Kathi Lipp (00:29.174)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And we are back today. We are trying to get some habits. And can I just say habits are hard for those of us on the cluttery spectrum, but we’re gonna try to do this gently and easily. And I am here with one of my best cluttery friends. It’s Tonya Kubo.

Tonya, are you a habit kind of person? Would you consider yourself a habit kind of person?

Tonya Kubo (01:03.981)

So here’s what I always say, right? We cluttery folks deeply resist and resent the habits and routines we so desperately need, right? And I am right there. I am right there with you, Kathi. It is hard. It’s just hard. But I need them.

Kathi Lipp (01:13.697)

It’s so true, right?

Kathi Lipp (01:20.234)

Yeah, think, yeah, I think our brains crave excitement. Would they crave variety and interest? And I know you’re like me, I’m always trying to find a better way to do things. I’m always looking for a process improvement. The hitch on that is you have to have a process in order to have an improvement. And so

Tonya Kubo (01:45.157)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (01:47.358)

Have been catches catch can for most of my life, but I’m trying to put habits into my life very gently not punishing myself not saying you’re a terrible person if you don’t do this on this day and Really trying to say okay Kathi you benefit so much if you can think ahead just a little bit if you can do a couple of things in advance you don’t have to do everything in advance, but when I I

Tonya Kubo (01:55.044)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (02:16.65)

I also need to take the moment when I do do the habits to say, your life just got a little bit easier. It just got a little bit better. And so we’ve talked about decluttering and we’re talking about cleaning and things like that. But I also want to talk about meal prep habits. And this has really come to fruition for me with publishing Sabbath soup and recognizing, okay, I do have some habits.

Tonya Kubo (02:24.187)

Hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:43.439)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (02:43.648)

Like they were never really laid out But I did some things to take care of my future self and that’s really all we’re talking about in this series about habits Is how to take care of our future self? So I know you don’t do things like I do Tonya you have another cook in the house Roger can cook it is not his love language He but you know like today he

I made butter chicken over the weekend. By the way, I’m so mad at myself that I did not put that in Sabbath Soup because that is a, it’s easy and it’s a banging recipe. But absolutely, absolutely. You just have to have one ingredient that you might not have and I’ll never be able to say it. It’s the Marsala spice. How do you say the first word?

Tonya Kubo (03:14.363)

yum.

Tonya Kubo (03:19.908)

Hahaha

Tonya Kubo (03:24.379)

So you’re going to put that in the show notes, right, Kathi? Totally putting you on the spot.

Tonya Kubo (03:38.593)

it’s Garam Masala. There’s no R in the second word.

Kathi Lipp (03:42.272)

I knew Masala. Okay Marsala is like Italian Kathi. Okay, but I’ve never Yeah It’s And you know if you had said it to me I might have said I’ve never heard those words before but that’s like the only Unusual and everything else can will either be in your freezer or in your spice pantry. So

Tonya Kubo (03:48.229)

And I am sure somebody listening will say, that’s not how you say it, Tonya. And that’s okay, we wanna be corrected.

Kathi Lipp (04:08.8)

It’s a very easy recipe, you guys will like it. You do need heavy cream, but I have eaten it without the heavy cream and it’s still delicious. Okay, so I know we said five habits, but I’m gonna give you seven because I’ve done a few things recently that have kind of changed things for me and I wanna share about those too. Okay, so number one, weekly menu planning. So every Monday I make a meal plan. Now, let me tell you, there are points of entry.

Tonya Kubo (04:26.629)

Okay?

Kathi Lipp (04:36.994)

for the meal planning, okay? So if we are broke, the point of entering, and when I say broke, it’s like, okay, we’re just really trying to watch our funds and that’s our current top priority. So what I will do is I will get into the inventory. I’ll see what we have in our freezer. I’ll see what we have in our pantry. I’ll mostly see what might stand up and walk away in a week if we don’t use it. And I’ll plan around what we already have.

If time is a big issue, then probably what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna make a meal plan based mostly on prepared foods. So what can I do with a Costco chicken or, you know, let’s just do the katsu from Costco because yum. Like those are the things I’ll do. So there’s time and money and then energy.

