Before meal prepping, my weekday lunch routine looked like this: forget to pack lunch → walk to the deli near my office → spend twelve dollars on a sandwich and chips → feel vaguely annoyed at myself. Repeat four times a week. That is about two hundred dollars a month on sandwiches I did not even enjoy.

Meal prepping is not about eating the same sad chicken and broccoli every day. It is about making decisions once instead of every single meal. Sunday afternoon I cook three proteins and two grains. That gives me about nine different combinations over the week. Mix and match. Monday is chicken and rice. Tuesday is chicken and quinoa. Wednesday is beef and rice. You get the idea.

The Numbers

Twelve dollars per lunch at the deli × five days = $60 per week = $240 per month. My prepped lunches cost about $3-4 each in ingredients. Call it $4 × five days = $20 per week = $80 per month. I save $160 on lunches alone. Add in the breakfasts I used to buy (coffee + pastry, $7/day) and the savings cross $200 easily.

How to Start Without Losing Your Entire Sunday

Start small. Prep just four lunches. Not twenty-one meals. Four. You will need:

• 2 pounds of chicken thighs or breasts (roast at 400°F for 20-25 minutes)
• 2 cups of rice or quinoa (rice cooker or stovetop, 20 minutes)
• A bag of frozen vegetables (microwave in the bag, 5 minutes)
• 4 containers with dividers ($15 for a set of five on Amazon)

That is about forty minutes of work — most of it passive cooking time while you do other things. You now have four lunches for under fifteen dollars total. If you hate it, you are out forty minutes. If you love it, scale up next week.

The key insight: you are not saving money by cooking. You are saving money by not buying lunch when you are hungry and make bad decisions.