Growing up I always had dinner at the table, and it was normally a home-cooked meal by one of my parents. This is something I had always loved (not at the time, duh but looking back I do love those times) because it brings the family together at the end of the day. When me and my husband first started dating and living together, we always cooked. It was a huge thing that attracted me to him, he loved food and cooking it together. Thankfully in the year after we got married, we renovated our kitchen to help the functionality of it so we could cook together without bumping into one another.
The pandemic brought its challenges, and one was the ease of ordering food to avoid going out and potentially spreading/getting COVID. During the summer we started ordering food four or five times a week, which costs so much money. It was the ease of not having to cook in our beautiful kitchen and getting exactly what we wanted. During the end of the year, I decided I wanted to take back my mindset and start cooking again. I decide HelloFresh was the answer. We had done Blue Apron and HelloFresh before on the trials they offered. HelloFresh had a great deal for first responders (and still do I believe) that you get 15% off each week for a year. They are constantly having deals for people including money off your first few boxes or a trial period. The cool part is you can change your box size or delivery date each week depending on what is going on with your life. You can also skip weeks as needed for vacation or when you do not want a delivery.
So, I decided to give a try, my husband was gone during this period and wouldn’t be home for another 3 months so the extra meal in the package I used for lunch at work. To me this was a win-win because I got a great dinner and lunch for the next day at work. I started with picking three meals a week, because I did like to make plans/cook other options on the weekend. I explained the logic behind this to my husband regarding pricing. I was at the time spending almost $100.00 a week picking up groceries and meal planning for the week with the same dish for each meal. Whereas HelloFresh was only $55 a week and I got something different three days out of the week instead. He loved the idea and asked if we could change it to four times week when he was home. This was a game changer for us, we stayed in more and ate better food for us with a lower cost.
There were so many meals we had that we would not have thought to make without HelloFresh and I am grateful for them. I continue to use them today but give myself the freedom to skip a night and make them on the weekends now if I want. I am still saving myself so much money by doing this, and I am choosing healthier options (most of the time). It also brings a joy to cook when I am done with work, I always find cooking relaxing. I do think it brings me and my husband closer also, because one of us can cook while the other sits at the kitchen bar or we cook together. It has been a nice part of quarantine that not everyone is able to do.
I am going to keep the subscription for the year to keep trying new things, but I have friends that do multiple meal packages and freeze weeks they aren’t using for one of the services. I love this idea to get better options and if the price point is the same it would be cool to do! This has helped at getting me back in a routine of working out then cooking a healthy meal at home. I know a lot of people need a good balance right now and thought I would share how I am slowly finding one. I will continue to keep you updated on what other services I try and new meals I really loved making.
If you love what you are reading and want to stay up to date with me, please subscribe to my newsletter below. I will send out updates when new blog posts come out and will potentially send new updates for just my subscribers. As always follow me on all socials to get other news, updates, and tons of content.
Hugs,
TPTW