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Again it seems that busy schedules equal spending more money. While it may be easy to say "stop doing so much", it may not be so easy to do. In my near future, I see Brownie meetings, soccer practice, first grade homework, and who knows what else. It can be so easy to run through a drive-thru when you are hungry on the run than it is to eat good foods at home, or even make it to the grocery store for that matter.

One of the most-often referred to issues when it comes to saving money is reducing the time and money spent eating out at restaurants and fast food joints. But it's not just dining out that will get your wallet in a tizzy. By not adequately preparing to make meals at home, you can be blowing just as much money during weekly, or daily, trips to the grocery store.

Here is a simple tip for saving money and cutting down meal preparation time - both issues that often prevent families from eating at the dining room table. Pick a day of the week when your schedule is the least busy, even if it is a weekend or late evening. Plan to take an hour or two to do all of your cooking for a week or two in that time frame.Next, grab a cookbook or the internet and find some of your favorite recipes that would equal out to 1 or 2 weeks worth of meals. Start making a store list for all of the ingredients needed for each of the meals in duplicate, meaning if the recipe calls for a pound of ground meat, you will need to buy two.

It would be good to have recipes that call for similar ingredients to help keep your list to a minimum.Once your list is created, make sure you bookmark all of the cookbook pages you want to use and print out copies of each online recipe. Purchase a notebook that you can use exclusively for recopying or gluing in the new recipes you have chosen. At the bottom of each page, make a list of needed store ingredients in duplicate for easy reference next time you need to shop.Spend your chosen day and hour preparing the double meals. If you planned out meals for one week, you should end up with meals for two weeks.Until you get used to cooking this way, you can freeze all of the extra meals in freezable containers or freezer bags.

As you get more accustomed to the process, you can find other materials to store your food, such as recycled tv dinner trays or reusable separated plates or trays you can often find at the dollar store.Make sure you protect and wrap the food properly to prevent freezer burn and then label the package with the type of food it is and the date you made it to prevent confusion later. Also, if there are any reheating directions, add that on the package or create a special section in your recipe notebook for reheating tips.Next time you have to run out the door in a rush, stop by the freezer and take out a meal or two to thaw in the refrigerator.

Learn more about this author, JQ Adams.
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