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Do you find yourself caught with an empty lunchbox?  What I mean is… do you get so caught up in your day that you forget or just don’t have time to eat? I know I have and worse with little ones riding around in the car with me.

How does a person avoid Hangry situations? I’ll give you a few tricks I have learned.  I still use them today to make sure I take care of myself and my kids in this very basic form of self care. Those of us with the Acts of Service love language benefit from this type of self care greatly.  Do you know your love language, visit my post What is your Primary Language?  

Meal plan!

I love meal planning. Whether it be for the week or the month. I love a schedule and predictability.  Meal planning to me saves me time. Before meal planning I would alternate between standing in my pantry and in front of the fridge with both doors open trying to figure out what I “felt” like making for dinner. Sometimes 3 hours later dinner would be scrambled eggs and green beans.  I guess I could have chosen worse things for dinner.

Use your crock-pot!

The crock-pot is the best invention for the busy person, in my opinion. They come in many sizes, colors, shapes, and with multiple openings to allow you to make up to a 3 course meal at once. I have several but this one is my favorite Crock-pot.  Who doesn’t love coming home to a hot meal they didn’t have to cook! My favorite part is walking in the door after running errands all day to that amazing smell of dinner.

Stock your car!

In my car I have a plastic 18 quart container where I stock boxes of raisins, packets of nuts, granola bars, and protein bars (I like Quest bars).  I have found this to be a God send when running errands with the kids or when I’m working later than expected at the office. Sometimes I would even keep a small stash in my desk.  I don’t always have the time to stop and grab something, and it seems like the kids are never hungry all at the same time.

Food Prep!

This is a life saver for sure. I know some who prep over the weekend all their meals for the week. Some who prep as they go along during the week. Then there are some who prep once a month when they do their shopping. I have tried all three methods and have kept parts of each in my routine.

This is what I do. Once a month I make crock-pot kits that I can just dump into the crock-pot in the morning, set it, and forget it.  On weekends I’ll make what I call a salad box. This is a large container of lettuce and I use smaller containers for the rest of the salad fixings: tomato, cucumbers, olives, mushrooms, chopped green onion, celery, and so on. This way the salad stays fresher longer and I can mix up my salad differently each time.  During the weekend is also when I make my breakfast food, a quiche or a double batch of muffins. Sometimes I’ll even make a dessert or two.

I also prep as I go along during the week. I will make large batches of soups or chili and freeze individual servings. These are great lunches with a nice salad. Other nights, I will divide a recipe between two casserole dishes, have one for dinner and freeze the second one for another night. I have even been known to make four lasagnas or four pans of enchiladas at one time.

The crock-pot kits and extra frozen casserole help with future meal planning if they didn’t get used this week or month.  As I am able to get certain things on sale at different times, I can build up a rotation of food that are old favorites and can experiment with some new recipes.

In the end there are many ways to avoid Hangry.  I hope that these tips helped you.  Please share pictures or comments, even more tips if you have some that you have found to be helpful.