Diana 0:06

You're listening to the Decluttered Mom Podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene. And in 2017, I had my second daughter, and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me.

Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system, and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement.

Let's listen to today's show. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Decluttered Mom podcast. Today I am excited to talk to you about two nights that save my sanity at dinner when it comes to uh meal planning. And so I want you to just picture this, okay? I want to start today's episode with a very specific moment that probably happens in your house too. Maybe it happens more often than you would like.

Um, but let's say, okay, it's I don't know, about 4:45 p.m. Everyone's suddenly starving, right? Everybody's asking you, what's for dinner? Uh, when are we eating? You open the fridge, you have food in there, you've you've maybe even like decided on a couple of recipes that you can make, but somehow none of it is dinner, right? Like you like, you really can't get yourself to actually make dinner because you are so sick and tired of trying to figure out what is for dinner every single night.

Dinner typically is not stressful because of cooking, right? Dinner is stressful because of decision fatigue. By the end of the day, moms have already made about like 80 billion decisions. Um, and dinner becomes the one that pushes us over the edge, right? So before we jump into two ways that you can make dinners just way more easier for you throughout the week, I want to let you know that today's episode is actually going to be sponsored by Bonza.

Um and Bonza is a food company that we, my family, have enjoyed for years and years. Um, it is the first company that I have ever decided to do any type of partnership or sponsorship with. And I was really excited about this idea of this episode today because uh I'm going to provide a couple of ways that life can be easier for you as a busy mom.

Um, and Bonza has products that fit perfectly into these two nights. And so um I want to go through that with you. But all right, let's jump into the two nights that completely changed dinner in our house.

But first, I want to talk a little bit about like why dinner feels so hard as a busy mom, right? As I mentioned before, we are making constant decisions and we have decision fatigue, especially by the time dinner rolls around.

You've already answered all of the school emails, you've maybe worked a full-time job, you've run errands, you've done returns, you've fielded eight questions from your kid about space and why they haven't been able to go yet, right? Like you're managing the house. Cooking usually isn't the issue, even though, well, I take that back. Sometimes cooking is the issue. I don't love cooking, you know that, right? But decision making is why meal planning feels so heavy.

Decision making and time, or I should probably say lack of time, right? So there are two ways that or two things that I build into our meal plan every single week, and they give me two nights off, essentially. Okay. So, yes, I do still have to do some like dinner preparation. However, the decision making around it is either gone or drastically reduced.

So the first one is yo-yo night, and yo-yo night stands for you're on your own. That's the yo-yo. This is not chaos, this is not like fend for yourself uh war in the kitchen, right? This is planned independence, okay? So this is how it works. Everyone makes their own dinner.

I mean, like if I had to boil it down to just one sentence, that's what it would be. But essentially, it is everyone in the household uh making their own decisions about what to eat and making it for themselves.

Now, obviously, like your one-year-old is not going to be able to do that. But uh even starting at age two or three, we would work with our girls on this concept of yo-yo night. I should clarify, not my oldest, because we hadn't really figured this out by then, but definitely my youngest.

When she was even two, um, I would talk her through this process. Um, and I would ask her, like, okay, what do you want to eat? And I would, you know, she would usually say, like, marshmallows. So we have to like rein it in a little bit. Um, and when they were really little, we would give them a little bit of a framework.

So I would say, like, okay, you have to pick a protein. That was honestly like the biggest thing. I used to tell them when they were really little, you have to pick a protein, you have to pick a fruit, and you have to pick a vegetable. But honestly, just full transparency, I took away the fruit and the vegetable after a while because I found that I was like having to like almost I was having to help them make that decision.

And that was kind of the whole point was that I don't want to have to make that decision. So we stuck with the protein rule. There has to be some protein in it. Otherwise, it felt like they just were like hungry again 20 minutes later.

But other than that, they helped me figure out what they wanted to eat even when they were really little. And once they hit like age four, five, six, they were making their own meals and they have ever since, right? So, what are some things that they can do, right? They can make a quesadilla in the microwave, or my oldest who is 12, she can now do that safely on a stovetop, obviously, with me still nearby.

They can have leftovers, they can have cereal and milk, they can have toast, they can have pasta, right? Um, there are so many things that they can make. A lot of times it's just random things, right? It's like pepperoni plus a cheese stick plus some crackers.

Like they are able to kind of piece things together. Um, but they are making that decision and they, whether they know it or not, they are building independence and they are look, they are learning how to like look at what is available to them and be able to put together a meal and make that meal and be able to sit down and eat it. And those are really important skills, right?

