We welcome Jamie to OAMM to share her freezer cooking testimony. Learn how she made time to cook with her sister despite her packed schedule as a full-time working mom.
Meet Jamie. She is a wife to Alan, mom to kindergartner Marissa and 2 year old “monther” Jacob, and works full-time (well, maybe a little more than full-time) as a Family and Consumer Sciences/4-H Youth Development Program Assistant for The Ohio State University Extension in Miami County, Ohio. She dishes out information focusing on family finances, parenting, nutrition, healthy living, etc. on her working blogs which are tied to the Ohio State University. She also blogs about trying to keep up with work, kids, home, and family life in general at her family blog.
As a huge fan of OAMM (and of Tricia!) I have noticed that many of you are a little skittish about beginning your once a month cooking journey because you feel you are just too busy, especially if you work outside the home. Work schedules, and now school schedules, can definitely make us feel as though our off-work schedules are nothing but “crunch-time” to get things done, whether it’s around the house, attending school activities, or just trying to get everyone to bed! I work full-time as well as part-time online in the evenings. Our family schedule is extremely tight and I was wondering how in the world participating in once a month cooking would help with this without using up my precious time. Was it really worth it?
I finally got the guts to call up my sister one day and ask her if she would cook an entire meal plan with me just to “try it out” to see if we could really save time on work-night evenings and even save a little money in the process. She agreed, and she LOVES to cook, much to my delight! You see, while my sister and I are very close, we really do not have all that much in common. Cooking has been the thing that has always brought us together, so I was thrilled that we would be in THIS together! Anyway, we went for it and survived our first big cooking day.
My sister works the night-shift in a sleep lab, and it was hard to get our schedules to mesh at first. So I decided to take vacation time in order to cook on a weekday. The day was not without frustration, tiredness, and sore feet, but we honestly had a blast spending time cooking together! After lugging all of my meals home that evening, I really had my doubts as to whether or not our efforts would be worth it or not.
But the time I saved each night was totally worth that one day of soreness and more!
Instead of spending 30 minutes to an hour each night after work preparing dinner I could just pop something into the oven or the microwave and spend the extra time with my family. And when you only have three hours to spend with your children each day before bedtime, an hour each day is an excellent reward, my friends! I have seen a dramatic difference in the temperament of my two-year-old son because of this extra time as well. He is not as clingy to me as he used to be and thus has actually started spending a lot more time with his father, something that he hesitated to do simply because he craved alone time with me so much.
Not only have I saved time in the evenings by not having to slave over the stove forever, my sister and I also found that we were saving roughly $250-300 per month by participating in once a month cooking! For a family that operates on a strict budget, this can make a huge difference.
Now, because I have two children that are slowly turning into finicky eaters, I have had a few issues with the kiddos wanting to even “touch” a few of the food items. But I think I have solved the issue by only picking recipes that will be “kid-friendly” for our family. I also keep past recipes that were a big hit with everyone’s tummies and plan to re-cook some of them when needed.
Believe me when I tell you that OAMC works for the working momma – it truly does!