If I know it’s going to be an especially stressful week or exhausting week, we’re going a lot of places, then it’s kind of the same thing as the time thing, but I will do things that have no prep needed. I don’t mind putting on like a pot of rice or throwing some baked potatoes, but I’m not doing anything like searing. If the recipe says chop an onion, it’s not happening on a low energy week.

Tonya Kubo (06:00.827)

Mmm.

Kathi Lipp (06:01.228)

Like here’s a simple meal, first chop an onion. I’m out, I’m out, I’m out. Like I like to be able to just combine ingredients sometimes. And then the other thing for me is I know we talk about space, time, energy and money, but let’s instead of space, let’s talk about stress. Maybe you have some people in your family who are like, I only like buttered noodles. Like I’m going to live on butter noodles until I die.

Tonya Kubo (06:05.883)

Heh.

Tonya Kubo (06:20.635)

Mm.

Tonya Kubo (06:27.675)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (06:30.822)

What what can you do if you know it’s going to be a particularly stressful week? Maybe you have in-laws coming in Maybe you’re a teacher and it’s parent teacher like you may just need to cook for comfort or buy for comfort and so whatever weekly menu plan Accomplishes that make that happen. How do you plan for meals in your family Tonya?

Tonya Kubo (06:54.807)

Yeah, so for me it has to, I mean there is a whole process. So we start with inventorying. My goal is to go to the store as little as humanly possible. And ideally, Brian’s is to go as often as possible. So my second goal is to keep Brian out of the store as much as possible. So for me, like my ideal situation is grocery pickup every two weeks. We’re not there yet. The most we can do is like every week and a half because

Kathi Lipp (07:00.629)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (07:04.222)

Mm-hmm, and Brian’s is to go as much as possible.

mm-hmm okay

Kathi Lipp (07:19.927)

Mm-hmm. Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (07:23.321)

children as anybody listening can attest are fruit bats. That’s all they do. They like four pounds of strawberries, not enough strawberries to hold them through until tomorrow. It’s just how it is. So inventory first, then based on inventory is when I create my meal plan because I want to use up as much as I have. And then the shopping list comes last. It’s the staples that I need. So in our case, it’s a lot of fresh fruit and then it’s, you know, it’s fresh fruit. It’s milk usually.

Kathi Lipp (07:27.488)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (07:34.266)

my goodness.

Kathi Lipp (07:45.71)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (07:49.187)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (07:52.463)

That’s our two staples and eggs. My people eat a lot of eggs. And then from there, it is, you know, then we do our shopping list and we go from there. I do the meal. If meals are going to be planned, I have to do them. Brian is somebody who wants to decide at five o’clock what he wants to eat at 530. And in many cases, what he wants to eat won’t be ready until 730.

Kathi Lipp (07:52.93)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Kathi Lipp (08:02.744)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (08:06.606)

Okay.

Kathi Lipp (08:13.614)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (08:17.77)

Right, right.

Tonya Kubo (08:18.787)

So I try to do the planning ahead. Cause if I say, hey, tonight’s dinner is Korean beef, you need to start it at four o’clock. He will start the Korean Beef at four o’clock. But if I say tonight’s, yeah, but if I say tonight’s dinner is Korean Beef, he will not even think about starting it until he is too hungry.

Kathi Lipp (08:28.654)

Perfect. But you have to… Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (08:39.286)

Right, and can I just tell you, cooking while hungry, I want to be a nice person. I’m normally a nice person, I, yeah, or what I’ll do is I’ll snack the whole time that I’m cooking and then I couldn’t, yeah, yeah. Like right now, it’s not strawberries for us, but those big fatty blueberries right now, I could eat.

Tonya Kubo (08:49.957)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (08:56.261)

That’s what he does, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (09:04.877)

Mmm, yeah, those are tasty.