Some of the things that we really love for yo-yo night is leftovers. And so one of the things that Bonza has that we really love as leftovers is their brown rice, mac and cheese.

You guys, if you are gluten-free, you know that pasta you cannot have as leftovers. Like gluten-free pasta is a no-go when it comes to left over leftovers because it gets really mushy. Um, like it doesn't hold well for leftover situations. That is not the case when it comes to their brown rice pasta and their brown rice mac and cheese.

Um, so I will oftentimes make like a bigger batch of it on the weekend. Um, and then the girls will pull from that and warm it up in the microwave and eat it as leftovers on yo-yo night. I love it because there's lots of protein, there's lots of fiber. You know, I was just talking about the protein rule.

And so there's way more protein than typical pasta. And so, like, it's just a very good option for them. It's really easy, holds up really well, and it works really, really well for the yo-yo night.

Okay. Now, let's talk about the other night that we do. This is our what we already have night. And I'm doing air quotes and you can't see me. I really would love to come up with a better name for this.

This is what I have used for the last year or so. It's not catchy, it's not fun. I feel like I need something catchier like yo-yo, you know. Um, so if you have already, if you have any ideas, please let me know. I would love to hear it.

Okay. So what we have, well, what we already have night, these are the rules for this night. I can't run to the grocery store. I can't get takeout. I can't order DoorDash or anything like that. I can only use food already in the house, but it's up to me. It is up to me.

So there is still less decision pressure though, only because I always make sure that my freezer is stocked and my pantry has options for this night. So I buy options at the store when I'm doing my normal meal planning and grocery shopping that I know can be used for this night, but I'm not making the decision ahead of time. Does that make sense?

This helps me to honestly save money because again, we're not like I'm not allowing myself on that night to like run out to the store or order a takeout or anything like that. And it allows me also to not like have food waste.

How many times have you bought something and put it in the freezer? And then you toss it like a year later because it never was touched. Um, this kind of forces me to go into the freezer and use the leftovers that I have frozen or any of the items that I have in there, right?

And so one of the things that I often do for this night is the Bonza pizza. And that's because, again, it has the protein, it has the fiber, it's a better-for-you option. And so when I'm having like a convenience meal from the freezer, I feel really good about it, uh, feeding it to my family.

And I will often just wash some blueberries and uh wash a bell pepper or two and cut that up, and it feels like a complete meal, right? Some other ideas are like I love to do breakfast on this night because I'll almost always have eggs.

I will almost always have bread to make toast, and I will almost always have fruit. Um, and so that's like a really easy thing for me to be able to make anytime I have this and it comes up.

And then another one is just leftovers that I have frozen. I love to make extra of anytime I'm actually cooking, I love to make extra, and then I will freeze the leftovers instead of putting it in the fridge and letting it like everybody forget and letting it rot.

Um, I will put some of it into the freezer, and that way I automatically have an extra meal that I can use uh for this night or for those nights.

Okay. So, what I want you to do, I have a challenge for you. I want you to choose at least one of these. Choose to try either yo-yo or what we already have, or whatever name that you come up with is way better than my name.

Um, and mark it on the calendar for next week, like now. Like pull out your calendar and decide which day is going to be that day.

Um, and if you're feeling like that you really want to try this, then do both. Like do yo-yo night for one night and do what we already have night for another one. As I said before, we love the bonza pasta, we love the bonza pizza.

I really love to utilize the leftovers. I love to use or utilize the things that like are just staples that we always have on hand, um, like the eggs, like the tortillas, like the left, all the leftovers and all of that.

I want you to try it, and then I want you to DM me on Instagram and let me know how it goes because I think it's easy to be skeptical of these ideas. And then as soon as you try them and you see how much it frees you up on those nights, and you're like, oh yeah, this is amazing because I am literally building in a little bit more breathing room for myself, and it feels really good to be um able to do that, right?

Like dinner, dinner needs to happen, but it doesn't have to be perfect every uh single night, right? Two nights a week where dinner decides itself can completely change how stressful evenings can really feel, especially when we have so much on our plate and we have so many decisions that we need to make.

So again, try these out. Let me know, send me a DM. I would love to hear it. And also, if you have never tried Bonza before, give it a try. If you have tried Bonza before and you love it, let me know too. I would love to hear that.

So, all right, you guys, thank you for listening to this episode and we will see you next week.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to the Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories.

And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me @the.decluttered.mom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.