Freezer Cooking: How It Helps With More Than Just Your Budget!
This week I have a special guest, Megan and she’s speaking on the topic: Freezer Cooking and how it helps more than just your budget!
Show Notes:
*special thanks and credit to
Rich Willey -Doulos Transcription Services
Transforming the spoken word into the printed word ,www.doulostranscription.com
Kathleen Guire: Hi, Kathleen Guire here. Welcome to this episode of Trauma-Informed Parenting. Today I have a special guest, Megan Elaine, who calls herself just a mom, but she’s so much more than that. She is from Frugal Made Simple. Now this is in a series that I’ve been doing on practical tips, or habits, that you can use in your home just to make your day more peaceful. Because of that, Megan has agreed to talk to us about freezer cooking and how it helps with more than your budget. Welcome, Megan.
Megan Elaine: Thank you, Kathleen, and thanks for having me on.
Kathleen: Oh, you’re welcome. I’m so glad you got to come on.
Megan: Yes, it’s very exciting. So I am just a mom, and I have five kids. One of those kids has a capital-letter syndrome. For years and years, prior to getting connected with the right professionals and getting the help that our child and our family needed, things were pretty difficult.
It felt like I couldn’t cook meals because I was constantly intervening and trying to manage meltdowns. I couldn’t load kids up in the car to go get fast food because that just resulted in fighting, meltdowns, and even unsafe behavior in the car. So it was more difficult to manage even just a simple fast-food dinner on the days that I couldn’t get dinner on the table.
It felt like our routines were non-existent. I was exhausted and, honestly, felt like I was failing at just about everything in life at that point in time. After a really long road…it felt long, but looking back it wasn’t as long as it felt like at the time…I finally found a routine for myself that ended up helping to get my whole family on a routine. It was more than just that. It was a way for me to get dinner on the table on time, which lead to me getting kids to bed on time and even getting to spend some quality time with them that wasn’t stressful and chaotic on my part.
So most of all this was the one routine that I figured out how to put into place that let me feel successful on those really, really difficult days. Like, no matter how difficult that day was at least I fed my family a nutritious meal, it was on the table on time, and we could get our night done.
Kathleen: And that is exactly why I wanted to do this series, because I think that often when you have a child who has a trauma history or a capital-letter syndrome things are chaotic in the home, especially pre-diagnosis or even right after the diagnosis when you’re trying to figure all of these things out. Everything else just slides off the table.
Read the rest of the Show Notes Here!
Here are some personal notes from Megan:
MY STORY:
I have a Child with capital letter syndrome. For YEARS prior to connecting with the right professionals and getting a diagnosis, things were so difficult. I couldn’t cook meals because I was constantly intervening and trying to manage meltdowns.
I couldn’t load up in the car to go get fast food because that just resulted in fighting, meltdowns and even unsafe behavior in the car. I felt like routines were non-existent.
I was exhausted and I felt like my life was in constant chaos.
After a LONG road, I finally found a routine for myself that helped get my family on a routine–it was a way to get food on the table on time, which led to getting kids to bed on time, and even getting to spend some quality family time together. Most of all, it was one routine I learned to manage that allowed me to feel successful again. I went from feeling like I couldn’t accomplish anything, to feeling like even on the hardest days at least I could get a nutritious meal on the table for my family.
WHY SHARE THIS:
Because parents of children in crisis are feeling all these things as well. Some days and weeks can feel like one long bout of chaos. And often parents in this situation feel alone, isolated, and not sure where to go or what to do to change things. And I want to help parents to know they aren’t alone in the struggle and feeling, and provide a practical tip I used that might help them as well.
3 THINGS TO TAKE AWAY:
1- It’s possible to find the time to make it work.
2- It’s worth it to carve out the time because it gives you that bit of “success” feeling in the day when you can get dinner on the table on time regardless of how the day has gone, and can make your days a bit easier as well.
3- Head to my website, frugalmadesimple.com for more tips and tricks to get started. Including how to carve out the time when your home is in chaos!
I know maybe you’re thinking that this sounds like too much work. And I’ll be honest: the first time you try it, it really might feel like a lot of work. But I promise that if you give it a try, you’ll see the benefit! Because after that first bit of hard work, you won’t have to worry about getting dinner on the table during meltdowns. At lunchtime, you’ll pull a bag from the freezer and pop it in the crockpot. So whether the day is good or difficult, dinner will still be ready on time. And clean up from dinner is a breeze too!
Remember: You don’t have to plan elaborate dinners to freezer cook! Hot dogs, taco meat, and Crack Chicken all freeze really well!
ONE PIECE OF ADVICE:
This is a piece of advice I wish someone had given to me during that time:
Give yourself grace!
This is a trying time, so if you need to buy paper plates to reduce dishes, or buy prepackaged snacks and freezer cook dinners so you don’t have to cook every day, give yourself the grace to do those things. If you need to put on a movie or two so that you can freeze meals for two weeks, then give yourself the grace to do that!
WHERE TO FIND ME AND RESOURCES AVAILABLE: Frugalmadesimple.com has blog posts and resources explaining the process of freezer cooking. I have freezer cooking planners and resources that will soon be available in my Etsy Shop as well.