I love cooking. But my meals face two huge obstacles.

1. I spend 2 hours driving to and from work each day, and sometimes I hit up the gym for an hour on my way home as well. This cuts into my time like CRAZY!

2. My boyfriend is often on shift work at night, so when I make dinners I need to make dinners that reheat decently, and I always try to make leftovers so that he has something he can take to work the next day as well.

What this has forced me to do is really analyze what it is I'm doing. I will typically write out about 2 weeks worth of meal ideas for dinner (breakfast and lunch are typically 'fend for yourself' kind of thing at our place, haha). Then I'll take that list and break it down, analyze the ingredients and figure out what I can make back-to-back to use my time and ingredients the best way possible.

For instance:

Chicken Stir Fry one night (Veggies, chicken and rice)
Tacos the next night (Veggies, chicken, tortillas)
Taco pizzas the next night (Veggies, beef, tortillas)
Meat pasta (Beef, veggies for salad, pasta sauce)
Stuffed shells (Pasta sauce, salad, shrimp, spiniach)
Ham & Spiniach quiche (Shrimp, ham, spiniach)

.... Each meal tends to share a common ingredient, so I'm only prepping or cooking something once. Typically because I'll make more at one time, I can buy in bulk, and use leftovers in meals the following day or make extra dinner that we can portion for lunches.

A great idea is to find simple recipes that you enjoy, and price them out! See what it takes to go into it. Then keep a master list of what each meal costs to make. If you're having a bad week, then go by your cheapest meals!

My favorite and cheapest is:
1 lb of lean ground beef ($6-8)
1 chopped onion ($0.25)
seasonings such as parsley, salt, pepper, soy sauce, a touch of hot sauce, etc
2 cups of uncooked elbow maccaroni (under $2)
2 cans of Cambells Tomato soup ($3)

Cook the beef, onion and seasonings together. Drain off excess grease. Add the two cans of cambells tomato soup. Keep on heat until it's thoroughly warmed up. Don't burn it, haha. At the same time, cook the pasta in it's own pot. Once it's all done and drained, combine the two and toss to coat.

Serve this with some veggies or a salad and you're good.

This serves my boyfriend for two helpings at supper, one helping for me, and enough for us to both take lunch the following day. So about $3 per serving?

Stuff like that is pretty quick and easy to throw together. Just take notes! Even if it feels like you don't have time. I write down dinner ideas while I"m at work on post-its, haha. Go home, go through some recipe books, tweak things and make myself a master 'Go To' list for meal ideas.

Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier for sure.

And don't worry about getting it 100% right every time. Some weeks ARE going to be more expensive for food. So do the best you can, but don't feel bad about yourself if you can't make the goal every time. Food is a very hard thing to budget.