 15 Minute Meals Under $120 with Menus

This week, I’m back at work and surprisingly loving it. It’s less hectic than I remember it being. Of course, I’m only on day four of ten worked in a row, so perhaps we should revisit this idea in a few days. Meals have been going great, and while I could probably upgrade to 30 minute meals, I’ll spend a few more weeks on 15 minute meals to make sure I can keep this pace.

Each Week, I sit down with my schedule book and plan out this week’s meals. Breakfasts are serve yourself from pre-made options, and snack bags for lunches are separated into snack baggies on shopping day (Sunday). I just grab 3 snack baggies for each of our lunches to toss in. We both pack our lunch every day, even being at home these last few months. I pack my lunch as well so I can grab it and go while running errands etc. Jon took over the shopping as one of his chores (You rock Jon!), He does that on Sunday and then I can do food prep that day for the week. I share our menu for the week for those that are new to menu planning. If you have no idea what to do for the week and would like to steal some or all of our plan… I promise not to prosecute:-)

As always, I feel it’s important to note that this is not the healthiest plan to follow. It’s a great plan for us, because it’s breaking our addiction to fast food and other unhealthy habits, and its cut our food budget by about 50%. Slowly, we’re making substitutions that will lead us to a healthy cheap meal plan. Romewasn’t built in a day and all that jazz.

“Recipes” for all menu items can be found here and here, unless they are noted below in the menu plan.

MENU:

Breakfast Options for the Week:

French Toast and Pancakes!! I’m making tons of these tomorrow from scratch and freezing them in groups of three. Add a little butter and strawberry preserves and I’m a happy girl.Milk and Cereal: Self Explanatory.

Fruit Smoothies: We have frozen strawberries left over from last week’s Strawberry Shortcake so we can blend these with milk and ice (and chocolate if it’s going to be one of those days).

Lunch Options:

Jon may never get sick of Turkey and Muenster, but I certainly do. I’ll get a few options for the week and we can choose accordingly.

Frozen Healthy Choice Steamers- at 200 calories, these are great addition to lunch if I get sick of sandwiches.

Roast Beef and Cheddar

Oven Roasted Turkey and Muenster

Leftover TurkeyJ– Lots and Lots of Leftover Turkey, considering Mom and Dad brought down another turkey so we had two for Thanksgiving.

Snack Options for Lunches:

Pudding cups
Slim Jim’s
Peanuts
Popcorn
Granola Bars
Fruit
Carrots

Reminders:

Gym all week right before lunch. Dinners must be stored for Jon and quick to both make and heat.

Make sure you have everything you need to pack two lunches from now on.

Plan for an insane Breakfast Burrito batch cooking session on your day off this week. We need 20 burritos to last until my next day off.

Pack extra easy snacks to store in car for unexpected late nights.

Weekday Lunches are now also being eaten on the weekends since one of us will almost always be working the weekend.

Monday: