#87: Time Saving Tips for Meal Planning and Chores with Stephanie Royer

Stephanie is the creator of Mommy Standard Time, a blog designed to help families save minutes and savor moments. After going through breast cancer treatment as a young mother of three, she realized that life was too short to be spending so much time on chores! She is always on the lookout for ways to save time on day-to-day tasks, especially meal planning.

This is a great conversation with Stephanie! She has so many wonderful tips and tricks for saving time at home and in the kitchen. We talk about some of the specific methods she uses for doing chores, grocery shopping, and meal planning. She shares her meal planning system and how it helps her extend her time between grocery trips - she usually shops every 14 days!

www.mommystandardtime.com

Instagram: @stephanieroyer.mst
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mommystandardtime8544

Sign up for a free trial + get 20% off your first annual subscription: plantoeat.com/PTEPOD

Contact us: podcast@plantoeat.com

Connect with Plan to Eat online:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest

Transcript

Roni: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Plan to Eat podcast, where I have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you save time in the kitchen, reduce your grocery bill stress less about food. And delight in dinner time.

Hello, and thank you for listening to another episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. Today, I have Stephanie Royer on the podcast. She is the creator of Mommy Standard Time, Which is a blog designed to help families save time and savor life's moments a little bit more.

Had a great conversation with Stephanie today. She has so many wonderful tips and tricks related to saving time at home, saving time in the kitchen. We talk about some of the specific methods that she uses as far as House chores, go grocery shopping, meal planning. We talk about the things that she's tried that maybe haven't worked as well as, um, she would have thought.

And in general, she just has really great tips [00:01:00] for some things that you can do to save time at home. She has a wonderful system for meal planning that she uses. And if you are looking to extend the time between your grocery trips, this episode is for you because Stephanie used to shop only once a month.

Now she shops every two weeks, but if you're looking to go to the grocery store less, she has a lot of great tips for you. All right, let's get into the interview. Hope you enjoy. Hi Stephanie. Thanks for joining me today on the podcast.

Stephanie: Hi Roni, I am so excited to be here.

Roni: Me too. Why don't we start off by having you just say quickly who you are and what you do.

Stephanie: Yeah, so I am Stephanie. I run the blog Mommy Standard Time. Um, my husband and I, we live in eastern Montana. We actually just moved here not that long ago. We're born and raised Oregonians though, so it's been a little bit of a change. But I, I'm a mom of three kids. And we have three dogs here, one's a foster dog, but, um, [00:02:00] so it's, it's busy and I work full time.

I'm actually, in addition to running mommy standard time, I log for other people and do their Pinterest management. And so life's just busy. And so that's actually where the premise of. Mommy Standard Time came from was just how to save time as a mom so that you can actually enjoy time with your family.

Roni: Yeah.

Stephanie: So that's kind of me in a nutshell. And one of the things that I love to save time on is time spent in the kitchen or preparing to be in the kitchen, like grocery shopping. And so that's why I was so excited about this chat.

Roni: I'm excited about it too. And I, I know you have lots of great things to share. Um, I really love your, I was reading on your blog, your definition of mommy's standard time. And I think it's. So clever that you came up with kind of like that little coined term for just how life changes as, as you have a growing family and, different life changes like that [00:03:00] happen.

Stephanie: Yes, this, this era of life is definitely it's, it's own time zone. And that's why, that's why the blog has the name it does because it's wild. And, and every, every phase is different. So I'm out of the toddler phase now, and I have teenagers and an older elementary school kid. And so That's a completely different time zone too, and so it's just, it's a wild ride, Parenthood, for sure.

Yeah. So I'm curious, I know you have a pretty interesting backstory. I'm interested to hear a little bit how, some of your life experiences helped you, uh, kind of approach a different change to your time management and wanting to spend more time with your family.

Stephanie: Yeah, of course. So, when my third daughter was born, shortly after, um, that was about a year, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was only 33 at that time, and the cancer was acting pretty aggressively, and so it was, it was a wake up call about life priorities, and shortly after I [00:04:00] finished cancer treatment.

We moved and we moved to a new area where driving to the grocery store was just a hassle. Everything just felt like a hassle because there were a lot of people, things were far away from home. And one day I was just standing in the grocery store line at my usual Saturday. We go to the grocery store because that's what we do on Saturdays.

And I thought, why am I doing this? I would much rather be doing something else. And so that was definitely my drive to just start simplifying life wherever I could. And, you know, the things that I don't enjoy, one of those being going to the grocery store, let's. spend less time doing that. And so that's kind of where that, that was my drive when it came to creating this blog and, you know, setting up my own life priorities.

Roni: Yeah, it definitely takes on a different meaning when you have that, like a kind of scary personal experience that makes you take stock [00:05:00] of where you're spending your time and wanting to have different priorities, I think.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Roni: Yeah. What do you, what have you found to be some of the easiest areas in your household to cut back on time spent as far as, you know, chores or things that you don't necessarily want to do?

