Budget Talk & Meal Prepping Sunday Brunch

We've been moving our money around (she says mischievously as if she had an offshore account somewhere). Well, in a virtual sense anyway. The hubs and I are trying to increase certain areas of our budget (more on this exciting endeavor at a later date). To do that we've gotta lower other line items and eating out, for us, is a real doozy. That big fat budget item just had to pay up. So, we took a deep breath and went for it. Geronimo!

One of our biggest spending days is on Sundays after church. We've made a delightful, yet pricey, habit of going out to eat after church every week. Pre-kids, it was a great time to connect with our church community. Post-kids, it's a special time for us to connect with each other and enjoy being together as a family. It's also a wonderful time of enjoying the delicious food our local restaurants have to offer. We've scoped out where to get the best burgers, the best nachos, the best omelettes, etc. 😍 We're suckers for a great mom-and-pop and we love our Sunday brunches!

To make our changes more palatable, and to help us stick to our guns and be true to our budget, I'm going all out. To make things easier on myself I'm also meal prepping our Sunday brunch on Saturday. That way everything is ready to go and waiting for us at home.

I want to create brunch worthy meals that enticingly call us home - breakfast casseroles full of bacon and sausage, crock pots full of tender meat and soft buns with tasty pasta salad sides, pots of favorite soups packed with flavor and fragrant homemade bread, and the like. Homemade muffins, scones, brownies, cookies, pies, etc. will also be baked and ready to go. I really want us to be tempted home by the thought of delicious home cooking and special Sunday treats.




We're about a month in now. So far, so good. For our first brunch I prepped a sausage and hash brown breakfast casserole to be thrown into the oven when we got back from church. I also prepped a batch of cranberry spice scones and had them sitting in our freezer ready to be popped into the oven to bake up perfectly tender and accompany our yummy casserole. Oh, and a batch of fudgy walnut brownies sat on the counter for nibbling on whenever.




We've also enjoyed a bacon and gorgonzola savory bread pudding, more scones, vanilla cupcakes, and hot dogs for the kiddos.




For Valentine's Day weekend we threw ourselves a valentine feast prompted and planned by the boys with roast turkey breast, cranberry sauce, easy scalloped potatoes, a blueberry pie, and homemade maple ice cream.

I want to make our family brunch time special, so I've been going all out with the table setting too. While this way of doing Sunday brunch is definitely more work than going out, I'm hoping that it will be more rewarding. It sure is a money saver, I'll tell you that much.

Another nice thing about adjusting our life in this way is that we can come home and do absolutely nothing - have the kind of restful Sunday we've always talked about having. I anticipate that some of our brunches may take the form of a lovely picnic quaintly packed into our family ice chest and ready to go wherever we go. No matter where we end up, it will be yummy and special. That's my goal, anyway.

This week I'm prepping a crock pot pork loin, rice pilaf (from the box 😉), easy roasted veggies, and my favorite simple carrot cake (recipe coming soon!).

Also, please feel free to leave a comment with your favorite brunch item or any exciting Sunday meal ideas you might have. I just might use your idea in my next post! Hmm, I think I sense a brunch series coming on. 😉