Meal prep life balance?

How do other people feed their family healthy options, on a budet and dont kill them selves doing it? I've been meal prepping on Sundays, and it's brutal. It usually takes 4-5 hours, and I'm totally exhausted at the end. I feel like I need to in order for the week to go by smoother, but Sundays destroys me. For context, my husband and I both work full time and our 2 year old goes to daycare. The toddler has a food allergy, so I have to pack her breakfast, lunch and snack for shool. I also make my husband lunch because if I didnt he just wouldn't eat and I meal prep my work lunch because same and my work day is just too busy these days. Sundays I usually prep for 3 large meals that we can eat throughout the week.

There's still 10-15 min each night to throw the rest of the dinner together. If I dont meal prep, the mornings are insane, im just exhausted meal prepping, and I feel prepping, planning and cooking is all i do. We eat mainly organic and try not to eat alot of processed foods. Like I know I'm doing too much but I want myself and my family to be healthy. Also we are spending $200-$300 week on groceries. Is that normal this all feels insane but I dont know any different. How do other people feed their families?

Im greatful I can feed my family and we work really hard to be able to afford this budget. Just looking for tips and to hear what other moms do?

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Hey 👋🏽 dealing with meal prepping can be overwhelming. What I tend to do is to meal prep but freeze per portion and take it out the day before so it just need re heating and I don’t have to cook for like 2 weeks!
Ps : we are a family of 2 adults and 2 kids.

I've been getting Stocked meals and they've super helped when we've been in a pinch. If you're UK based, they even got specific kids meals. Not break the bank either.

We meal prep on the weekends as well but try to break up all the steps and I take some “shortcuts” where I can. Our meals are fairly simple, a protein, a starch, a veggie. I’ll use frozen veggies to avoid too much chopping prep or bagged broccoli slaw if we’re making an Asian inspired meal. We also eat the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner all 5 days of the week but that doesn’t bother us! I think it’s really a matter of deciding what short cuts you’re willing to make to save you time. We also grocery shop Saturday and try to prep 1 meal on Saturday and the other 2 Sunday and we split the cooking so it doesn’t feel like a massively daunting task

I stole this meal plan from someone online but basically we eat the same meal on the day day every week week after week. So spaghetti on Mondays tacos on Tuesdays hotdish on Wednesday. We eat that every week until we get sick of a meal and we sub in a new meal. Im stay at home so the prep demand is different for me but what I found with this is shopping ends up being cheap and faster you can often buy it more in bulk. At first it seemed like we would get sick of it really fast but we have alway eaten pizza on friday and never gotten sick of it. The trick is little to no leftovers so you dont spend a whole week finish a meal. But doing something like that its easier to buy in bulk and prep it all once a month. Another option is to just start prep double or triple batches od something for the freezer. Its fast and easier then making 30 different meals.

I dont meal prep. Breakfast is always steel cut oats with nut butter, flaxseeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds and fruit. Its super low effort and filling. Lunch is always leftovers. Dinner i make fresh daily and usually takes 30-45 minutes. We do spend about 200-300 per week on groceries but much less in the summer months with our garden and CSA. When i cook dinners that i know would freeze well, i double the recipe and freeze half. That builds a stash for busy days. I also keep healthy muffins and energy bites in the freezer for quick snacks

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Was this really an accident or was it on purpose?

My husband 'accidentally' binned and washed my sourdough starter. I can't believe it was an accident because its nearly a year old, it has literally been sitting in our kitchen for a year! He says I left it near the sink so he just assumed it was to get washed out. I had just baked this morning and had left it near the sink, but not at the sink if that makes sense. We have a designated area that dishes usually get left before they get cleaned and it was nowhere near there.
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