Join Wendy as she chats with Brittany Cooper, founder of One Unified Home, about how to take the stress out of meal planning and set dinnertime on autopilot.
Brittany shares her journey to creating Eat Together Meal Planner, a game-changing app designed to simplify family meals and bring more harmony into your home. Together, she and Wendy break down practical, easy-to-implement strategies to make meal planning effortless—like evaluating your weekly schedule, using timers to streamline prep, and keeping things simple with just five dinners a week (yes, really!).
If you’re ready to ditch the mealtime chaos and make dinner something you actually look forward to, this episode is for you! Tune in for simple, stress-free solutions that fit any busy family’s routine.
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Episode Highlights:
- Evaluating Schedules: Understand the importance of evaluating your family’s weekly schedule for better planning.
- Setting Timers: Utilize alarms as reminders for meal planning, preparation, and cooking, to maintain consistent eating habits.
- Simplifying Meal Prep: Limit meal planning to five dinners a week to ease the cooking burden and reduce wasted food.
- Pantry Night: Adopt the concept of a pantry night or leftover buffet to save time and encourage children’s independence.
- Customizing Meals: Discover how the Eat Together Meal Planner app can tailor meal planning to fit dietary preferences and family schedules.
Resources Mentioned:
Follow Brittany on Instagram and use her link in bio for all her latest offerings!
Catch the full episode on YouTube!
Unable to listen, or prefer to read along? Here’s the transcript!
0:00:03 – (Wendy): Well, hey there, listeners, and welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I’m excited to be here today with Ms. Brittany Cooper from One Unified Home. And we are going to be talking about the easiest way to set what’s for dinner on autopilot and bring more peace into our homes. Oh, I need this so bad. Brittany, welcome to the show.
0:00:25 – (Brittany): Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to chat with you.
0:00:29 – (Wendy): Yes, I love it. You had reached out just to make a connection, and we actually live somewhat locally. And so I just, like, loved your energy right from the start. And we actually were like, let’s get together and go for a hike or a walk or something. And we haven’t done that yet. But I have been admiring your work and really wanting to learn more. So I am just taking listeners along with me today because this is one area that I know is such an effective way to bring more peace into the home and one that I am not tapping into right now. I have had times where I’ve tried over the years, and I just feel like I’ve failed. I had a mentor, like, literally, like, sit down and pour so much into me about meal planning and grocery shopping and budgeting, and I was just like one in one, in one ear and out the other.
0:01:19 – (Wendy): And so dinner time, I know, can be such a drama time. Like it is the witching hour for so many families, especially when you have young kids. And I just can’t wait to hear all that you’re going to teach us today, Brittany. So tell us a little bit, though, about your story, why you founded One Unified Home and why you are so passionate about pouring into families in this capacity. Please.
0:01:45 – (Brittany): Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I. We’re totally on the same page. Families are just so important, and I feel like there’s so many things that are pulling and fighting against the family. You know, there’s just so many things in the world and the chaos and just being busy, too, just like, pulls against us. And there’s some things that, like, we just have to. It’s just a part of life, right? And so one unified Home. What we’re trying really hard to do is just to help create those autopilot systems inside the home.
0:02:15 – (Brittany): So that way, all of the, like, mundane things, like feeding our family, you have to do it every single day. Like, there’s no way around it. You have to feed your family and all of those different things, cleaning, whatever, all the mundane, every single day, we have to get these things done and just figuring out different systems so that way it’s like, okay, almost like a no brainer, like you’re just working through it, get that done, get it out of the way so that way you can focus like your time, even focus your money that you’re saving on the things that you have fun doing as a family, spending that time together, the money, the time saved on like trips together as a family. Because that’s where you build those connections, that’s where you build those memories.
0:02:57 – (Brittany): And so that’s really what we’re trying to do, is shift all of our energy and focus towards the like awesome fun parts of our life. So that’s what we have with one unified home. And the meal planning thing came into our existence because several years ago, like I think it was 2016, our family was trying to get out of debt. And so what got us started with meal planning, I was like, okay, I know that I can save money on food because you’re spending over $1,000 a month on food. And it was just me and my hubby and then like three little, little kids. So they weren’t even eating that much.
0:03:33 – (Brittany): We’re spending over $1,000 on food. And then I would slowly start learning about meal planning and being more intentional with like our food spread spending. And then we’re able to get it from a thousand dollars down to $400. And so then we’re like, whoa, okay, that’s a huge savings. So we use that money to pay off our debt. We use that money to go on our first couples trip ever. We went to Costa Rica. It was amazing.
0:03:59 – (Brittany): And then we use that money to save and pay for a down payment on our first house that we’ve ever had together. So it really. So not only does it save you that time and that stress, but that’s how I got into meal planning. And then once I am like, okay, this is awesome. A byproduct of it was as our kids have gotten older, because now our kids, we have three kids, 8, 10, 12, and we’re starting to get into that. Like, even it’s a different busy right there. All the seasons have different busy.
0:04:31 – (Brittany): So now we have the sports and things are just. Everyone’s moving in a million directions. And so a byproduct of yes, we save tons of money, but also we’ve learned that it just creates opportunities for us to like calm down for. Even if it’s just 30 minutes in between or after all of the evening stuff, the hangry hour help us connect more at dinner time. So that’s where it got started.
0:04:57 – (Wendy): I love it. And now you have an app, which I know we’re going to learn all about too because again, I’m sure that is so effective. So let’s kick off a conversation when it comes to the easiest way to set what’s for dinner on autopilot and bring more peace into our home. Number one of your takeaway is to evaluate the family schedule for the week. Do you do this on Sunday? Like that’s probably the goal, right?
0:05:21 – (Brittany): Yeah. And what I’ve. Okay, so what we want to do is evaluate our schedules and what that means is look at everyone’s schedule. So as we have older kids, they have their own schedules of all the different things that they have to do. We have work schedules, maybe volunteer with like church or your kids, sports or whatever. All that plays into the dinner time. Because if you’re not paying attention, then all of a sudden everybody’s starving and it’s like, whatever, let’s just get the drive thru. Which, hello, I am totally okay with doing eat out like, like every once in a while.