Yeah.

Stephanie: Well, we've talked about grocery shopping, um, time spent in the kitchen. I, I love to be organized in that way. And so that's why I, I, I'm a plan to eat user, uh, spoiler alert, but I, I love that. And then when it comes to cleaning house, I do have kind of a weird way that I like to approach house cleaning and I call it the timed tidy.

And so I. I set a time, I'm very strategic though, everybody talks about, well just set a timer and clean. Um, but I'm kind of strategic in how much time I spend in each room each day and I rotate through. Anyway, it's a whole thing. I think some people have said it's, when I describe it to [00:06:00] people, they say it's similar to Fly Lady.

Roni: Mm hmm.

Stephanie: of her.

Roni: I have. Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah, so that's kind of, that's another way that I kind of approach saving time. And yeah, just trying to get the family involved in things, because why should I be cleaning the whole house? Let's all do it together. We'll spend a little time together, which is something that's important to me.

And we can also be getting things done at the same time.

Roni: Yeah, for sure. Have you found that you needed to maybe change your expectations for like how clean your house quote unquote should be when it, when it comes to some of this stuff, like realizing like it doesn't need to be perfect all the time or, or does your method actually work to like maintain the same standard that you had?

Potentially before you had kids,

Stephanie: Yeah. And yeah, That's a good point. I actually felt like at first I needed to adjust my expectations, but over time I found that spending a little bit of time every day [00:07:00] was better than waiting until I could do it perfectly. Because I have perfectionist tendencies and I am one of those people that will put something off.

until I can do it perfectly. And so like my husband, he grew up in a, a commercial, a family that has a commercial janitorial business. And so he, he grew up like you lift whatever's on the surface, you dust underneath it, you clean around the things because it's not their stuff. Right. And he was starting to do that at our house.

And I thought, Well, I was waiting to dust that bookshelf until I had time to put all the clutter away. And then I, it dawned on me, well, the bookshelf is clean now. Like the dust is gone. It's cleaner than it was. Like that's okay that he just picked up the stuff and dusted underneath it. And it took a little bit of a mindset shift.

What I also discovered is that when you, put less effort into it, you actually feel less disheartened. it gets messed up again [00:08:00] as a mom, right? So I, I liken it to Thanksgiving dinner. You cook all day long and then you sit down and your kid eats a dinner roll and that's frustrating because you've put all that effort into the meal.

Whereas if you just slap together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and they only eat a couple bites, not a big deal. You just move on, you know? And so I felt like that kind of helped my mindset as well, but really over time. We were keeping it much cleaner than if we had just waited. to have a house cleaning day because those days don't usually come around very often when you can just spend all day working on the house,

Roni: I like both of those mindset shifts of realizing, like, I don't have to clean before I clean. As well as then realizing, like, this is going to get. Messed up again in the future. So don't put so much of your heart and soul into it necessarily.

Stephanie: right?

Roni: Do you feel like you have advice for other parents as to how you got your kids [00:09:00] involved in some of these chores? If, other parents are feeling like they struggle to get their kids involved in the household.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah, actually one of, um, it surprised me when you blog, you don't realize what people are going to be interested in too much. I mean, you can do keyword research and all of that, but, when I first started blogging, I was just putting out blog posts that were interesting topics that I found interesting and I just wasn't sure.

And so it was fun for me and interesting to see the blog posts that really resonated with parents. And one of those was the way I did chores with my kids. And, so my kids had chore charts. From a very young age and we were consistent with it, but we kept it super simple because that was the key and as, as long as it was simple and easy to manage for me, I was able to be consistent because I think when it comes to chores.

[00:10:00] Um, if you're not consistent, it just falls apart and then everybody's frustrated. And so it was just a very, very simple chore system and an allowance. I know that's a hot topic, tying money to chores. And, but now my kids, they've all, my teenagers have all transitioned out of doing a chore chart and they still do all of those chores without being paid, but it helps to teach them those skills and to have it become part of their routine. And it's just a good motivator. So yes, I was a chore chart person and, did the allowance. My youngest daughter has kind of fallen behind in the whole earning money department because the teenagers now have little jobs and we kind of got out of the chore chart phase.

So she's like, Mom, what do I do? And so this summer we're going to start a chore chart for her because she's interested. And I thought, well. Let's give it a try.

Roni: Yeah, you might as well if she's showing that interest in it. Uh, did you, do you feel like doing that from a young [00:11:00] age helped your kids kind of develop to be more organized kids as well? Are they more organized in other areas of their life too?

Stephanie: Yeah, I mean, they're typical kids. They're still learning how to navigate life. But yeah, I think that they've learned that certain things just need to come first. So, before we go hop on our video game, we need to go make sure our lunchbox is emptied, and, you know, that there's other things we've taken care of before.

