Why Meal Prep and the Essentials

Welcome to the Meal Prep section. Before we get into actual recipes, let's cover two things: why meal prepping is worth your time, and the small set of tools that make it easy. Get these down and the rest is just cooking.

Why Meal Prep?

Meal prepping does two big things for your budget. First, it keeps your grocery spending in check. Second — and this is the one that really matters — it kills the urge to "just pick up something to eat."

Eating out is brutal on a budget these days. My wife and I can spend $25 at Arby's for a single meal. Think about that: $25 could cover almost seven nights of dinner if we'd cooked at home instead.

When our meals are already prepped and frozen — ready to thaw and reheat — that urge to grab takeout mostly disappears. There's no nightly "what's for dinner?" scramble, because dinner's already handled. It's been a genuine game changer for us. Inflation has driven the cost of food way up, but we still stay inside our budget. We just eat out less.

And here's the part that ties this whole section to the money lessons: every $25 takeout night you skip is $25 that can go toward Future You. That's the same compounding idea we talk about everywhere else on this site — small choices, made over and over, that quietly stack up into something big. We're just applying it to dinner.

The Essentials

You don't need a fancy kitchen to make this work. Here's the short list of what we actually use. Buy what fits your family and your space — none of this is mandatory.

Heads up: some of the links below are affiliate links — if you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. We only point you to gear we actually use.

1. Meal prep containers (to store and freeze). You'll want a good stack of containers you can fill, freeze, and reheat. These are our favorites — the seal around the lids doesn't peel off in the dishwasher, which is maddening on cheaper ones. We ordered three packs so we can make a bunch of meals in one go. We went with glass because they're reusable and we don't have to deal with the staining you get with plastic Tupperware — but get whatever works for you.

2. A slow cooker. This is the workhorse. We use the Ninja 14-in-1 PossibleCooker Pro, but you absolutely don't need to spend that much. A 10-quart Hamilton Beach slow cooker saves you money and is actually a touch bigger. The size is the point — a big cooker lets you make several meals at once and combine everything right in the pot.

3. A blender. We use a Ninja blender, but any large blender will do. Same rule as the slow cooker: size is what matters most.

4. A large stovetop pot. A big pot lets you boil 2–3 boxes of pasta at once — which makes prepping big-batch pasta meals quick and painless.

5. A small food scale. This is how you portion meals straight into your glass containers — set the container on top, zero it out, and weigh each serving exactly. Here's the one we use.

6. A large food scale. For weighing a whole pot of food at once, so you can divide it evenly across your containers — total ounces ÷ number of meals gives you the exact amount per dish. A bigger scale handles heavy pots a small one can't.

That's the foundation. With these on hand, you're ready for everything we'll cook in this section. Recipes are coming — let's start filling those containers.

Want the recipes? Members unlock every dish in the Meal Prep section — the freezer-friendly, high-protein, dirt-cheap-per-serving batches we actually eat — plus the full 52-week library of money, work, and life lessons, all for $1 a month. If you're new, the Read Me is the best place to see how it all fits together.