I recently started working after being a SAHM and everything’s gotten away from us.
Our daughters either at day care or her grandparents every day during the week. So the mess isn’t her fault.
We haven’t eaten a home cooked meal since I started working, my partners up an hour earlier to do the day care drop off and start work early to do the pick up because I’m unable to. (We both leave by seven and don’t get home till after six)
We’re both exhausted.
I need schedules, super easy make ahead meals, any tips and tricks to get things back under control before we get stuck in this rut.
5 Replies
When working full time as a single parent these things worked for me.
Only cook every few days, but cook enough to freeze or reheat another night.
Use the cleaning equipment available to you, dishwasher etc and a slow cooker.
Get in a routine, put things away as you go, don’t leave stuff lying around, put your dirty clothes in the basket as you go. I like to have a dirty clothes basket where we are most likely to get undressed. Our dirty clothes basket is about the size of one load, so as soon as it was full it went straight in the machine and on.
Use click and collect for your food shopping, so easy!
I’d also consider investing in a cleaner. But get those systems and clean up after yourselves as you go. Your partner needs to make sure he’s not relying on you to pick up after him, you don’t have time for that anymore.
Google skinnymixers for easy meal ideas. She is a thermal cooker so recipes are tailored to thermomix style machines (and I recommend it, I do love my thermomix - we're a 2 ft income household and have been for over 20 years) but are easily adaptable to regular cooking with pots and pans or some have slow cooker instructions already. There's lots of free recipes on her website and if you like what you try I recommend her healthy mix cookbooks.
Batch cook. On a day off I'll cook entire meals or parts of meals and freeze in portions. We do individual portions as we often eat at different times, can just as easily freeze in family size portions. Things like curries, stews etc made in full and frozen then I also have portions of laksa paste, pesto, pizza dough and sweet and sour sauce ready to go for easy weeknight meals at the moment. In particular try her curried sausages, buffalo wings (if you don't like spicy sub half the buffalo sauce with tomato sauce, we like spicy so I sub chilli sauce and this recipe is a long cook so allow time for that), red lentil dahl. The creamy mushroom sauce is to die for too. And, I've cooked each of these without the thermo.
I do a fortnightly cook up and freeze.
Nights that I am home to cook, I cook fresh, the day I do the cook up is usually take away. The cook up take about 1/2 a day, but I have a massive oven and access to 5 slow cookers (don’t ask! 🤣)
I pair the meals with pasta, rice, frozen veg etc, potato if I’ve got time (I refuse to eat instant mash)
Some things that I find easy to freeze
-curries (easy to add veg to these)
- apricot chicken
-spaghetti sauce (can be modified to make tacos or chilli con carne)
- pulled pork
- bbq brisket
- scalloped potatoes
- various sausage meals (devilled sausages, sticky sausages, curried sausages)
- stews and casseroles
I also have a list of quick meals such as carbonara, chicken and sweet corn soup etc that are cooked in 10 minutes.
I pre cut meat and add sauce and freeze for stir fry, just add frozen stir fry veg and noodles.
The rest just has to be done as you go to stay on top of it, dishes go straight in the dishwasher, try and only use dishwasher safe stuff during the week. I colour coordinate my washing baskets so they’re ready to go, often put a load on while dinner is heating, then it’s ready to hang or go in the dryer straight after, dry by the following night when I fold it while I watch tv.
Hubby also needs to be on board, we’ve usually got one seeing to the domestic stuff and the other is bathing kids, seeing to homework etc.
My kids are older now, so we also have to factor in after school activities, most night we don’t stop until we go to bed, but it means that Sundays we can mostly chill
Hello fresh or the like. Order for 4 people and it will do your lunch as well. It will well and truely be enough for 3 of you.
Outsource and get a cleaner! It’s a hard slog Mumma, you’re doing a great job.
On sundays I batch cook so I’m really only cooking once to twice a week. My hubby complained at first saying it was left overs all week but I didn’t budge and said if he wasn’t happy he could cook but I wasn’t. Now he has requests and is 100% on board.
Cook 2-3 (minimum) different main meals to then divide into 5 so you have 10-15 meals ready and in the fridge, some in the freezer. I also do this for others so maybe someone you know might be willing to for a small fee.
All laundry needs to be done by Sunday night so the m-f is not much to do.
Make sure partner helps out too as this is not just your gig now you both work.
Get a cleaner or tell your partner if says you can’t afford one that it’s now his/her job instead but not yours, surprising how quick they change mind.
Ask for help if you need it.