We do this and I just feel like as a parent, it's so hard to instill some of those, um, priorities with kids. And so I do think that that was something that helped a lot when we did the chore charts is they just, they knew it was kind of like a double reinforcement. So yes, there was the allowance, but. But then there was also, there's no screen time, or whatever your preferred activity is, until the chores are done.

And so, that also just [00:12:00] helped teach them that, We work and then we play.

Roni: Yeah, do you have one time saving tip that you think made the most significant difference in your daily routine?

Stephanie: Oh, that's a tough question. I, I mean, I would say having kids, having that chore routine made a huge difference for our family. But then on the side of things that are a hundred percent in my control as a mom, because, you know, chores, there's accountability there on the kid's part. And, you know, sometimes it goes smoothly.

Sometimes it doesn't, but for me, The other part of it that saved the most time was meal planning and grocery shopping less often. It, it truly was. That isn't just because I'm on the Plan to Eat podcast. It's the truth. Because by spending less time in the grocery store, And then having a plan for what we're going to eat.

I mean, even just having the [00:13:00] meal plan written down where the family can see it, it cuts down on time spent negotiating, right? When it's, when it's written in black and white for the kids and it's a meal that they don't love, it, for some reason they don't argue with it. They're just like, uh, okay, it's spaghetti tonight, but tomorrow it's this.

So, okay, I can handle that. Whereas when they say, mom, what's for dinner. And you think, oh, well, let me think, and you show that you're not quite sure, then they're like, woo hoo, let's negotiate. There's, there's room, there's room to not eat spaghetti tonight, so, and just those little conversations can waste so much time, and it brings just that, again, I wanted to live this zen lifestyle after cancer, and obviously that doesn't happen, but.

Being able to take some of those kind of frustrating conversations out of our day to day life, I mean it saves time, but it also just saves frustration for everyone. And so to have a meal plan set [00:14:00] up and you're not cranky going to the grocery store at the last minute, and I don't know, it just, it really simplified life.

And um, it's something that even now, I don't grocery shop. Once a month right now because we just moved and life's crazy, but I, I still go at least 10 to 14 days before I set foot in a grocery store and just life is simpler. I don't have to worry about going through self checkout and all the things and navigating parking lots and getting all the groceries out of the car.

Like it's just, it's simpler.

Roni: Wow, that's a goal to reach towards to not go to the grocery, the only go to the store once a month for sure. But even just every two weeks, that would be amazing for my personal life. You talking about having the meal plan. written down and visible for your kids makes me think about, um, like having a hot lunch schedule at school.

It's like the kids [00:15:00] see whatever's for hot lunch and they're not going to argue with anybody about it. It's just like, well, that's what's for hot lunch today. And I guess I'm going to not enjoy it or, you know, but like, I'm still eating it. So it's interesting how there's just that kind of automatic mindset shift for them to see it written down on a piece of paper or printed out on a piece of paper.

Versus like you said, the like negotiation of, Ooh, mom doesn't exactly know. So I'm going to throw out my idea for, you know, hot dogs or whatever it is. Your kid's like,

Stephanie: Yeah. Or the other one of, well, can't we just go eat out? And you're thinking, you're thinking, well, yeah, I'd rather just go eat out. Um, but yeah, that was leftover from, I was a special education teacher before, I, I worked from home and that was kind of part of what I did as a special ed teacher too, of always putting it in black and white because whatever's written down, it becomes like this neutral third party that you're not the person giving the direction.

And, and. and delivering the bad news. It's this paper that's [00:16:00] delivering the bad news. Like, we're having spaghetti tonight. Sorry, the meal plan board says so. Bummer.

Roni: I like that. I like that. I like the way of looking at it like that. So tell me a little bit about what your meal planning process looks like. You know, how long, how far ahead do you plan for, how many recipes do you plan, all that good stuff?

Stephanie: Yeah, so again, life is not ideal right now. So I, I actually I have a kind of neglected YouTube channel, and I went through kind of the way I meal plan, and it goes through the letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E.

Yes, there's that many. Um, and so I always start with what I already have, A, because You got to use up what's in your fridge. And a lot of times when you go through, sometimes you can see, Oh, I don't need to go to the grocery store yet. I can wait a few more days. And then B is bargains. So whatever's on sale, I look at the circulars and make a plan for, Oh, this, Because right now we know inflation is crazy, [00:17:00] and I look for protein, especially.

Like what proteins are on sale, and just kind of keep that in the back of my mind. And then I also, for C, I look at the calendar. What events do we have coming up? What little sticky parts of our schedule are going to make it hard to eat at home? Or we're not going to be home for the whole day. Let's do we need a crock pot meal, anything like that.

