what's saving my life: the food edition

I spend a lot of time thinking about food. Not in a dangerous, mentally unhealthy way, but rather in a “six people who live in this house depend on me to make sure they have food at least three times a day” kind of way. Ever since we were newly married with a $200/month grocery budget, striking the balance between keeping everyone fed and spending as little as possible is the tightrope I have walked. We now have a house that includes me, my husband, a 15-year-old boy, a 13-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old boy. It is essentially four adults, two of whom are still growing, and two constantly hungry children.

There have been times when I have felt I was going to lose my mind because the burden of all the things that go into food has been overwhelming: planning meals, keeping track of what we’re out of, making a list, going to the store, packing lunches, thawing meat, etc. It’s a part-time job if you’re trying to do it in a way that doesn’t break the bank. Our grocery budget has increased sixfold since 2009, but I’m still here trying to strike that balance. Following the lazy genius principle of “Name What Matters,” what matters to me is frugality, nutritional density, and simplicity. With a lot of grace sprinkled on top.

The following things that have been saving my life may apply to exactly none of you, but maybe you will find something helpful. I set these ideas humbly before you.

Individual snack baskets

We have never been a totally junk-food free house. Our motto is, “Everything in moderation.” However, the bane of my existence as a mother has been the variety boxes of individual bags of chips. I am not necessarily opposed to them, and I actually like that there is some portion control built in. But with four children, a box of 18 bags of chips can evaporate in what feels like two days. And there is always someone complaining they never got to have one of the bags of Fun-yuns or that all they got was Cheetos (everyone’s least favorite option, but the one there is always the most of in every box).

After many years of fighting this battle, I decided to try something I’d heard about people doing over the years: the individual snack baskets. I got four aesthetically unpleasing baskets from Dollar Tree. I made a label of each kid’s name with my label maker. I put them in the pantry. Then, when I bought a big box of the chips, I had everyone join me and kind of like when picking teams for kickball, everyone got to take turns picking out a bag of chips until everyone had the same amount. This ensured no one had a disproportionate amount of Cheetos.

They’re allowed to trade once they have their chips, but not without asking—this occurred the very first week we tried this. Our 13-year-old swapped out something in his 4-year-old brother’s basket, thinking the 4-year-old wouldn’t remember what was in his basket. THIS WAS INCORRECT.

I refill the baskets once a week, whenever I go to the store. Another key component of this system is that you don’t have to ask to get something out of your snack basket. You may choose to eat all five of your bags of chips in one day, but that means there will be many days without chips in your future. I like to think of it as teaching them about resource management. I also put other things in the snack baskets, usually pre-packaged items like granola bars.

We’re about a month into this system, and I’m really happy with it. It’s been funny to see how different the kids are. One child is definitely a hoarder. Another one flies by the seat of their pants. But the key to it is that they are each managing their own snacks, and the only responsibility on me is to buy the snacks once a week and help them fill their baskets. Past that, the mental load is removed from my already-tired brain.

The same smoothie every morning

I don’t even measure; I have it down to a science. Four large frozen strawberries, fill the blender cup up halfway with liquid egg whites, two spoonfuls of chocolate collagen peptides, one spoonful of peanut butter powder, fill the blender cup the rest of the way up with almond milk (I get all these ingredients at Costco). Is it beautiful? It is not. But it fills me up and takes two minutes to make and I haven’t gotten tired of it after many months.

A breakfast formula for the kids

Here is the formula: carb/grain, protein, fruit. Trying to remove decision fatigue is key to me. On a school morning, my alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. and the next 2.5 hours are spent making sure everyone is up, fed, and at school.

The older boys fend for themselves at breakfast, but for the younger two, I stick with this basic formula. Today it was homemade whole wheat chocolate muffins, a scrambled egg, and strawberries. Some days the protein is sausage or turkey sausage; sometimes it’s bacon. The carb could be muffins, waffles, toast, or a granola bar. On the rare occasion that we have cereal, they have to have an egg with it. I got the encouragement to do this from Dr. Sheila Carroll, a brilliant woman who I had the honor of doing a free coaching call with. If you’re struggling with food issues with your kids, reach out to her!

Also, they don’t have to have just breakfast foods. Zoe (7) is currently really into grilled cheese for breakfast. I put some rolled up ham on the side and some fruit, and the formula is complete.

The monthly school lunch calendar review

Our kids get free lunch at school, so they have the option of eating that or bringing lunch from home. I truly don’t care which one they pick. One of my teens always does school lunch; the other always takes his lunch. They’re easy. But the younger two really love some school lunches and not the others. So in January I printed out the whole lunch calendar and put it in the kitchen, and then I went over it with them. They wrote their initials on the days they wanted school lunch. Now I can just look at the calendar to see if I need to pack lunches or not. Sometimes they change their minds throughout the month, which is fine—our only rule is that you cannot change your mind one minute before we are walking out the door. We have continued this into February and it’s working really well.

Batch prepping school lunches

Speaking of school lunches, since I can look at a week ahead of time and see how many lunches I’ll be packing, I have started batch prepping as much as possible on Sunday evenings. I will make a bunch of half sandwiches, or cut up a bunch of fruit, or whatever I can do in advance. One child wants the same thing every day: a chicken, rice, and cheese burrito. I make 5 of them on Sundays, and then each morning I heat one up and put it in a thermos. I don’t pack the whole lunch ahead of time, but this makes it so much easier in the morning to be able grab the lunchboxes and just start tossing things in.

What about you? What’s saving your life these days, food or otherwise? I love to hear from you!