When you think about it, much of our family time and money is spent in the kitchen.  

With the average family spending over $700 per month on groceries alone, most of us want to find ways that we can save money.  Worse yet, in my opinion is that in the average household there is over 2 hours spent per day on food preparation and cooking.  Now wouldn’t you rather spend that time with your loved ones?  Because of the time that cooking and food prep takes,  many people opt for convenience foods that are both expensive and unhealthy.  Many of us want to change how we spend our time and money, but don’t even know where to start.  

We want to help you make your kitchen time more useful!  Here are 5 kitchen hacks that we use to time and money:

1. Use your slow cooker! A slow cooker is hands down the easiest way to prep your dinner. Place your ingredients into the cooker in the morning and by the time you get home from work, dinner is done.
2. Meal plan. Set aside a little bit of time either weekly or monthly to create a meal plan for your family. The most annoyingly easy way to waste time in the kitchen is by staring at the fridge or cabinets trying to figure out what to have. If you have a plan set up, there’s no more trying to figure it out at the last minute.
3. Multi task.  If you are waiting on your meal to cook, use this time to prep lunches for the week. That frees up the time that you would have spent putting your lunch together and you will likely eat healthier because you aren’t grabbing lunch in the run.
4. Use cooking liners. Okay so this one might not seem like it would save you money, but it saves you a lot of time, which to me is far more important.  These slow cooker liners for example, cost less than $0.44 each, yet they prevent the time consuming chore of cleaning your slow cooker.
5. Clean as you go. Cooking in a clean kitchen saves a lot of time. Make sure that when you are in the kitchen you are cleaning as you go.  This prevents the dreaded chore of cleaning before you can cook or eat.

Do you have any kitchen hacks that have saved you either time or money?