So once I have all of that in place, then I'm ready to start planning out my dinners. And pretty much I just opened my phone and I go through plan to eat. And when I know that chicken is on sale, I search for chicken and I look at which recipes sound good. And, in my plan to eat, I make a note for once a month grocery shopping in my, um, recipes so that I can just quickly see, okay, this one can last, you know, this can last later in the month if I try to grocery shop two to three weeks out.

So I just have little notes for myself of, yeah, this one, is definitely a week 4 [00:18:00] recipe, so I'll include one of those. Um, and so I just, I just, I try to have a mix of recipes that are, need to be eaten right away because of produce or whatever, and then ones that can, are a little more shelf stable. And so I plan out all the dinners, that's D, and then for E, I just, I make a list, cause you know in the app you can write just ingredients and other things you need on your shopping list, so then I just jot down everything else we need, and that's, that's it.

So I. It's honestly, however much time I have to devote to that meal plan is how far out I plan for. But like I said it's, It's now just a habit that it's almost always two weeks worth of meals. Um, because once you've planned out about 10, you can eke out 14 days with leftovers and all the other things.

So, yeah, that's kind of how I do it.

Roni: I love that system. I love the acronym for all the different things. That's such an easy thing to [00:19:00] remember. Beautiful. I love it so much. Uh, what's your criteria for some of those like Month long recipes, some of those recipes you could plan further out, in your month or your two week meal plan.

Stephanie: Yeah. So I, I bought, there was a once a month grocery shopping book and I bought it and I couldn't, I couldn't get on board because it was like they were making all of their meals completely, like doing this entire day of cooking, making the full meals and then freezing them. And I thought, Well, I don't need to like opening cans to make a meal and then freezing it and I thought I don't need to open the cans.

Let's keep those in the pantry. And so I I just started looking at basically If it has a fresh ingredient that will go bad, so like cilantro, it gets slimy after not very long, so anything that uses fresh cilantro, I try to use, um, see if it will go into like a freezer [00:20:00] meal. Or that's like, that would be a week one meal.

Anything that uses, you know, cilantro, berries, any, that, and I don't really want to use frozen berries. You know, sometimes you just need fresh. And so, any meal that uses like berries would be a week one meal, but meals that use carrots, um, potatoes, all of the, we all know that the perishables are the hardest part of grocery shopping.

Less often like the produce. And so, that is kind of what I use for my criteria of if this is a week one meal or a week four meal is looking at the produce. So yeah, carrots, potatoes, and depending on where I buy the produce from, like lettuce, those big packs of romaine last a lot longer than you think.

Roni: Mm hmm.

Stephanie: lasts a while. Um, tomatoes, oranges last a long time. So I don't know, I, you just kind of have a mental checklist of the produce that can be a week one meal, and then. Week [00:21:00] four, and then everything else just kind of falls somewhere in between.

Roni: Yeah. I like that. I think the thing that I struggle with a lot when it comes to, uh, Going to the grocery store more frequently than I want is the fresh produce, and I don't often fall back on things in a can or frozen vegetables, because they're still just as good.

They can make just as you know, good of a recipe, but it's just not where my brain automatically goes to of being like, Oh, yeah, well, we could just use frozen Brussels sprouts. I don't have to buy all the Brussels sprouts last a really long time, too. But you know that idea of like, Well, there's You know, green beans and you can get vegetable melodies for stir fry.

And all of that stuff is still really tasty. It's just not where my brain goes to automatically. So I need to keep that in mind when I'm doing my own meal plan.

Stephanie: Right. And that's, you know, and that's what I've found with this whole process that I went through was there were so many habits that I just, I had to break. And one of those was because A little confession [00:22:00] back in the day, way back in the day, I was an extreme couponer. And so, I was going to the grocery store multiple times a day, every day.

And, that definitely went by the wayside after cancer. But, yeah, and so there were just habits of, you know, Yes, I see that that's a sale, but I still have some of that in my freezer. I don't necessarily need to go grab that right now. And I think also just because cooking is actually not my favorite activity, even though I talk a lot about meal planning.

And I, I feel like that's important that there are more voices out there of feeding your family. Even if you don't love to cook. I really don't like it. Um, but I love to eat and I love food that tastes good. And so it's important to me and it's also important to me that the food we're eating is healthy and nourishes our bodies.

And so I just feel like there should be more voices out there. It's okay to talk about cooking, even if you [00:23:00] don't love to cook. And even if it's not something that you're super talented at. Because most of us fit into that mold, you know, we all have to eat. We all have to feed ourselves. It's just, it's, it's a human need.

And so it's okay that we talk about it, even if we're not professional chefs.

Roni: Yeah.