0:05:55 – (Brittany): But we all get tired of it. It’s a ton of money. It actually does end up taking a lot of time, sometimes more time than a quick easy dinner. So looking through your schedule and figuring out you don’t need to know, okay, Tuesday we’re eating dinner at 5:30, Wednesday we’re eating dinner at 8. But if you have like a ballpark, like, okay, here’s our windows for each day. Get that figured out and get it worked into everybody’s schedules. Working together because, oh, having that time together as a family to just like pause.
0:06:27 – (Brittany): You don’t need more than 30 minutes. If you can find those recipes that are like super easy, cooked together within 10, 15 minutes. For those like super busy days where you’re like, I don’t have time you. We probably can figure out 30 minutes to pause as a family. Right?
0:06:43 – (Wendy): So and you’re talking about eating right, pause as a family to eat or meal prep and cook together.
0:06:49 – (Brittany): I think you can totally do it all together. So 30 minutes minimum. Yeah, a 30 minute minimum. But also it could be your max. Like you can get it done, you can get food prepped, you can get food on the table and you can finish eating within a 30 minute window if you really needed to. Obviously we don’t want to be rushing and like scarfing down food every single of the day. Every single day of the week. But yeah. So for our family, sitting down and planning that, what we found has worked is it changes on which day. So Sundays Typically are like our goal. And we even have a calendar item in our shared, my husband and I in our shared calendar on Sundays that reminds us to we call our family meeting and so we’ll talk with the kids. Okay, what do we have going on?
0:07:41 – (Brittany): What’s most important to you? There’s a little bit more in depth than just meal planning, but that’s part of it. And then, then it, then we move from the family to just hubby and I. It sounds like a process, but I mean this is like we’re talking like a 10 minute conversation. It’s not that much. So Sundays work. Sometimes Sundays can be really busy for us too. So you just have to like find that day that works best for you. Because sometimes that might be.
0:08:09 – (Brittany): For me, it’s either Friday, Saturday or Sunday because sometimes Fridays can be more low key and I’ll even do like a grocery pickup order on Friday instead of a Monday. And it’s that like, I think where people get stuck with meal planning because I think a lot of people recognize that it’s a benefit, like, oh, I need this. And it works for a little bit of time. And then a season of life changes or sports change or school performances change, change our schedules.
0:08:37 – (Brittany): But we have to keep it kind of like fluid so that way we can stick with it because like, okay, perfect example would be like summer kids are starting to get out of, out of school and now they’re home. But maybe we’re at the beach and I’m not home at our normal time. So like just keeping things like fluid and looking at your schedule will really help you pinpoint how much time do we have for dinner on which days.
0:09:07 – (Brittany): And then from there we can move into the next step which, you know, we can start talking about like different strategies to make sure that we are getting like a somewhat nutritious dinner time together as a family.
0:09:22 – (Wendy): Got it. Okay, so that makes sense. I’m thinking of our own dynamic here and just getting ahead of it and knowing what to expect. And if we’re going to do to go one night, then do it because we intentionally planned it, not because we’re like, oh my gosh, we’re exhausted and we didn’t plan anything or dethaw the chicken or whatever it may be.
0:09:40 – (Brittany): Yes.
0:09:41 – (Wendy): Yeah, I can’t wait to hear. I’m excited to learn more because my, my hang up has always been, I’ve wanted really, I really have wanted the system. Like I have so much in my business that’s system systemized, but not so much in my family. Life where like I, I’ve tried so many things over the years where it’s like. So right now I’m currently. I do a lot of times I’ll do groceries. We have, we’re lucky here in San Diego. We have so much like grocery stores around. I have so many options. Right.
0:10:07 – (Wendy): But like Walmart actually has been something lately. I swore I would never do this, but then I’m like, actually they have all the organic produce that I want. And so. But I tried for a while to make like week one, week two, week three, week four, and then literally like have it duplicate like the next week it would be this and it would just be an automatic pickup. I know exactly. But it. Did it work? Brittany didn’t work. Like, so yeah, I’ve just had hang up. So. But I like, I like the idea of this being the starting point.
0:10:37 – (Wendy): Just at least knowing, okay, what does our schedule look like? How much time do we have? And knowing that that’ll be a good starting point to put the simple like spaghetti and sauce and bread and salad on the nights when we don’t have that much time.
0:10:51 – (Brittany): Yeah. And you know, so maybe because I am like, I am a hardcore planner, like meal planning nerd to the max or just planning in general to the max. If I can plan it, I want to. But one thing I learned with like meal planning specifically is that if I try to do too much at one time because things change, schedules change. So just taking it one week at a time, it does feel repetitive. But once you get in a good groove, then, then I think is a good time to copy and paste, you know what I mean? And start trying to like reduplicate things or just duplicate things because then you’re like, okay, I already know that this worked, this worked. But taking it one week at a time and just doing a quick evaluation of your week seems to for a lot of people be a lot more effective and work more long term.
0:11:50 – (Brittany): Because just things change all the time for families all the time.
0:11:55 – (Wendy): I think, isn’t it interesting how are all of our brains are wired so differently? Like the those of us who love to plan, those of us who don’t, like, I, you know, I, you know, who knows? I toggle. I play around with the idea of like getting like a formal assessment to see if I might have like adult adhd. But I definitely tick all the boxes where um, I am like planning is to me is like. But I’m like, I know how good it is for my life and my brain and my business and I have this amazing team, and, like, two out of my three girls on my team are, like, excellent planners. And that is, like, literally one of our goals this year is to redo the way we plan and execute the business. And it’s been, like, a little bit like pulling teeth, but once I do it, I can feel the benefits.
