It's the end of the month and you get your credit card bill, eyes pop out of your head and you think, WHERE IS ALL MY MONEY GOING? You've stopped eating out, you only buy cheap coffees, and your clothing and travel budget is nonexistent. You think you have no more room to cut costs. I am here to tell you that you do! There is hope at the end of the "very broke" tunnel. I know this because despite all of my penny saving tricks, I needed to find a way to save another $100 or more a month and I found it. It's your recipes man! Yep that's right. You think you are being thrifty by cooking home-cooked meals but let me tell you where all the extra money goes…it's those darn recipes!

Recipes are a total money sucker. That's where your "stay in and cook" plan starts to get expensive. Let's play this out. You make the frugal decision to stay home and cook. What's the first thing you do? Google a recipe that has you flying to the store to pick up all the missing ingredients you need for this home cooked delight. Before you know it, you have a jar of masala seasoning (of which you only need a teaspoon), a bunch of leeks (of which you only need one), and a jar of sun-dried tomatoes (of which you only need a quarter of). You use your new ingredients one time, and are on to the next recipe, likely throwing out, or never using the other leftover un-versatile ingredients. Stop this, stop buying ingredients you only use once a year, stop googling recipes that require additional trips to the store, stop wasting money…and no, I am not saying stop eating. Well I am, I am saying stop eating food that requires you to waste money and start REVERSE MEAL PREPPING.

What the heck is reverse meal prepping (RMP)? It's cooking backwards! No, I don't mean put your back to the stove while you try to simmer your veggies. I mean make a weekly grocery list, stick to it, buy your staples, some proteins, some veggies, some fiber, complex carbs etc… When it's time to cook, type in three main ingredients you have in your house like chicken breast/broccoli/rice or salmon/pasta/green bean or potato/egg/cheese...you get the idea. NOW google. Recipe's will pop up with those ingredients. If any recipes pop up with additional ingredients you don't have you can either leave them out, or google a substitution for that ingredient.

Sounds obvious right? I have so many people ask me "what gave you the idea to make that!?" and I simply say, I just googled a couple ingredients I had on hand. I care about being healthy, but I am a very flexible cook. If a recipe calls for onions and all I have are scallions, it's fine. If a recipe calls for sweet potatoes and all I have are regular potatoes…yep you guessed it, it's fine. This way at the end of the week, or year, you wont throw out hundreds of dollars of food, and you won't head to the store to purchase hundreds of dollars of additional ingredients.

A few tips to make your Reverse Meal Prepping successful:

• Have a well stocked spice cabinet
• Have a variety of condiments that have a long shelf life
• Only buy one meal's worth of meat/veggie protein at a time (unless you are prepping lunches and stuff).
• Buy veggies that you know you love (not the I "should eat this" kind)
• Minimize the purchase of foods that expire within 7 days, more trips to the store is better than throwing out food
• Don't be afraid to get crazy in the kitchen and mix ingredients you never thought would go together! Breakfast Pizza and Hotdog omelets can totally be a thing!
• Focus on healthy ingredients, not magazine worthy presentation

Let the RMP Begin!