I'm really glad that you said that because there are, I think, yeah, I think there's a vast majority of people out there who are cooking is viewed as like a chore, but again, you got to eat. We all know it's way less expensive to cook food at home yourself. You're able to give your family the, the food and the nutrients that, you know, you Believe is best for them and for yourself.

And so it's, yeah, sometimes it's a negotiation with yourself, even to be like, I got to cook this meal tonight, even though I really don't want to. Because we're not going out to eat, you know, at least in my circumstance right now, we live not too far from town, but [00:24:00] you know, if you've already been in town all day and then you drive back home, you're like, I'm just going to back into town again, that seems silly.

Um, So I really do like that you that you bring that up because that often feels like a big hurdle for people when it comes to meal planning overall is like, Well, I don't like to cook so I don't even know how to get started with meal planning. So finding that balance between. You know, do you have recipes, you know, you can cook, even if they're really simple and, you know, maybe they're not the most exciting recipes, but it's better than, going through the drive thru on your way home every single night or whatever the solution is for people are getting Uber Eats or whatever those.

Services are called.

Stephanie: Yeah, well, and that's, and that's the other thing, it's, you can have those priorities for yourself, but it's also, it's also kind of similar to the house cleaning, um, like, it's also okay to say, I'm going to put a few things in my freezer that we can just pop in the air fryer because [00:25:00] this will keep us out of the drive thru and we're fed and that's okay, open a bag of frozen veggies to go with it and call it a day.

We can have some chicken nuggets and french fries out of the, out of the air fryer and save a lot of money that way. And so I found that when I actually just accepted that fact. You know, the plan's gonna fall apart, and that's okay, but, you know, when you accept the fact that sometimes we're just gonna have to turn to a fast food alternative, and just plan for it, and have it in your freezer, and, and then you're also able to save money that way.

Roni: Yeah. Absolutely. I think that there's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves to, if we're making a homemade meal, it needs to be homemade. You know, the things need to be from scratch or whatever, and it really doesn't have to be that way. Sometimes the best meals are the ones that you spent the least amount of time on, because then you get to go do your other things that you want to do in the summertime.

Put your food in the [00:26:00] air fryer and then you get to go spend time outside with your kids or whatever the thing is that you want to do on your summer evening. And that can be a lot more enjoyable than cooking for an hour and a half to then have everybody be like, I just want to go outside and ride my bike.

Stephanie: Well, exactly, and then that, it kills your motivation to keep trying, you know, and so when I see people share. Recipe videos on Instagram reels and people are in the comments picking apart the ingredients and I think what's the point of doing that? Like, they fed their family. They didn't waste money on fast food and everybody's fed and they're moving on with their life.

I think that's awesome. Go for it. Like, just feed your family. And when you set yourself up for those, like you said, you spend all of that time cooking your meal to have it turn out sub par. That is just, it's such a motivation killer to want to keep trying.

Roni: Mm hmm.

Stephanie: it kind of like the house cleaning. Just do, [00:27:00] set the timer, do the thing, feed your family.

And. And move on.

Roni: So as an, as a side note to this conversation is if you're somebody who doesn't like cooking that much through the process of meal planning and making more homemade meals, do you feel that you became a better at home cook?

Stephanie: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've always been a person who I can read a recipe and I know the basics of cooking, right? I, but even though you know the things, it just takes time to where it, it doesn't become such a a chore each time you do it. I remember, oh man, back when we first got married and I was cooking chicken for a stir fry and I was so paranoid about giving everybody food poisoning because when I first started, when I first started cooking, ground beef was the only thing I knew, like the only protein I had ever really made back when I went out on my own in the world.[00:28:00] 

And So I started trying to use chicken and all I knew was that it had to be cooked through to a certain temperature or you're going to make everyone sick. And I had cut it into the cubes already. So I was taking the meat thermometer to every cube, you know, and it was just like this moment of cooking should not be this hard.

And so going from that in my very early 20s, having never really cooked before to now, yeah, like, You, you definitely become more comfortable with it, it takes less time, it feels like less of a production because when you only cook once a week and you eat out or you, you know, use simple, frozen meals or whatever, which again, no shade to that because you feed your family however you need to.

I felt that when you make it a production of once a week cooking, then it takes longer to get comfortable with it. But when you just dive in and you're like, okay, we are [00:29:00] eating at home. And we'll figure this out. It, it can be, it was rough. It was rough in our early marriage. We were joking about some of the foods we used to, some of the meals, quote unquote, that we would, we would make.

And, um, kind of chuckled about it with our kids. And now, you know, over time you just get more comfortable with it.

Roni: Yeah, the exposure to things often leads to a lot more confidence. And just like that intuitive sense of looking at the chicken and being like, yeah, it's done. I can tell because I've cooked chicken 10, 000

Stephanie: And I, I know this is roughly how long it takes. And, or like when you read a recipe online, In the days of A. I. right now, that's making big news, , of recipes just being A. I. generated. You can read a recipe and think. That's a lot of that particular seasoning. I don't think that's a good idea.