0:12:42 – (Wendy): Um, but in general, I am someone who resists planning for sure. And my neural pathway is very well paved of just getting shit done. Like, I’ll just get it done and I fly by the seat of my pants for the most part. I’ll place the grocery order, but there is no plan. Like, it’s all in my head is what the problem is. And that’s what, like, we. We do that. We’re good at doing that. Like, we’re, you know, people like me, whether.
0:13:10 – (Wendy): Whether I’m just a person like me or I am someone that might have adhd, whatever it may be, we’re great at getting shit done. But it’s often stressful to, like, carry that load of having a million things in your head that you keep it all up there where you’re like, okay, I know exactly what the family schedule is. I probably know what I have in mind for all the nights, like, the next week. But it’s just a lot.
0:13:32 – (Wendy): Like, if you get it down on paper or in an app or whatever, I’m sure it just relieves the stress a little bit. So I’m on a journ to become more comfortable with planning, but it is definitely not my go to and. And just so uncomfortable for me.
0:13:49 – (Brittany): Okay, well, tell me how this feels to you then. What if you decided for your week, you’re like, okay, we’re gonna do three home cooked meals this week. And you just choose three meals, but you’re not assigning them to any day, but you’re gonna have the groceries at home ready to go. Because. So that way if, like, Monday, and you’re like, oh, I do. That sounds good.
0:14:12 – (Wendy): Yeah, that works. I do that. But I bought. I bought the thing for the fridge. It was like this big thing, and it was like, it had this and this and this. And like, I think I made it two weeks where I’d sit down on Sunday and, like, I’d make the list, I’d place the order. And I see you’re saying you don’t have to write down what you’re doing per night or whatever, but that thing sits on the fridge just empty. It’s been like eight months. It just sits there empty, right? So, like.
0:14:38 – (Wendy): But I bet you’re gonna give us the ANSW answer, so let’s just keep going because it’s just, again, I need this so bad. And it’s one of those things that, like, you don’t. You don’t like. I think to. To pave the new neural pathway and create the new habit, you just have to get through the uncomfortableness of it. And then six months, eight months, a year down the road, you’re like, you’re cruising and you’re like, ah, this feels so good. But in the beginning, it’s really uncomfortable, right, to like, form these habits. So, okay, well, let’s just hop right into to number two, your.
0:15:09 – (Wendy): Your strategy to set three timers. Meal plan, dinner prep, finish dinner. Talk to me about this.
0:15:16 – (Brittany): Yeah, so, so again, this, I. I mean, that’s such great insight, figuring out, like, okay, you have to get through the uncomfortable, but then it becomes a habit, right? And one thing I found that helps a lot to actually, actually make that a habit, because we all have a million things going on inside our brain, whether we were writing them down or not. I’m like, cooking dinner. So the other day, life just feels extra busy right now. The other day I was literally, like, brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, and I’m like sitting there thinking about, okay, I need to make sure I have this done tomorrow and this, and, oh, okay, I need to go make sure that the kids had a blanket on, you know, all of the million things that we have in our brain.
0:15:57 – (Brittany): And I was like, oh. And then I need to, like, make sure that I need to remember to brush my teeth. And I’m literally standing there brushing my teeth. I’m like, okay, there is too much going on in my brain right now. So if we can set these things on autopilot. So these three alarms. So the meal plan alarm is an alarm in your phone if you are. If your calendar has like an odd. An audible alarm that goes off to remind you. Or you can just set like an alarm in the alarms app inside your phone and you can change it to say meal plan. And so this is just every week, whatever it is, and you might need to, like, test it out. Okay, I’m going to set it for Sundays at 6:00, or I’m going to set it for Saturdays at 8am like, whatever works for you.
0:16:40 – (Brittany): You’re going to set that first alarm to remind you to look at your meal plan and just get three to five ideas. And you for sure don’t need more than five dinner ideas because you want to make sure that you’re taking advantage of, like, eating out every once in a while. We do what we call pantry night. So it’s like a fend for yourself. Somebody might eat cereal. Somebody might have chicken nuggets, whatever. It’s fun for yourself.
0:17:04 – (Brittany): Pantry night. And then a leftover night. So using recipes that. That are big enough serving sizes that you actually have leftovers. Because then we just do leftover buffet. So I pull it all out, and then everyone builds their plates. Everyone takes turns putting it in the microwave. So this alarm is going to remind you to do that meal planning that we just talked about once a week. Once a week. Yep, Once a week.
0:17:27 – (Brittany): And that’s a great place to start.
0:17:30 – (Wendy): And you have to not ignore it.
0:17:33 – (Brittany): Yeah.
0:17:34 – (Wendy): Again, for people like me.
0:17:36 – (Brittany): Yes.
0:17:36 – (Wendy): I just am like, yeah, you can’t snooze.
0:17:41 – (Brittany): But if you do find yourself, like, oh, I don’t have time for this, then just reset the alarm. Change the alarm altogether to another time. That works for you. It’s all about, like, the trial and error. Just like systems in your business. You’re like, okay, this is working. This isn’t. So I need to, like, redirect it. Same idea.
0:17:59 – (Wendy): You know what I heard? You know what? I had this idea a while back that I thought you could do this. I feel like I researched it and you can’t you. Because as a podcaster, I know how to do this, but, like, can’t you. Have you ever heard of this where you can create. You can record yourself, like, saying, hey, it’s time to meal plan. Remember how good it’s going to feel at the end of the week, and then that becomes your custom.
0:18:26 – (Wendy): Your custom ringer ding thing.
0:18:30 – (Brittany): I thought about this down.
0:18:31 – (Wendy): I know. I’m okay. I really want to make this happen. By the time this episode comes out to. To see if I can, like, make this happen. But. But you can imagine that if. And I think on iPhone, you can do that. Like, you can customize your alert to be whatever you want. But for someone like me, where it’s like, you want it to be like, you want to remind yourself why you want to do this. You know what I mean? Like, where you want to remind yourself of, like, the.
