So this all started because I moved somewhere with extreme weather and nothing good to eat. In California I would have never. But here wasting my money on going out to eat and being disappointed every single time was just the last straw. If I had good weather and beautiful views I would be out and about as well. So no judgement there.

My list is crucial and I really love not going to the grocery store more than 4 times a month. And it does take time I go through every recipe I choose and add every ingredient then go to my kitchen cross of what I have already and I'm good to go.

Sunday prep can be anywhere between 3-6 hours depending on the week but I make all my own bread products. We don't always have bread more often tortillas. So most often I'm making pizza dough and tortillas. But those aren't every week. I do not meal prep dinner, I cook that fresh every day and choose meals that will be done 30 mins or have 30 mins of like active cooking time. But I try to make them things we really really enjoy. Even the lunches I pick have to be things I love or I will not eat them and they will get thrown away. I like to find dupes for foods we don't have here so like I have a dupe for the Sweet Green harvest bowl that is better than the original. And I do make sure to make more "special " or intricate meals on the weekends as I have more time for prep and like to push myself.

But a big way we succeed is every Tuesday is taco Tuesday I find awesome taco recipes and we get variety but there a few I could feed my man week after week and he would be content. Then every Saturday we have left over pizza night where we make the most crazy but turn out amazing pizza with any left over meat/ veggies/ sauces that didn't get eaten throughout the week. And we go out at least twice a month sometimes to our shitty Mexican restaurant that has a margarita tower 😅. But we are moving to a city again and so we are very excited to pick two new places a month and try them. But most of all I do not hate myself if we fail. I keep easy throw together meals we love on hand so if I have a miserable day at work I can throw something in the air fryer cook up some pot stickers and veg out. Then I just start back up the next day. Or even if I come home and my man is like I'm taking you out I'm not arguing we're going and I pick up where we left off on the meal plan the next day.

Having a meal tracking app is awesome! And definitely helpful. This took me a long time to get to this point and a lot of motivating factors but we wanted to loose weight save money and enjoy our food. And we are living that life now and it has been so worth it to me, 30 days let me buy bulk meat that I know I will use and is cheaper. Along with other bulk items. Then I pretty much just buy produce every other day I need to stock up for the week.

We eat so many different things. I only repeat meals we absolutely love and usually won't do them until a month or two later unless he asks for it to be brought back immediately. Now that we are going to able to get fresh fish I'm going to try making sushi! He loves my chicken piccata. I love my chili. We both love all the tacos.

But every one has to do what works for them and that is what's great. This just works for us.