The Coach and I are both teachers in a traditional schedule school system. That means that this time of year is CRAZY! The coach is finishing up lacrosse season while we are both getting the school year wrapped up. Some days it is so busy I barely know my own name. That is reason #1 why I haven’t posted in a looooooooonnnnggg time. Reason #2 is because when we came back from our honeymoon to Jamaica over Spring Break (OMG…I want to go back there and stay forever…), we figured it was way past time to get our finances in order.

We knew without even looking at a break down of the monthly expenses that we ate way too many meals out a month. We both love to cook and are pretty good at it, but we just have so little time. Since The Coach is a fall and a spring sport coach, there are maybe 20 days out of the whole school year that he is actually home before 5:00. Most nights he gets home between 5:00 and 8:00. Unless it’s a Friday night in the fall. Let’s not even talk about what time he gets home then. Since we don’t have any children of our own (yet), I am usually at school until around 4:00 or 5:00 myself. Once we are both home, we are usually too exhausted and/or lazy (let’s call a spade a spade…we are all friends here) to fix a full meal from scratch. Consequence? Too much money spent on unnecessary meals out. We were spending hundreds of dollars on food a month for just the two of us. Ridiculous.

Pinterest to the rescue! In scrolling through the Food & Drink section on Pinterest, I stumbled across a Pin that claimed “40 freezer meals for about $5 each.” It was two friends who got together every so often and spent about 4 hours putting freezer meals together. The site is here. I quickly scanned through the site and thought, “This is genius! Why haven’t I been doing this before now?”

I searched Pinterest and found many other websites that have great ideas for freezer meals. What followed was a pretty labor-intensive Saturday and Sunday as The Coach and I prepped and cooked 14 meals for the freezer. This has changed our lives. We spend so much less on groceries and food a month and are able to eat home-cooked meals much more often than we did before. If you have a hectic schedule or are looking for a way to reduce your monthly finances, you really need to start making meals and freezing them!

We are now finishing up our 2nd full month of freezer meals. In the coming days, I will be posting the recipes that we used in the first two months. Next month, I will be posting the recipes and the total cost of all our meals. Stay tuned!

If you are interested in checking out some of the websites I used to get some ideas while you are waiting for me to compile all the recipes, Check out my Freezer Meals board or May Freezer Meals board (for individual recipes) on Pinterest.