0:19:02 – (Wendy): The positive outcomes. That is, like, how it’s going to feel. So I’ll have to refresh my memory on how I was going to do that. But I swear I thought that there was a way.
0:19:14 – (Brittany): Oh, I love that. Now I’m like, I’ll let you know. I’m gonna use that for so Many things. Now you’re right. Having that reminder specifically about like the positive outcome.
0:19:24 – (Wendy): Yeah. If you, if you like talk to yourself, you’re like, hey, it’s time to meal plan. I know, I know you don’t want to and just get it done. It’s only gonna take you like 30 minutes and then you’ll be set up for success for the week. Something like that would really probably assist me and help me. So I’m gonna work on it. Okay. Okay.
0:19:41 – (Brittany): So that’s the one. So dinner. Yeah, we’re gonna set that alarm once a week and then on the days that you are cooking food. So for me I’m normally making dinner Monday through Thursday. On those days I’m gonna set an alarm again. Same idea is I’m gonna set an alarm some point in the day when I know that it’s going to be like kind of a lull like for me what that looks like. Our mornings are usually pretty busy, fast paced, getting everybody out the door.
0:20:15 – (Brittany): But usually about 20 minutes before we’re headed out the door, the kids are on their own because they’re, you know, self sufficient. Now when it comes to getting ready for school or whatever it is, all you need is like a 5 to 10 minute window where you can do some dinner prep. So that’s gonna look like chopping the vegetables, pulling the meat from the freezer. We always forget to pull the meat from the freezer, marinating the meat, throwing something in the slow cooker.
0:20:44 – (Brittany): So just like five to ten minutes of dinner prep and you’re like, oh, it only takes me five to 10 minutes, it’s fine, I’ll just do it later tonight. But for whatever reason it just feels so much more stressful and it ends up taking more time when you’re doing it in the hangry hour when everybody needs attention and everybody’s starving and the evening is busy. So 5 to 10 minute window sometime in the morning.
0:21:09 – (Brittany): So for me that usually look, my alarm is set for 7:30am and it just says dinner prep. And so then I pull up my recipe that I’m going to use for the day. Quick meal prep, either slow cooker, whatever, all the things I just talked about. So that’s what that reminder is, is for some time in the day, preferably the morning at some time maybe that looks like 5:30am for somebody, I don’t know. But that’s going to remind you to actually like do that dinner prep. Because that’s the game changer. Because that’s what I’m, that’s What I was talking about where like you can have dinner prepped, cooked and eaten in a 30 minute window. And this is what’s going to help with that. So with our busy schedules, this really can be a game changer. And then having that reminder again to help you actually carry through with that dinner prep is really big.
0:22:02 – (Brittany): Yeah, got it.
0:22:03 – (Wendy): And so really, I mean, five to ten, that sounds great, but honestly, it’s gotta be more like 10 to 20. I mean just to even get vegetables out and start chopping them would. And washing them would take five minutes. So if you’re. But I guess, I guess it’s like I, I think about like rinsing rice or quinoa, chopping some vegetables and washing them and. Yeah, I suppose, I suppose it could be 10.
0:22:29 – (Brittany): I think we might build it up to feel more than it actually is because I’ve timed myself. And then the other part too is the recipes you’re using. Right. So how involved the recipe is that you’re going to be cooking. But if you keep those, if you’re somebody who really enjoys cooking and like building the different layers for your meals, like maybe you want to save that cooking for the weekend or a day during the week where you’re not busy.
0:22:55 – (Brittany): But if we’re talking about those busy weeknights, keep the recipes really basic and simple. Like most of the recipes that I use for dinners, like total ingredients, like no more than eight ingredients. And that’s like onion seasoning or onion powder, you know what I mean? And so using recipes where there is minimal chopping, there is minimal mixing, all of those things, like you really can’t get it down to like five, 10 minutes.
0:23:27 – (Brittany): So the recipe, the recipe choice would be a big part of getting that time down. But like maybe you do want, maybe you do want to use different recipes. So then you would just find a window that’s a little bit bigger.
0:23:40 – (Wendy): Yeah, but the idea of doing a little at a time, that’s awesome. Yeah. I think for me it gets tricky because I do have such a zealous. Is that the right word? When you’re like really ambitious. Like, and I actually do live my life like this for the most part, but we love to have like as much like fresh fruits and vegetables and like not processed stuff. Right. And then for me, like I know my body is happiest when it’s like gluten free, dairy free and even to this point like processed food free. So I’m like mild Hashimoto’s and it’s like, like last night I Discovered these.
0:24:19 – (Wendy): This was like a great like, oh my gosh. It’s pro. It’s ready. But it’s, it’s the noodles I was looking for. And what were they? They were, oh, hearts of palm noodles from Trader Joe’s. And I just put them in a pan and they were like the best noodles I’ve ever had. When it came to like an actual plant noodle instead of like a gluten free noodle. Because even like gluten free processed food like still makes my body feel different.
0:24:41 – (Wendy): But that’s been tricky, right, because to like make zoodles, right, like it’s like washing and then you’re, you’re doing it unless you buy the pre made which we all know like makes the cost go up. And then my kids don’t want to eat totally like mama does. So I’m making normal spaghetti and I’m making zoodles, right. Like they eat meat we don’t. Like, there’s just all these like interesting things that is, is life. But it just adds that time, right, like. And I guess, I guess you just.
0:25:12 – (Wendy): But I do can. I can see how prepping in the morning would at least help somewhat to reduce the load in the evening.
0:25:23 – (Brittany): Yeah, exactly. And so you would just find that little bit bigger window. And even with fresh stuff, like there is bulk prep that you could do, right? So maybe you add that onto your meal planning on Sunday. So maybe you’re washing and prepping bulk on Sunday while you’re doing your meal planning. So that way that’ll lower the prep during the week.