Or, you know, you know what your family likes and you're like, uh, that [00:30:00] ingredient, I don't think we need to use that. Let's substitute this. You get a lot more comfortable with substitutions, um, which substitutions can also help grocery shopping less often. Um, because when you're, for me, when I was first, you know, getting comfortable with cooking.

Like I told you, I could always follow a recipe, but it was follow the recipe to a T. And, and so over time, when I decided I'm not grocery shopping this much, we got much more comfortable. With substitutions in recipes and experimenting.

Roni: Right. Yeah. So going back a little bit to grocery shopping, what, what do you feel like have been some of the biggest challenges to grocery shopping? That's, we obviously talked about fresh food, Making sure you have fresh food or wanting to use too much fresh food when you could use other substitutions, but are there anything else?

Is there any other things that you've found to be challenges when it comes to not shopping for two weeks or even a month?

Stephanie: Yes, definitely. [00:31:00] So when, when I was in this transition process, right after cancer treatment, I was like, I'm going once a month. We actually lived in a pretty small house and our kitchen was small and we had a counter depth fridge. It was the smallest fridge I'd ever had. And so space. It was a huge one I think a lot of people will find that when you grocery shop less often, you're like, whoa, where do I put all of this?

And so I think that was one of the biggest hurdles. So I, what I did was I started, buying, how do I say it? So if I had usually in my fridge, relish and pickle spears and hamburger chips, and then full pickles, In my little fridge, we had a jar of pickles and we would chop it however we needed it. And so that was one thing we did because, yeah, space is definitely a challenge.

And we just got creative with it. You know, I would find cute baskets [00:32:00] and instead of having blankets or toys, it had bread and rolls. Like, you just, you just kind of get creative with where you store your food. Um, and then I would say, There are hurdles, but also, there's a net gain, I feel like, but money is one.

I mean, when you only get paid once a week, it's really hard to buy a month's worth of groceries. So that one, that one can be a challenge, but you can slowly work your way up. Like, just add a few days here and there. Try to build up, try to build up a pantry with a few items, so that you're not buying everything you need every month.

You have a few things already. And then I do think that time, there were moments, because remember, I'm like, I love to analyze how long does something take. And there were moments when I'm in the grocery store for what feels like an eternity with my huge piled cart Thinking, [00:33:00] did this really save me time?

And I'm bringing all of these bags of groceries, finding all the space, you know, putting together freezer meals with the fresh ingredients that I wanted to preserve. There is a lot that goes into it. And I thought, oh, is this really saving me time? And so, I, I feel like those are the main things. Those were the main hurdles, for sure.

Roni: Do you have a system for your pantry as far as making sure that you're using things up in your pantry that, uh, you know, you don't get like a can of pickled beets or something that's like three years ago in the back of your pantry, do you have a system for rotating things?

Stephanie: Yeah, so, I mean, I do a general first in, first out. I don't have any of those fancy can rotators or whatever. It's just, um, when I put something in the cupboard, I always put the fresh stuff at the back. And, you know, we don't have a giant house even now. We [00:34:00] don't have a lot of space in our kitchen. And so I, we don't have to worry too much about having this pantry of stuff that's never used because it's all pretty much front and center.

But yeah, first in first out is definitely how we do it. And then I do keep our cupboards organized by food type, you know, so that I can make sure just at a glance what we have. So I have my little section where the refried beans go. And I can just open the cupboard and see we don't have refried beans because that little row is empty.

And so yeah, by having it organized and you're just used to reaching to a certain place to find the ingredients, it's a quick way to check to see if you have any, or if you have some that are about to get lost in the shuffle.

Roni: Yeah. Do you do, annually or every six months or anything? Do you do kind of like a kitchen cabinet clean out at all? Or is your organization system just pretty dialed in where you don't feel like you need to do that?

Stephanie: I don't feel like I have to do that too much. You know, [00:35:00] I, I, I love to watch the YouTube videos where people, they're like cleaning out my freezer day 35 and I'm like, Because I feel like when you grocery shop less often, you're reaching into those stashes, to keep yourself out of the grocery store.

And so I have found that we're pretty creative with what we do and, we definitely eat through what we have usually before we go out. But I do know it's important to have, um, a little bit of storage of food in case, you know, food supply issues, extreme weather, you lose your job. And so I have some just staples that we keep on hand, but overall just the stuff that we eat.

I just, I feel like grocery shopping less often definitely keeps us from getting too big of a stockpile.

Roni: Yeah, for sure. Do you have any, like time saving strategies or tactics that you tried, whether related to food or just the rest of your [00:36:00] household that maybe didn't work out? Maybe they weren't actually time efficient when you thought they might be.

