Have you jumped on the freezer meal bandwagon yet? If not now is definitely the time to do it! When you are trying to organize your life and home, Organizing Your Freezer Meals will help tremendously. Not only will you be able to utilize your organized menu plans better, you’ll be organizing your time too. Freezer meals take up much less time to prepare, and offer flexibility in what you have each day when you are in a hurry.
Organizing Your Freezer Meals
Shop For All Ingredients At One Time: Write out your menu list, then break down each meal by ingredients. Make your grocery list from that list to include everything you will need. Go through our pantry and freezer to see what you already have on hand. Buy only what you need to prepare these freezer meals for your family. When you get home, get started as soon as possible preparing everything.
Prep Everything Once Per Month: Pick one day per month to prepare all of your freezer meals. Prepping everything will save on time, money and frustration. If you can gather a friend or two who want to help, that makes it even easier. Start by prepping all vegetables first, then meats, then assembling into storage containers as needed for freezing. We recommend using heavy duty freezer bags and double bagging. Raw ingredients into bag – then simply thaw overnight in your refrigerator and toss into Crockpot to cook the next day.
Label Well: This is the most important thing to remember. Label all of your prepped freezer meals with the meal name, date made and date to use it by. Typically 3-4 months is my rule of thumb. While some foods may be safe longer than that, the flavors tend to change the longer they are in the freezer. Using a vacuum food storage system can lengthen their shelf life.
Sort Similar Meals Together: I like to use the simple freezer storage bins to store things like all chicken meals together, all soups or stews together and of course all beef or vegetarian meals together. It is simple to sort your freezer meals into categories that make it easier to choose from each day.
Getting organized at home includes looking at daily tasks like meal prep. Utilizing menu plans and organizing your freezer meals will help you stay on track not only with family time each evening ,but your grocery budget. The lack of wasted money on groceries will help you to stay on top of saving for the future, or paying off debt.
{52 Weeks to a More Organized Home/Life}
If you have any of the hoarding tendencies we describe in this post, you may want to work on getting organized for the New Year. Getting organized and staying organized always seem to be on my list of New Year’s Resolutions. Would you like to join me in getting organized for 2015? Each week we will tackle one area of the home to help you get organized, reclaim your sanity, and save money since disorganization can lead to spending more or missing out on discounts.
Are you interested in actually getting organized for 2015? We have worked extensively on a series to help you get organized in 52 weeks. If you would like to receive these emails about how to get your home organized in 52 weeks, you can sign up to receive just ONE email per week. You can sign up at any time during the year without missing a beat.
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