0:25:44 – (Wendy): That’s the dream, Brittany. But it doesn’t happen. Like I don’t you have some magic wand to like make this happen? So there was like one. It’s always at the beginning of the year, you know, where it’s like, oh my gosh, it’s going to be amazing. I’m going to feel so healthy. All the things. And I remember there was one like one or maybe it might have been two Sundays in January where I washed everything.
0:26:04 – (Wendy): Everything went in clear Tupperware for the week. Fruits, vegetables, like, you know, I made quinoa at the beginning of the week. I probably made a big like it was just fantastic. And I just remember all week being like, this is the best thing ever. And it wasn’t like I didn’t stick to it, you know, so it’s like I think I need to get like a habits coach on the show to like keep working on those habits and like not giving up, right? Like that’s the beauty of a Strong willed personality, which I have is like, you will not give up just because you’ve like felt like you’ve failed at it before. You will not give, give up.
0:26:39 – (Wendy): But I still, I just need to figure out like more of those solidifying because I think like again my, my brain just wants to push it to the edge and then do it like fast. Like I almost work well really because. Just because of the neural pathways, not because it actually is a great way to live, but I work great up against the deadline. Like it’s like, okay, dinner’s at six and it’s gonna fast. I’m gonna pump something out in like 30, 45 minutes. But I don’t want to live like that. I want to live in the ease of like doing everything, washing everything on Sunday, having it done. So I just kind of figure out that way to like keep myself motivated for the Sunday.
0:27:19 – (Wendy): So.
0:27:19 – (Brittany): Yeah, because you clearly see the benefit and of getting that all done. You like the way that that allows yourself to live, but sticking with it seems.
0:27:32 – (Wendy): Yeah. I recently have like, because my kids are older now. Right? Like when your kids are little, you just feel like you’re going to be in the trap of like chaos. All like. But then, then your kids are all of a sudden older. Right. My kids are almost 13, almost 16, so I have fallen in love with the Netflix or Hulu show or whatever. I like find these new every. Like I’ll have a show and that does really motivate me to like do stuff. So maybe I just need to like really get excited about my shows on Sunday and like do the prep work. That is, that’s like habit stacking. Right. Like you’re.
0:28:08 – (Wendy): When you, the only time you watch your show is if you’re meal prepping. Right. Like that could be a cool. And I also watch it when I cook. Like when I cook.
0:28:18 – (Brittany): That’s a great idea.
0:28:19 – (Wendy): Yeah.
0:28:20 – (Brittany): It’s positive reinforcement almost.
0:28:23 – (Wendy): Yes. And I’ve. That actually will work more. I gotta bake that in more. Because I do find that there are nights when like Terry is working on a side project or something. Um, and I almost am like, go ahead, you go ahead and sit down. All. Because he usually does all the dishes, I do all the cooking. And there, there’s nights when I’m watching my little show and I’m like, no, no, no, you can keep working, I’ll do the dishes.
0:28:43 – (Wendy): So it is a strong motivator for me. Right. I think that’s.
0:28:46 – (Brittany): There you go.
0:28:47 – (Wendy): Okay.
0:28:48 – (Brittany): That’s a great idea. Yes, that’s A great idea. Stack it with something. If you’re having a hard time sticking with it, stack it with something that you already are enjoying.
0:28:59 – (Wendy): Okay. And I’m gonna find out how to make those timers. Like Wendy’s actually speaking to me. There’s gotta be a way. Yeah.
0:29:06 – (Brittany): Okay, so, so we have the one for the morning prep and then set another one for later in the evening, 20, 30 minutes. Again, it depends on what recipe you’re doing. Maybe you need more time, but like I tend to find those recipes that are a lot just like quick for those weeknight meals. So we’re going to set one more, one more alarm for the day. That reminds me, mine’s at 4. Well, it’s changing. Mine used to be at 4:30 because we used to eat dinner at 5.
0:29:34 – (Brittany): So I would set my alarm for 4:30. And that just reminds me, okay, start cooking dinner. Because sometimes like maybe you’re helping kids with schoolwork or maybe you’re doing carpool, or maybe you’re out in the garden doing something and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh dang it, everybody’s starving. And then that’s when we like fall into the, like just go grab something or whatever. So just one more alarm.
0:29:59 – (Brittany): And that could be different on different days. So maybe Monday Your alarm’s at 5 and maybe Wednesdays your dinner cook time is at 6:30 or whatever it is. So just one more line, one more alarm. But using all the same strategies that we’ve been talking about behind that alarm.
0:30:16 – (Wendy): I love it. Okay. And if anyone’s listening and knows how to do what I’m talking about with the alarm being an audio clip of you speaking to yourself, let me know because there’s a chance I might not have figured it out by the time you listen to this. So please just shoot me a DM on Instagram fresh shirt, Wendy, and let me know. Yeah, there’s gotta be an app or something out there that gives you that ability to set timers in this way. So I think that’s going to be a game changer for me.
0:30:40 – (Wendy): Okay. And then your last takeaway, Brittany, that we’re going to cover today is keep it simple. No more than five dinners a week. And you, you talked about a little bit, but tell us more.
0:30:53 – (Brittany): Yeah, so you don’t need more than five dinner recipes that you’re cooking at home. You don’t need more than five a week. When I first started meal planning, I was over ambitious and I’m like, okay, I’m going to be cooking Dinner seven days a week because we want to save money. And I know that it saves me time and all these other reasons, but then what I found out as we were wasting so much food for throwing away leftovers or like for whatever reason, like we just were having like more produce that was going bad because we weren’t using it quick enough or whatever it was.
0:31:27 – (Brittany): So I kind of like started whittling it away. And what I found is five is a good safe number. But if you have a smaller family or like my parents and my in laws, they are empty nesters and so they don’t cook more than three nights a meal because three nights a week because then like we said, you’re going to use on those other nights you’re going to either plan to eat out, you’re going to have a leftover buffet. So make sure you’re using recipes that actually allow for leftovers because that’s just going to save you a lot of time.
