When I went back to school a few years ago I had to redo many things and become organized. Meals had never been a problem prior to this as I worked only part-time and I do love to cook.

But my third term of college I was taking 18 credits, working over 30 hours a week, husband was working over 60 hours and then there were the kids to raise somewhere in all that mess. You can imagine how cooking meals went right? Take out became the staple. It was horrible. We spent too much money, I felt gross all the time from the high fat foods, and a cycle started.

It didn’t take long for me to start getting the weekends set aside and making up larger portions of some of our favorite recipes. We’d have one during the week and the rest would go into the freezer for another week. After a few weeks of this it became habit and a routine.

Now the whole family helps with the cooking. Since the meals are prepared ahead, both my kids can cook dinner easily if we get home late. It’s become a family event to cook ahead and has made meal time much simpler.