Does once a month cooking for a family of 5 really save enough money to make...

[Margaret]

...it worth it? Hello. I am a mother of three beautiful children,ages 10,6 and 3 and am expecting a new little one in June. I work three 12-hour days per week. What we do right now is I make up two dinners the night before I am scheduled to work and my husband heats the second one up at the kids' normal dinner time at 5, since I don't get home until 7:30 or so. I was thinking about it and it might be easier and cheaper if I took one weekend out of the month to make all of our dinners for that month. I could come up with a two week plan for meals depending on sales, double the recipes, buy in bulk at Costco and then freeze them. It would be nice to just be able to throw something into the oven then go help with homework or whatever instead of having to take time away from my children to cook a healthy meal each day. So the convenience factor is definitely there. However, I was wondering if it would actually be cheaper by more than just a marginal amount to do it once a month. Have any of you done this? Has it saved you much money on your grocery bill? Any other drawbacks to once a month cooking?
We had tried that and it didn't work out too well. I love my husband but he has trouble multitasking between cooking and watching the three of them. When he is home with only my older two, then he can cook just fine. It is my youngest son, who is three and extremely clingy, that creates the issue.

 

[NanaLamb]

I did that but did all the cooking every Sunday afternoon! grocery shopping on the way home from church to pick up fresh milk and veggies, then go home and cook for the rest of the day.

But I was working 12 hour days 6 days a week, my husband was doing the same with slightly different hours.

The kids did their homework at the kitchen table while I was doing salads!

Yes, you can save yourself a lot of time if you wish by making casseroles and other things that just need warmed up adding salad at the last minute. But it is mostly time you are saving!

 

[T68]

I recommend you work with your husband and let him know it is OK if he cooks 2-3 days/week. It is not that big of a deal. If he can make himself a sandwich, he can make a meal for the family.