Convenience Meals the Frugal Way

You know what I’m talking about.  It happens after a really busy day when you’re driving home. You’re tired, the kids are hungry and you think to yourself-“I have nothing quick to cook.” What you need is a little convenience.

So directly after this thought, you will then either pick up some fast food, go out to a restaurant or take the dreaded “Quick Trip” to the grocery store.  

Insert doom music here, picture your empty wallet, and you’ll want to read more…

We’ve all taken the “Quick Trip”-and it seems impossible to avoid, but really all you need is a plan.

Let’s just call it Operation Convenience.

OPERATION CONVENIENCE

1) Write down four “quick” meals your family likes.  You’ll want to diversify this list for maximum versatility, which I will explain in further detail later.

        

2) Add the ingredients for those meals to your shopping list.

3) Keep a restaurant/fast food coupon stash in your car.

4) Keep a short list of affordable pizza delivery deals.  This is a last resort, but is helpful when it is your only option.

Start working on this now, so when the “Quick Trip” of doom looms over you, you will be prepared.

There will be those days when you can make it home for dinner, yet you’ll be pressed for time and energy and then there will be those days when cooking at home is just not an option.  I’ve outlined strategies for each scenario, so that you will be prepared for anything.  Let’s call the scenarios Plan A and Plan B, solely due to intentional lack of creativity on my part in the “Plan name” department.

Plan A: Prepare a Convenience Menu

(For the days when you can be home for dinner)

Make a list of  “quick” meals.  A diversified list is best, because you can choose the preparation method that is most applicable to your situation at the time.

You’ll want to write down the convenience menu plan and keep it some place handy so the designated chef of the day can put the meals together in a hurry.

Suggested meal types:

• The Make-Ahead Meal -one you can make ahead and freeze

•          The Pantry Meal -one you can prepare quickly with ingredients on hand in your pantry

•          The Out of the Box meal -a quick “convenience” meal from the freezer case at the grocery store

•          The Lazy Meal –a crock pot meal

Strategy: Add the ingredients for these meals to your shopping list and make plans to shop on a day when you have a little time to follow your trip with meal preparation.  If you anticipate a “quick trip” between now and then, refer to the pizza option in part four of Operation Convenience.

  
Guidelines:

• When you return home on shopping day, you will place the frozen “Out of the Box” meal in the freezer, and begin to prepare the make-ahead meal that will be frozen for later.

• The Pantry Meal: One of my favorite go-to meals for the pantry meal is pasta and canned pasta sauce, it’s quick and easy and despite rumors, humans can in fact survive without meat at every meal.  It’s been proven. 

• The Crock Pot Meal: Best created using a type of meat you normally keep a good stock of in your freezer and ad-lib from there.  You know, protein, vegetable, liquid.  The starch can be included in the beginning or end depending on your recipe choice.  The idea is to choose a recipe that includes three or four ingredients-tops.  The crock pot meal is best implemented when you know you have a particularly busy day ahead-you can get it going the night before or the morning of and you are home-free.

Plan B: Choose Restaurant Fare

(For those times you can’t get home in time for dinner)

You will implement part three of Operation Convenience: the restaurant/fast food coupon stash.  You are on the road in your car-so what better place to keep your restaurant coupon stash?  

If you keep your stash updated, you will know what you have and then it will be easy to choose where you stop to get dinner.  It is nice to know that you are prepared to get a good deal even in a rush.

Creating the stash: You can find these coupons along with the coupons in the Sunday paper, in home-mailer advertisements-either single ads or in a packet such as the Valpak or the Super Savings packet. You can buy discount restaurant deals from group buying sites such as Groupon, Seize the Deal or Bargain Bee and add those to your stash.  Just print the vouchers, fold them and keep them in an envelope in your glove box or console. It is also helpful to keep a list of budget-friendly weekly specials available at restaurants near you.  For example, a local eatery offers $2.50 fish tacos on Tuesdays so that is on my permanent list of restaurant weekly specials.

As a last resort, you can employ the pizza delivery option-but I must warn you, this is an especially dangerous choice if you have teenagers, because they will request pizza daily.  To remedy this, have them pay for the pizza out of their allowance.  They will quickly become impressively more frugal than you.

Come to think of it, during football season, the pizza option becomes over-used as well, not by teenagers-but by the man of the house.  This is also easily remedied-you must simply explain that the cable bill is inversely proportionate to the total pizza bill for the month and must remain that way for life as he knows it to remain in balance.  The result? He will immediately go outside to fire up the grill.

So you see, with a little preparation, negotiation skills and a plan like Operation Convenience-you can avoid the “Quick Trip” to the grocery store and thereby your financial world maintains its Zen.