0:32:03 – (Brittany): In general leftovers. I’m trying to think through what do I have eat out. Oh, Pantry night was the third one, right. So that’s the like fend for yourself. Do you know, whatever it is my we like to do one of our, some of our favorites are like bean and cheese burritos. Our kids will like to make those for themselves. We like to make homemade ramen. So we just use like the bone broth and add our own seasonings and then use those rice noodles that you can get at Costco.
0:32:36 – (Brittany): So like super quick. And I have an inventory list that I have set. So I have these like pantry night dinner ideas already set. And then I have a set grocery list just right next to it. And so this is something that doesn’t change. And so I just make this, this one page one time. And then when I go grocery shopping, I just look through that grocery the like the ingredient list for those pantry night dinner ideas.
0:33:04 – (Brittany): And so I just make sure that I always have those ingredients on hand. So that way when we have pantry night or you know, like the fend for yourself night, I just make sure that we have those on hand. So that’s really nice too. So all those three things, the eating out, pantry night, leftover night, make it so you don’t have to cook as much and then you’re buying less, you’re spending less time like prepping and doing all those things too.
0:33:28 – (Brittany): And then use those nights. It doesn’t have to be on the weekend. A lot of times I’ll like lean towards using those on the weekend because I’D rather like, use my time cooking during the week and then I just get to like, relax on the weekend and nobody’s cooking. But you can also use those on those really busy nights where it feels like, okay, literally, like, for example, we’re trying to get used to a new schedule around here, so we’re still like testing different routines.
0:33:57 – (Brittany): But we left the house at the other night. We left the house at 3:30 and then didn’t get home until 9:00. So we were eating dinner at 9:30 and. And so that is a really good night for those things, leftovers. So we just like pull stuff from the fridge, reheat it super fast. Or the pantry night, Fend for yourself. And we could have done eat out too if we wanted to. So but just planning ahead and getting those things actually like thought through or on a calendar can be a game changer as far as like relieving that stress in your evening and allowing time to connect.
0:34:37 – (Wendy): I love the idea of the fend for yourself night because it takes the stress off mom. And it also teaches kids to like, take care of themselves and to feel empowered to be able to make the choice. I can see so many of my families I work with being, being like my kids always going to choose the sugary breakfast stuff for dinner. And so then that comes down to like, well, what are we choosing to buy? Right? Like, I always am. Like, if we’re having like, if we have controlled substances. Air quotes, controlled substances in our kitchen, then that’s the problem. Not that our kid wants it all the time.
0:35:14 – (Wendy): And so like, having actual cereal that they like is not gonna sugar bomb them for the evening or whatever. Because I do know that kids love breakfast for dinner, right? Like being able to just. And I know a lot of families would also say, well, my kids are too little for that, but not necessarily right. Like, if you give them a choice and brainstorm some like, easy things for little, little kids, like peanut butter and jelly is something they can make pretty young with like goldfish and carrot sticks. Like a, a little, a little person could put that together, right?
0:35:47 – (Brittany): Like, and for those little guys, you can even do a little bit of prep maybe like on the weekend or a day during the week where it’s a little less crazy. Because I’ve even done when they were little, little and they really didn’t, you know, they were still learning a lot of these skills, I would bulk prep things like that and put them in the freezer. So like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches make a bunch of them. Put them in the freezer, and then they can go get those out themselves for the summer.
0:36:14 – (Wendy): That’s a good idea.
0:36:16 – (Brittany): And doing it that way and just setting just like, it’s just like, in business, too. Like, right. Like, on your team, you give everybody the tools they need to complete the job that they’re assigned to. So same thing for your kids. Set them up for success. You could have. We’ve done things where we put little tubs in one of the drawers in our fridge. And so we would have those, like, oh, what’s the brand? It’s, like, really clean ingredient, like beef sticks. So we call them beef jerky. But it’s, like, a lot better ingredients that way.
0:36:53 – (Brittany): And then, like, the individually packaged Tillamook cheese in there, maybe some, like, yogurts in there. And that can actually work out to be a really balanced meal for a little guy who can just go in and grab something really quick.
0:37:08 – (Wendy): Yeah. You know what I’ve always wanted to do in my neighborhood, and this, like, encourages me to do it again, because I live in a neighborhood where we have, like, so many moms with, like, little kids or medium kids or whatever. Big kids like me. I’m the one. I’m the oldest in the neighborhood now because we’ve been here. We’ve been in our house for almost 18 years. And so I’m now in, like, the older mom. I’m like, oh, my gosh.
0:37:33 – (Wendy): But. But I’ve always wanted to put together, like, a day where. And, like, rotate with other moms where one, like, I would host, and then another mom would host another day. But, like, I don’t know how it would work. But, like, you have a station on Sunday, right, Where, like, you, like. I don’t know if you’re in your area, do you have those places called. What are they called, where you can go and you can do the mass production?
0:37:57 – (Wendy): Yeah, you put it all in, like, Ziplocs. But, like, if you just bulk by the chicken or the vegetables or the shrimp or whatever, and you bulk make the rice, you bulk make the quinoa, the pasta, like, all the things, and then you package it into, like, the Ziploc bags, like that. Dream Dinners. That’s what it’s called. There’s a place near us called Dream Dinners, and it was too pricey to, like, make it work for me, but the idea of it was so fun because, like, if you got together some. Some moms, even if it was, like, once a month, right? Like, and you just had these big old Ziplocs that you Essentially, you put them in the freezer and then you just grab.
0:38:38 – (Wendy): Um, it’s like something inspires me that I want to, like, talk to the neighborhood and see if we can do that again.
0:38:44 – (Brittany): Like, what a fun girls night, right? Like, you can make it fun. Have some, like, desserts while you’re prepping. You get to hang out with your friends, and then you actually go home with dinners ready to go. Hello. I want to do that. That sounds so fun.
0:38:57 – (Wendy): I know. You would just have to, like, figure out the cost associated because not everybody eats the same things, you know, like some people.