Stephanie: They're not necessarily methods, but like, Tools that everybody swears by that will save you time. Like I looked, I've tried all sorts of kitchen tools, because like I said, being in the kitchen is not my favorite.

Like if this will save me time on this task, I will try it. So there are a lot of kitchen tools. One of those is the, um, the chopper that's so popular with the, with the little squares and you do the thing. And all I can see when I'm looking at that, because they have to, They have to cut. the item before they put it on the chopper, and then they use the chopper, and then they wash all the things, and my mind, I'm, people can tell me if I'm wrong, and it's, and I'm missing out, but I, I look at it, and I think, does that really save time?

Because, because you're still cutting it on a cutting board, and then adding it to [00:37:00] the chopper. I don't know. I do love that they're uniform pieces, and that makes my heart happy to see that, but other than that, and then, what else have I tried? I've tried lots of things over the years. They're just escaping me right now. But, uh, let me think. Are there any for you? Maybe that'll spark something for me.

Roni: Well, you're not the first person to tell me that the chopper is not an effective use of time. I have heard that from other people before. I have a feeling the craze related to it is that the pieces are uniform and it's very satisfying to look at particularly on the videos. But, you know, just for anybody who doesn't know this, just because it's like really super fast in a YouTube or Instagram video, usually there's like a lot of prep work that was done beforehand to make it look super fast and easy

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Roni: as somebody who does like part time content creation.

There's a lot of backend work that happens to make something look super fast [00:38:00] and easy.

Stephanie: Well, I think one, one that I can think of is when people always talk about like zone cleaning and you have, you know, like this is the day I clean this room and we're going to deep clean it. And then you don't touch it again for a week. or whatever it is. And you go through a checklist of clean this thing, clean this thing.

And a lot of those things aren't necessarily dirty, you know? And it's like, so I'm cleaning. I mean, yeah, they can benefit. There's a little bit of dust there or whatever. I mean, it's, it's not spotless. So yeah, I could clean it, but you know, did I need to do that right now just because a checklist told me to?

And so that's why I like to do the times tidy because here's my timer. Okay. And I am cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned. Like, what is, what is dirty? What needs my attention? So at our house, it's always the floors. And it's always the windows. So if I use a cleaning checklist, [00:39:00] And it says to only wash the windows once a month already that checklist is gone because I have three dogs, you know, like we wash the windows every day because they're just crazy.

Um, but yeah, so I think for me, I think any sort of system, you have to look at it with a critical eye. Like, does it really work for your,

Roni: Mm hmm.

Stephanie: because things that I might not necessarily think will save me time might be perfect for someone else, but in this season of my life. That's just not the time saving tool it is.

Like the freezer meals I was talking to you about. For some people, having everything cooked, ready to go, in the freezer, that is the best use of their time. But for me, it's just not. And I can't set aside an entire day or two days cooking meals that go in the freezer. I'd rather have the components ready to go, and I'll freeze the protein, and then assemble the meal [00:40:00] later.

Like, that works for me. And so, I think that's That's kind of a big part of finding what works for you when you want to save time.

Roni: Yeah, I think that that's a important thing to know overall is that trying to do something In the exact way that somebody else said worked perfectly for them, more than likely not going to work for you because everybody's life and homesick circumstances are totally different. I'm, it sounds like I, I am so much more like you, like we live in a really small house.

I have a very small kitchen. And so, you know, lots of people are like Costco is the way to go. Cause you save all this money and you don't have to grocery shop very much. And I'm like, I don't have, I can't store. And You know, 400 rolls of toilet paper. I have nowhere to put that in my house.

Stephanie: Yes.

Roni: So the bulk shopping is something that I have to do very minimal.

Like minimal quantities of bulk shopping, because we just don't have room for bulk items. Even things like, like my, my husband really likes [00:41:00] yellow deli mustard. And I'd like one of the only condiments that I will ever buy in bulk because he will actually use it. We won't keep our two ginormous things of, uh, deli yellow mustard around for very long.

Cause he eats it on like basically everything, but it's like, I know that about our family and, uh, Have realized like these are the areas where it's more beneficial where somebody else is like they do all of their shopping there and that works really well for them because maybe they have a big pantry or food storage somewhere in their house where they can keep the mounds of food that I do not have space for.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, and I will say that, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but depending on the circumstances, I feel like grocery pickup is not the time saver.

Roni: Hmm.

Stephanie: Now, there are times when it is that there have, there have been times where I was like, I am so grateful for this service. It really saved my bacon.

But when it comes to like, other time [00:42:00] saving things that I'm trying to incorporate in my life, like once a month grocery shopping, I need to be in there with my eyes on that produce and, you know, picking the latest dates of things and, um, all of that. So, or, you know, you make your plan. We had this problem a lot in our last location when you would submit your order and then they substitute just the wrong thing.

