Dear Chase,
My family and I eat out quite a bit, but I love to cook.  However, it always seems that I don’t have time to prepare meals and it always seems to cost less to take them to a restaurant.  My question is how can I utilize my occasional free time to help cook healthy meals for my family, and how can I go about saving money while doing so?
         -Fast Food Exhausted Mom

Dear FFE Mom,
Well, for starters, eating out at a restaurant is not always a bad thing, and can actually be used as some great family bonding time; however, you don’t want to do it all the time.  I prefer eating at home because you can prepare the food yourself therefore you know exactly what both you and your kids are eating; it’s a much healthier alternative to eating out every night.  As for how you can save money while cooking at home, you should always use any coupons you have and purchase items when they are on sale and in season.  For example, making a pumpkin pie is much cheaper in the fall than making a squash casserole, because produce that is not in season will cost more than items that are. 
Now, one of the best things to do in order to utilize your limited free time is making meals that you can prepare in advance.  Let’s say you want baked marinated chicken on Monday night, lasagna on Tuesday, hamburgers on Wednesday, chicken casserole on Thursday, and a dinner out on Friday.  Now let’s assume that you can begin preparing your meals on the Saturday before the week starts. The first step is thawing out any frozen items (you don’t want to thaw out meat or anything too soon, but normally removing meat from the freezer on Saturday, placing it in the fridge, and cooking it on Wednesday is normally okay). 
Next, any sauces or marinades can be prepared early and frozen until you need them.  Speaking of marinades, I always marinate my chicken in Italian dressing for at least a day before cooking it.  The longer you marinate it the better it will be.  It keeps the chicken from drying out and gives it a ton of flavor!  This is something that can be done overnight as you can simply put the chicken back in the fridge and let it marinate. 
Now, if you make your own homemade lasagna or hamburgers then you can always prep your hamburger meat ahead of time.  Thaw it, make it into patties and then freeze them (yes, even for the lasagna; you can unthaw them later and simply break up a few patties to use in your lasagna.).  This way, come Monday night all you have to do is remove the frozen patties from the freezer, let them thaw overnight, use them for your lasagna on Tuesday, then on Wednesday night just throw them on the grill and you’ve got a quick, home-made meal in just minutes!  As for the chicken casserole, use some leftover chicken from Monday night to make your delicious casserole.  I used to HATE leftovers, but now I love them and you realize there are many things you can prepare with leftovers.  Then with each meal you can simply add some steamed veggies, some mac-n-cheese, or any other side you like that can be prepared in minutes.  So I’m sure you see a pattern here: Prepare everything you can in advance and freeze the rest.  My family always makes a lot of chili and soup in the winter and we fix a TON of it!  What we don’t eat, we freeze and we can eat it on a later date.
Also, start watching shows on the Food Network channel. 30 Minute Meals is a great way to start out, and Rachael Ray can give you some great ideas for quick, budget-friendly meals that the whole family will love!  Good luck!
* If you would like to submit a question simply email: "mailto:savingdollarsandmakingsense@gmail.com" savingdollarsandmakingsense@gmail.com or find my page on Facebook under “Saving Dollars & Making Sense”.   Thanks!