Kathi Lipp (09:06.79)

whole tray of those by myself and then who who needs Butter Chicken no thank you yeah so I planning your meals will save you so much mental stress and also keep from you you from being a snack monster or and there’s nothing wrong with snacking it’s just you don’t want to cook a whole meal and like I know thank you okay so monday I do the planning Tuesday

Tonya Kubo (09:12.762)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (09:22.885)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (09:36.23)

This is number two is the inventory and shopping list now if we’re trying to save money I’m doing my inventory first. I usually know what’s in the fridge I usually can kind of figure that out, but I am Tuesday is the day where it’s like, okay What do we actually what did I think we had and what do we actually have? And you know, is it still good that kind of thing? So I tend to do Sam’s cart

Tonya Kubo (09:45.423)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (09:57.775)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (10:04.27)

I also tend to do like a grocery store run for smaller, especially perishable things that we’re not gonna eat quite as much of. What’s your shopping strategy, Tonya? You do the order too, right?

Tonya Kubo (10:17.691)

Well, yeah, so there is, I don’t have a lot of options for grocery pickups. So there is a store in like halfway in between where Abby goes to school and where we live in a different town. And so I’ll try to do grocery pickup there, but I can only do it on Wednesdays because Wednesdays is the only time when there’s enough of a difference between when she gets out of school and when Lily gets out of school to be able to hit that sweet spot.

Kathi Lipp (10:28.642)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (10:40.782)

I love that strategy though. I love that. Yes.

Tonya Kubo (10:45.145)

Yeah. So it’s like pick up Abby from school, hit Walmart, pick up the groceries, go get Lily. And then I have two girls and groceries to put away.

Kathi Lipp (10:55.182)

But you know what? You know! You know, isn’t it nice that it’s been decided for you?

Tonya Kubo (11:01.507)

Right. And then if we need something, we have a grocery store that’s not even a quarter of a mile away. It’s just pricier, you know? And so that’s the trade off, right? It’s like, okay, we know what they have. We know we can run in and get something, but we also know we’ll leave like spending triple what we expected.

Kathi Lipp (11:07.958)

Right. Yes.

Kathi Lipp (11:19.156)

I love it. We shop on the same day. It’s, you know, I’ll be thinking of you next time. Okay. Thursday. This is number three. Have a prep day. So for me, this is the day where I prep wash and cut vegetables. Do I need to saute some meat? Do I need to get the meat off of a chicken? If I’m feeling extra saucy, do I need to spatchcock something?

Tonya Kubo (11:24.335)

Haha.

Kathi Lipp (11:48.718)

That is my day to prep the food because prep is to me is different than cooking Like and it may not be for everybody, but it’s so nice to go into cooking day where I’m like, okay I can just throw everything and I’ve I’m doing the lettuce for at least half the week You know if you get it nice and dry it could almost last an entire week. I’m washing the fruit for a week

Tonya Kubo (11:48.795)

Mmm.

Tonya Kubo (11:57.157)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (12:16.931)

I am chopping up veggies that I’m gonna throw into sautees and stuff for a week. Are you a prep and cook on the same night kind of person or what’s your deal?

Tonya Kubo (12:28.013)

Yeah, it just depends. So for me, if I’m going to do any prep, my only options for prep are Friday nights or Saturdays because my work week is so heavily scheduled. So I will do that. My family will not use prep prep stuff, though. That’s old to them. And because we have listeners, I’m just going to say big fat air quotes around old because we all know it’s not old. It’s perfectly fine. But they get to tell themselves whatever stories they want.

Kathi Lipp (12:38.045)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (12:45.115)

it…

Kathi Lipp (12:58.328)

They really should not eat in restaurants. Because I have worked in a restaurant and prep is really, really important. Yeah, anyway, well, you know what? I don’t have to live with them. that’s just fine. That’s just fine. Okay, so we’ve got through our first three. So weekly menu planning, do an inventory and shopping list, and then a prep day.

