Meal Prep Has Saved Me How Much?
Meal Prep has saved me over $200 so far in 2025, and it is set to save me more.
Yes!
It really has. Last year at this time I had a dozen issues at play and life would continue to get crazy. Giving me all the excuses to not do my meal prep or even remember to grab my prepped dishes, funny enough this is what I was working with the most with clients. Go Figure!
Some things I learned last year have taught me the basics of what I’m sharing in this blog. So if you're ready, get out your notes and follow along, I’d also love to have your input in the comments below to share with our whole community of health wise saving wise families.
Assess your budget!
Meal prep can save you tons, this is true. But not if you're not sure where you stand. For me, I know I was spending double the price for many items in the cafeteria at work (like $5-7 for a 10 oz fruit and yogurt parfait.) Or spending on items that make me feel like gunk (I’m looking at you fried food) so I started looking at the amount I spent per pay-period and budget that to my meal prep. So for example If I spent $24 I would take that amount and budget it for meal prep, but if I spent over $60 I would still only allow myself $20-40 for my meal prep because the whole point of meal prep was to save money. That extra $20 or so that was straight savings I was able to put back into my bills, again, that is the whole point of meal prepping for me. *Pro Tip: Did you know you can save more on your bills to give back to your meal prep by simply calling your provider and seeing if there are any discounts or if you can “pre pay” any amount onto your account that you choose when to apply. This helps when able to have a little cushion in your bills account for when you really need a little help.
Cash budget your food money.
Not seeing the money can lend to over spending very easily. So if you use credit, write it down like an old school check book. Write down your firm budget and roll over any extra into the next month. This is money that you already accounted for, so it's like free money or even a bonus in your monthly food budget. If you're a fan of cash stuffing this is essentially that concept, I have a few videos on cash stuffing if you're new to the world of cash stuffing.
Remember your food.
Prepping food is no good if you forget it! I’ve seen tips like “put your keys in the fridge” and other things. What has been working for me is having my lunch bag on top of my work bag, then when I go to grab my work bag I have to grab my lunch box on top so I can just fill it in at that moment. If you have room in your fridge to pack your lunch box the night before, just leave it in there till the morning. You can even set alarms on your phone, for me I leave my house at the same time every day so I can set an alarm for five minutes until I need to leave to grab my lunch.
Wasted food is wasted money!
If you're forgetting your food at home, and needing to spend $10 on breakfast it's like you actually budgeted $30 on food. But was it in your original budget? Instead of saving money, you spent more. While, yes you can take it the next day, but what happens if you forget it again? What happens if it goes bad? That's at least $20 flushed down the toilet. Any food I take to work with me that I don't end up eating I put in the freezer now, that way I have something already set for the next week. I will even bring extra frozen prepped breakfast burritos and put in my work freezer as a back up if I forget any meal.
Take note of your “cheat meals.”
If you're always getting something in place of your lunch. Take note. Is it sandwiches, soups, salads, pastas? Write it down. Do you like a focaccia, tomato and mozzarella sandwich? Well you can prepare that and take it with you, I bet that the cost of making that sandwich will cost you much less. If you're writing down that you eat at least two of these a month, you can keep a look out for discounted focaccia. Mozzarella holds well in the fridge unopened so that it can be bought even one extra month when you have extra funds left over, points if it's on sale or discounted. I’m already thinking of a few meal preps that I want to do that may be more than my budget, it's ok. I’ll buy some of the frozen components and then the refrigerated components, leaving the fresh components for last.
At the end of the day the best tip I can tell you about meal prep, my actual number one tip: Have fun with it and don't beat yourself up if you miss a day. I dislike telling my husband that I forgot my lunch but that keeps me accountable at the end of the day, he does the shopping and our food budgets because of my work schedule, so I do feel like I'm letting him down when I forget it. He never is upset when I forget, he just tells me to get something to eat because I do need to eat. At the end of the day that's what matters. This year we started to take our family budget more seriously, the costs of food going up helped me take my meal prep more seriously. Also, like I mentioned in the beginning, I spent quite a sum in 2024.
In 2024 I spent $1,697.22 at my work cafeteria for the year, by July of 2024 I had spent $907.67. In July 2025 my total was $643.60 for the year till that point. I had saved $264.07 in 2025 by just trying a little harder and understanding that the extra money I was spending could have been going to a bill or even into my savings for something else in life. Honestly, that was money put back into the total household grocery budget.
I’m trying to not use my cafeteria at work as an 'oh well!’ or a crutch. If I need to get something from there to eat I will. I also buy things to bring home from there when we just don't have anything for dinner planned, I can spend about $40 and bring home enough food for the 4 of us to have dinner. By following the steps I listed above I have been able to prepare what works and what I usually grab from the cafeteria, saving myself half the costs of things at least. This has let me prepare some pretty fun stuff, like shrimp tacos and hamburgers. Plus a good bonus is that I always prep extra so my family has lunch servings and extra dinner servings for our leftover nights.
If you're interested in starting your meal prep journey but need that support in your corner, let me be your cheerleader. Let me be your accountability partner. I have weekend spots to choose from and even weekday spots if needed, just click the link below and inquire about Meal Prep Coaching.
