It was 9:20 on a Thursday night in August when I pulled into the carport after a twelve-hour shift at the pharmacy. The only light on in the kitchen was the one over the stove, and Tyler was at the table eating cereal out of a mixing bowl. He said he didn't know what we had. We had plenty. None of it was dinner yet.
That was the third time that month. When the pharmacy is short, I work until 9 a couple of nights a week, and on those nights nobody wants to cook. Before, those nights went one of two ways: cereal, or a large pizza from Casey's for about $20 after tax. Two pizza nights a month is $40, and some months it was more.
So this month I started making freezer meals on a Sunday afternoon. I've done it twice now, and this is the batch I've settled on.
The six meals
| Meal | Makes | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken enchiladas, one 9x13 pan | 8 servings | $13.73 |
| Beef and bean burritos, wrapped one by one | 16 burritos | $15.36 |
| Chili, frozen flat in quart bags | 8 servings | $11.75 |
| Baked ziti with Italian sausage, foil pan | 8 servings | $10.93 |
| Honey garlic chicken thighs for the slow cooker | 6 servings | $7.24 |
| Sloppy joe meat | 8 sandwiches | $8.21 |
| Freezer bags and two foil pans | $4.50 | |
| Total | $71.72 |
Counting two burritos as a serving, that's 46 servings for $71.72, or about $1.56 a serving. Most of these feed us twice, and a few of them end up in Tyler's lunch cooler too.
Prices are from the Walmart in town and our monthly Aldi run in Columbia. The biggest savings came from buying one three-pound pack of ground beef at $5.49 a pound and splitting it between the burritos, the chili and the sloppy joes, instead of three one-pound packs at $5.98. That alone saved $1.47.
How the Sunday goes
It takes me about four hours, start to finish, and Tyler helps when he's not out mowing. I brown all three pounds of beef at once in our biggest skillet and split it three ways. While that cooks, chicken for the enchiladas simmers in a pot, the chili starts in the slow cooker and the ziti noodles boil. By the time the beef is divided up, I'm rolling enchiladas and burritos at the same counter, which is about as close to a cooking show as our kitchen gets.
The honey garlic chicken is the easiest one. Raw boneless thighs go into a gallon bag with honey, soy sauce, garlic and a little brown sugar, and the bag freezes flat. The night before a long shift, I move it to the fridge to thaw. In the morning it goes in the slow cooker on low before I leave, and it's ready when I get home. Tyler makes the rice. That's his whole job, and he's very good at it.
Everything gets labeled with a marker on masking tape: what it is, the date, and how to heat it. That way Tyler doesn't have to text me at the pharmacy, where I can't answer anyway.
How it's working
I've worked five long shifts so far this month. Four of those nights, a freezer meal was ready. The fifth, I forgot to move anything to the fridge to thaw, and Tyler made breakfast for dinner, which I'm counting as a backup plan and not a failure.
Compared with the old way, we're skipping about two Casey's pizzas a month, so roughly $40, and nobody is eating cereal out of a mixing bowl at 9:30 at night. The food itself comes out of our regular $600 grocery budget, since I'm buying the same ingredients I'd buy anyway, just all at once.
One batch lasts us about three weeks. Our freezer isn't big, so I freeze everything flat and stand the bags up like files in a drawer. The burritos go in one big bag on the door. When I can see the back wall of the freezer again, I know it's time for another Sunday.