0:39:04 – (Brittany): That’s where it’s tricky.
0:39:05 – (Wendy): Yeah, that’s where it’s tricky. Yeah, but. But you just have to be in that creative brain, right? Like, you have to be able to tap into that. So. Good. Okay, well, I want to hear as we wrap, tell me a little bit more about this app you’ve created. How exciting, by the way. I know that had to have been a lot of work.
0:39:26 – (Brittany): Yes.
0:39:26 – (Wendy): But tell me all about this app, because I might need to invest in this and be part of this.
0:39:38 – (Brittany): Yeah. Thank you. So it’s called Eat Together Meal Planner. So we do all of the meal planning for you, but the best part is that it’s customizable. So we plan five dinners a week for you, but you can swap recipes out. So let’s say we plan something that your family doesn’t like. You can move meals around. So let’s say we always have at least one slow cooker meal every week. And so let’s say you want to put that on a night where you just need dinner ready as soon as you walk in the door, you can move it around to whatever you want. Or if you wake up in the morning, you’re like, okay, this desk. This doesn’t sound good anymore. I would rather have what we had planned for Thursday.
0:40:20 – (Brittany): So it’s, like, completely customizable. And what’s the best part is, so as you’re customizing this to make it work for your family’s schedule, for your family’s, like, dietary needs, whatever it is, the grocery list will automatically be updated as well. So you move things around, but then the grocery list changes for you as well. And then you can shop based off of your family schedule. So, like, for me, I actually do monthly grocery shopping.
0:40:46 – (Brittany): So I go and buy everything that lasts in the fridge, freezer pantry for at least 30 days. So you can change, you can choose which dates you want to grocery shop for. So maybe you’re shopping for Tuesday through Monday because that’s what works for you. Somebody else is going to shop for, you know, Sunday through Saturday, whatever it is. And then we’ve done so much thinking behind these meal plans. So we think through all of the holidays, we think through different seasons, so like, you know, summer meals versus spring and fall meals.
0:41:17 – (Brittany): And then we think through batching together similar ingredient recipes to help save you all of that money. So, like all of these different things that we’ve talked about today, we pretty much think through everything for you and put it in the app for you. And so you just open it and then it’s going to save you so much time because you just have to do the part of, like, moving things around, customizing it for what works for your family. So we get you started, do the bulk of the research and everything.
0:41:47 – (Brittany): And then. And we also have, like, picky eater tips in there. It sounds like you eat really similar to our family where, like, me and hubby are on a different health journey than my kids would like to be. And so we’re cooking one way, but we’re only cooking one meal, but a slight alteration for, like our picky eaters. So we walk you through that. We have healthy eater tips. So if you would like to increase the, like, nutritional value of a meal, Quick, simple, and then like the simple ingredients, fast recipes, all those things that we’ve talked about as well as we have place savers in there. So you can plan for eating out, you can plan for the pantry night and leftovers. And we have ways that you can save those into your meal plan for the week. So it’s all, you know, it’s all inside there that we’ve. We just do it for you.
0:42:39 – (Wendy): I love it. And so I just downloaded it and once. So once you download it, you can check it out and then it looks like you have a monthly and an annual option and a free trial. Right. To be able to try it.
0:42:51 – (Brittany): Yep, that’s right. Yeah.
0:42:52 – (Wendy): Okay.
0:42:52 – (Brittany): So has the free trial.
0:42:54 – (Wendy): Yes. Okay. And then so for someone like me, so I’m going to say I sign up and then it gives me five days. Like, it’ll give me one week at a time. Right. So I’m going to choose. I want five meals. It’s going to give me five meals. And do I tell it like, we don’t want, like, we won’t buy meat. We don’t do meat. So I can tell it that and it’ll give me only recipes that don’t have meat. Or is it going to give me meat recipes and I have to take the meat out?
0:43:22 – (Brittany): Yeah. So currently where we’re at because we just launched in September so we’re brand new app that is our ultimate goal to be able to have like those dietary filters on there. But for now what we have are the tips, the healthy eater tips on each recipe will tell you if you different ways to alter the recipe for the dietary needs that you might have.
0:43:46 – (Wendy): Right. So if it has. Yeah, if it’s got like grilled meat or chicken, then I know that I can swap it out for like tofu if. Because Terry, these were so complex. Terry’s only pescatarian. I actually started eating chicken again about six months ago after like almost a decade of just being pescatarian. So we all have our own little things but you would just know whatever your proteins sources, you’re just going to swap that out. Essentially you can find a protein source that goes in place of whatever the meat source is. Right?
0:44:19 – (Brittany): Yeah, we’re not. Most of our meals do have a meat protein in there. But all of our recipes are secretly like whole ingredient based. We don’t really like talk about it a lot because I think that turns people away sometimes if they’re like, oh, like I don’t care about eating whole foods or whatever. But our recipes really. I’m actually really proud of how we’ve been able to take some really popular like maybe like restaurant copycat recipes and turn them into whole ingredient nutritious meals that still taste really good. And we have so many varieties of flavors, we don’t repeat our recipe within a three month period.
0:45:02 – (Brittany): So if you’re somebody who is tired of eating the same thing every week, then you know it would be a good fit for you too that way.
0:45:11 – (Wendy): I love it. And then every Sunday basically you just, if I’m gonna do Sundays, you just open it up and then you’re like okay, what do you, what are you giving me for the week? Yeah, we get you started and if there’s a night where you’re like dude, my kids will never eat that, then you’re saying you can just swap it. Like there’s a little swap button that says give me another option.
0:45:30 – (Brittany): Exactly. Yeah, you hit swap and then you see our whole recipe database but it’s categorized. So it’s categorized by like ingredient or if you need like an extra fast recipe, there’s a category for that. Or if you want to place like a placeholder just so you can remember, oh, I’m doing leftovers that night. You go to the extras tab and then there’s a leftovers button in there and you just swap it out.