Tonya Kubo (13:01.25)

I know.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (13:08.709)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (13:20.411)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (13:26.198)

We’re going to take a quick break break and we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about a little more prep that you can do to make Another habit that you can do to make your life a little bit easier. Okay, we’re going to take this quick break and we’ll come right back

Okay, we are back with number four, some meal prep habits to get you through your week. This is number four, breakfast prep. I now do something, and we’ll talk more about it. It’s, I call it my power hour, which, you know, I’m just trying to hype myself up. But every week I make a big pot of oatmeal that has whatever fruit is like,

You know, it’s time to use it up. It’s not bad. It’s not moldy. It’s not gross, but like the bananas my you know, there is a certain threshold where Roger will eat a banana and then 20 seconds later that threshold has been crossed Never to be seen again. So we make a big pot of oatmeal with blueberries and bananas and apricots To kind of throw all that in there. I also my mom was she good. She’s like

Tonya Kubo (14:20.667)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (14:24.987)

Yup.

Tonya Kubo (14:35.387)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (14:39.374)

you know, once every couple of weeks, she likes to have a little treat and go to McDonald’s and get a sausage biscuit. And she said, Kathi, that sausage biscuit was almost $6. And I said, mom, and we’re going there tonight. I’ll wake up tomorrow. I’m going to make that woman a homemade sausage biscuit. Because yeah, because we all enjoy a sausage biscuit every once in a while. But there are certain things you could prep ahead of time.

Tonya Kubo (14:56.037)

Whoa.

Tonya Kubo (15:00.571)

You

Kathi Lipp (15:04.524)

You know, for your kids, it’s like packing a lunch, but maybe it’s packing a breakfast instead. And I know that when my kids were younger, we often did breakfast in the car just because we had no other, nobody was sitting down to eat a breakfast at our house when my kids were in elementary, junior high and high school. That just, that, that did not happen. What, what do you do? Do you do anything to get ahead on breakfast at your house?

Tonya Kubo (15:13.648)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:18.927)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:28.759)

Yeah, so what I found is I need to at least have an idea because it doesn’t matter what I have. I could have like five boxes of cold cereal. I could have bagels. I could have frozen waffles except for Lily and for Ryan. So that leaves Abby, I guess. Abby’s expectation is I’m going to tell her what to eat and I’m going to prepare it for her. And they are a lot alike. So.

Kathi Lipp (15:33.707)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (15:45.739)

Yeah

Kathi Lipp (15:50.862)

Can I just tell you, Abby and Roger are so much alike.

Tonya Kubo (15:57.197)

You know, Lily likes to be self-sufficient, so she takes care of herself. Brian prefers these like Jimmy Dean frozen sandwiches, like McDonald’s frozen sandwiches, right? I used to make breakfast burritos that we froze that they could heat up. Nobody would eat them but me. I’ve tried the homemade biscuit things. Nobody eats those but me. So now what I say is before everybody goes to bed, say here are your three options for breakfast tomorrow. This is what you guys have.

Kathi Lipp (16:05.592)

Right, yeah, yeah.

Kathi Lipp (16:15.288)

Mmm.

Kathi Lipp (16:25.39)

Mmm, nice!

Tonya Kubo (16:26.971)

So tomorrow, if I want them to eat cold cereal because I’ve got cold cereal to use or I have no other ideas, I put the cereal on the table. So they come in and it’s like, it’s a cinnamon toast crunch right in front of me. I should have that.

Kathi Lipp (16:34.958)

So smart.

Kathi Lipp (16:41.484)

Wait, hot sauce? Is that like, I’m excited?

Tonya Kubo (16:44.675)

No, sinuh- Huzzah.

Kathi Lipp (16:46.924)

Huzzah, I thought you said hot sauce. I’m like, is there some new slang I don’t know about? Got it. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (16:49.147)

I’m sorry. That’s all.

Kathi Lipp (16:54.318)

Huzzah, yes. Okay, yes, because if it, yes, Roger is the smartest man I know, helps around the house, but he would prefer that I just told him what to eat and then he pushes back a little bit on like, ooh, I need this little adjustment or I’d like the, really.

Tonya Kubo (17:04.123)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:09.453)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:14.083)

They are the same person. Abby wants you to tell her what to eat so that she can then suggest alternates. She likes veto power.

Kathi Lipp (17:21.844)

Right. Yes, we just did this thing where we were, I think I told you about it on one of our calls, we were doing a Roger wanted to watch football. I still don’t get it, but okay. But for Roger, an important part of football were are snacks that he thinks go with football. So we did a seven layer dip and he’s like, but I don’t, you know, I want you to do the seven layer dip, but I don’t really like the canned pinto beans.