It's, it's fine if you didn't have this really particular meal plan and, and you're really wanting to stay out of the grocery store for a long time. You needed that exact thing. And so then you find yourself heading over to another store to find what you need. And then you think, Oh, this didn't really save me that much time.

So that one, that's definitely a time saver that it's not always a win for me.

Roni: right. I think that's a really good thing to point out. And maybe that is something that is more of a time saver for people [00:43:00] in certain seasons of their life. You know, um, my former coworker, Riley, she's has two toddlers. Grocery pickup is really helpful for her because having two toddlers in the grocery store is Kind of a nightmare.

It's way more distraction. It's way more distraction than it is helpful to be able to pick out some of your own things. But I think that you're totally right. That there are those instances when you really have your meal plan dialed in and, you know, for whatever reason they say, we don't have feta cheese.

What else do you want? And you're like, well, this recipe kind of needed the feta cheese in order to taste the way that I want it to taste. That's a really good point. 

Stephanie: So when we moved, we, we live in a small town now and it's easy to go to the store. And I have found myself, like going a little more often. And what I've found is going back to that, um, the hurdle of money. I've found that when you grocery shop less often, or you find yourself grocery shopping more often, you're spending more [00:44:00] money.

And so ultimately for me, staying out of the grocery store protects my wallet. And, um, so even though it can feel like a stretch to try to buy a few extra groceries than you might normally, that overall it's keeping you out of the grocery store and. Because that extreme coupon are in me. When I get to Walmart and I see the clearance aisle, I'm like, Oh, let's go see what they have.

And you find yourself picking up a few things that you didn't plan on. And it's just Anytime you can keep yourself out. And so for some people, grocery pickup is perfect because then you have your set list and, you know, you get what you, exactly what you need. And so everybody has what works for them for sure.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Grocery pickup does help with the reducing the temptation to buy the things that look good in the moment.[00:45:00] 

Stephanie: Yeah. My problem is that I always forget. I, as hard as I try, I always forget. Something. And so that that's the reason why I like to go into the store because it sparks that. Oh, that's right. We were running low on that. And, so that's one reason I like to go in and do it myself.

Roni: Well, before we go, do you have just any last advice that you would give to busy parents who are struggling to balance, you know, their time and their schedules and everything? Mm hmm.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I think My biggest piece of advice is just to give yourself grace. I mean, just in this one conversation, I've shown you that we have had seasons of doing things differently. Right now, my life is not ideal in the way I'm spending my time because life's a little insane for us right now. And, and that's okay.

I'm giving myself grace because I know that eventually we'll, our feet will get back under us [00:46:00] and we'll figure it out because every season of life and parenthood, especially is so different. Every school year is so different. You have different schedule requirements and different classes with different levels of homework.

And back in the toddler days, each phase felt like A brand new challenge. Oh, okay. We're, we're standing up now. We're getting into this now. Okay. And so I think the biggest thing is just to give yourself grace that whatever season you're in, you're doing the best you can with the situation that you're in and with the tools you have.

And I think especially right now with, you know, money being tight and everything getting more expensive and just, uh, Social media always making you feel like there's more you can be doing. Just take a step back and realize that you're doing enough. You're taking care of your family in the best way you [00:47:00] can.

And, because as soon as you start, as soon as you start criticizing yourself, it just becomes this spiral of, you know, feeling like you're not enough. And you are. So I would say that's my biggest piece of advice because back, you know, going back to my, my Zen lifestyle change, life is just too short and too precious to be so stressed out and so critical of yourself.

Just, just keep going.

Roni: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think everybody needs that encouragement every once in a while.

Stephanie: Yeah,

Roni: Well, why don't you tell everybody where they can connect with you and learn more about you online?

Stephanie: yeah, of course. So, I am on mommystandardtime. com. That's my blog. And I mentioned earlier, I have a YouTube channel. I haven't added to it in a while. Um, but I do have some videos in the works. They're just, they will be coming soon. Whenever, whenever I have [00:48:00] time to treat myself like a client. And then, I also have an Instagram.

Um, it's stephanieroyer. mst. And again, you might not see my face there very often, I am there. So, yeah, that's where people can find me.

Roni: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been amazing. So much good tips and tricks in here.

Stephanie: Uh, well, it was my pleasure. This was so much fun.

Roni: Thank you so much for tuning in. There are links in the show notes for Stephanie's blog, as well as her YouTube and Instagram, so that you can connect with her and learn more about what she is all about. If you're enjoying the Plan to eat podcast, please subscribe, wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a rating and review,

and if you're new to Plan to Eat, there is also a link in the show notes where you can get a 20 percent off coupon on your first annual subscription of the app. Simply go to [00:49:00] plantoeat. com forward slash P T E P O D. You can sign up from that link. Thanks again for listening and I will see you in two weeks.