0:45:54 – (Wendy): Okay, last question for you. I know this is. You can tell I’m like serious about. It’s like, I really want to make this more of a priority in my life. Life. So say there’s like a recipe. So like, like right here on the homepage I see like there’s a black bean and chicken enchiladas. It’s going to give you the list for like normal tortillas. Right. And then you have to add your gluten free tortillas. Right. If you have a. So you’re just going to add one thing to the list.
0:46:18 – (Brittany): Yeah, you can’t add it inside of the inside of the app. So you would just have to do that separately like on a piece of paper.
0:46:25 – (Wendy): Okay. And that, that list that it gives you, it’s like downloadable. And then you manually enter that into like your Walmart.com shopping cart, right?
0:46:35 – (Brittany): Yeah. So your grocery list will pull up on the grocery cart tab inside of the app. And the way I do it. So we have a free printable that I was telling you out before we got on here. Oh yeah. So inside there we have so many options for like ingredient substitutions. So if you want, you always want to shop your fridge, freezer, pantry first before you add anything to your grocery list that’ll help with that.
0:46:58 – (Brittany): It walks you through like setting up a pantry, pantry night system, like I told you, all of those things. But in there also is a master grocery list. So what I do is I use the Eat Together meal planner. I pull the dates that I want to go grocery shopping for. So let’s say I’m grocery shopping for Sunday through Saturday and then it pulls all my ingredients because this is just for dinner. Right. And so I’m going to still need groceries for snacks and lunch and breakfast.
0:47:29 – (Brittany): There’s print in the freebie. We walk you through that also. But okay, so then I just use the master grocery list printable and just pull it all together on that grocery list. So if you were adding gluten free tortillas, you would just write down gluten free instead of, you know, whatever, flour. And then. Yeah, I wish. Do you get grocery delivery where you are? We don’t have grocery delivery.
0:47:54 – (Wendy): Yes, I know you live in the mountains, the beautiful mountains, huh? We do, but I don’t do it to save money. Because it’s so easy to pick it up. Like, Walmart is so fantastic. Like, they just bring it right out. It’s no extra fee, and they just put it in your car. Whereas, like, a lot of the grocery stores, you have to go through Instacart, and that charges more money. Oh, yeah. And so, like, I think. I think Vons and some places have, like, you can just pick it up, too. But again, Walmart has been what I found the cheapest. I actually tried Aldi for the first time, which is like, I don’t know, it’s a bigger one. And. Yeah, and that was really fascinating. That was like. I think they. I’m going to experiment. But, yeah, delivery is fantastic. And I wonder.
0:48:37 – (Wendy): That would be interesting to experiment with, because if you are saving money with the meal planning, maybe you could then start to add in the 10 or 20. Because once you add a tip, it’s like, it adds up. Right. But maybe you could start affording that, because that is a big difference to, like, Save yourself 30 minutes. Because by the time I get there, I wait for them to load it up and then I get home. That’s 30 minutes. And if they could just put it on your front step.
0:49:03 – (Wendy): Yeah, you’ve inspired me to. To look into that. Yeah.
0:49:05 – (Brittany): Because I mean, like, and think about. There might be seasons of life where you value that time more than others. Like, I thought about, like, if, when I’ve been, like, so sick, I don’t want to get out of bed, but I still need to do grocery pickup. Or, like, I thought about, like, when I was having babies, how nice that would have been to, like, be able to have groceries delivered while my kids were sleeping in bed.
0:49:27 – (Brittany): And, like, I know Walmart has that. Like, is it called Walmart plus or something where it’s an annual membership, but then it makes the delivery more affordable, I think. I don’t know.
0:49:40 – (Wendy): Yes. And they throw in, like, a Disney plus membership or something. But, yeah, if you live in the beautiful mountains or the boonies, like, where I grew up, that’s not an option.
0:49:51 – (Brittany): I know, but grocery pickup, I am like, I wish Costco. I wish Costco did grocery pickup. I’d be all over that.
0:50:00 – (Wendy): Oh.
0:50:01 – (Brittany): Oh, yeah.
0:50:01 – (Wendy): You have to. Yeah. It’s delivery through Instacart. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Oh, my goodness. Well, I can see this is just. We could talk for a long time about all these different ways that you could save money or save time and, like, also create more peace in the home, which I love. Right. Like, that is one of the biggest goals is to have mom who usually leads this movement, not always like I have. We have plenty of friends and neighbors who dad leads the movement on this. Right. So it’s not necessarily always just mom, but just to have some of the stress reduced and to be able to have more connection time and not have kind of that chaos hour in the home, I’m sure would just feel so good. So I am going to be on a mission to do more of this and use your resources, Brittany. So thank you so much for being here today. Tell listeners where they can come get this free printable that you’re talking about. Is it that it sounds like it’s a great place to learn more about what you teach and your app and all the things.
0:51:05 – (Wendy): Yeah.
0:51:06 – (Brittany): So if you just find one unified home on Instagram, we have links to everything in our profile link. So nice and easy right there.
0:51:15 – (Wendy): Yes. And since we’re talking about Instagram, if you guys are listening right now and you feel inspired and you’re like, oh, this was a good episode, make sure you screenshot and share over on Instagram. Tagging me and Brittany. So I’m @FreshStartWendy and Brittany just said her handle, but tag us, shoot us a dm and, you know, we’d love to connect with you over there. Okay. So listeners, make sure you go find Brittany and her work. And like we said, her app has a free trial, so you could try it out for a free week to see if it’s a good fit for you.
0:51:48 – (Wendy): And, Brittany, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for all that you’re doing to help families in this capacity.
0:51:53 – (Brittany): Awesome. Thank you. And thank you for sharing your ideas, too. I’m so excited to figure out that alarm.
0:51:59 – (Wendy): We’re gonna do it or some listener is gonna contact us with this solution. So it’s gonna be amazing. All right. Thanks, girl.
0:52:06 – (Brittany): Thank you.