Tonya Kubo (17:33.499)

haha

Tonya Kubo (17:37.371)

The snacks!

Tonya Kubo (17:49.603)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (17:49.814)

And so I told you, I took some bacon grease and I, by the way guys, this guy would swim across shark infested waters to get me a glass of lemonade. So if the man wants warmed up pinto beans, I am happy to do it because trust me, I’m getting the better end of this deal. But yes, he needed to let me know his mods. Yeah, this is the modification I need. Okay, Tonya, I have a very important question for you.

Tonya Kubo (18:04.731)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (18:12.246)

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Kathi Lipp (18:19.628)

Are you a food house or are you an ingredient house? Do you know what I mean by that?

Tonya Kubo (18:24.407)

I prefer, yes, I prefer to be an ingredient house, but I think the nature of how we are, Brian commutes, Abby goes to school a half hour away, we have activities all the time. I do need to make sure there are some foods that we can lean on, but it’s hard, because I just, that’s not how I wanna operate.

Kathi Lipp (18:28.908)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (18:36.376)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (18:42.902)

Yeah, it is hard. Well, and it’s so interesting. Okay, and if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you’re like food and ingredients are the same thing. Food is more grab and go, whereas ingredients have to be assembled, prepared, that kind of thing. And I think you have to have a balance of both. You know, for a snack, I don’t wanna like…

Tonya Kubo (18:57.52)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (19:08.366)

cook the garbanzo beans and crush them into hummus. Like, no, I want the hummus there. Like, I’m not going to make a tortilla chip. You know, those are the kind of thing. But it’s been very interesting to me on social media recently, where I don’t think it’s the people who grew up in ingredient households. And I think ingredient households are usually people who are maybe,

Tonya Kubo (19:12.165)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (19:35.116)

whose families growing up struggled more financially and or are maybe a different ethnic background than the color of my palm or are super crunchy, super, super crunchy households. But on TikTok, you see all these grocery hauls.

Tonya Kubo (19:38.779)

Mm.

Tonya Kubo (19:52.837)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:00.997)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (20:01.304)

where it’s like, it’s $450 for one week’s worth of food, but it’s chips, soda, frozen pizzas, tortino, know, pizza rolls, that kind of thing. And I’m like, and somebody finally came on and said, it’s not that groceries are expensive because groceries are expensive, but you don’t know how to cook. Like that’s the problem. You don’t know how to cook. So.

Tonya Kubo (20:05.477)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:09.061)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (20:29.558)

Like I buy a lot. I do buy some prepared food I would say probably 25 of what we buy is prepared foods, but I also know I have to portion those things out if I go grab a bag of things. I can mindlessly eat and i’m not doing this for diet. I’m just doing it because I want to feel okay I mean i’m not doing it because I want to lose weight. I am doing it because of a food diet but

Tonya Kubo (20:41.541)

Hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:52.347)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (20:59.47)

Portioning those things out saying okay, you know what? I’m gonna buy the little cups of hummus, but that has to last me a month So I know I’m gonna eat about three of those a week because that makes me happy Portioning Some of our treats into smaller things and it means like I may buy the big bag of chips But I’m gonna portion those into little ziplocks

Tonya Kubo (21:08.197)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (21:27.756)

Because to me that makes more sense than buying individual chips. You know what I mean? They’re mostly air. Yeah. Yeah. So do you do anything to portion out food or do you, do you buy portion to food? Like every answer is acceptable. I just, my frustration with TikTok is look how much this is costing and I’m buying

Tonya Kubo (21:36.089)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the little like snack bags of chips.

Tonya Kubo (21:49.935)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (21:56.536)

highly convenient foods that I don’t need to touch.

Tonya Kubo (21:58.489)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so we have to do it a little differently here. So for my family, there is no difference between buying a bag of chips and a box of 40 snack bags. They’ll eat five snack bags in one sitting. So that’s like irrelevant. And there are certain things, right? I refuse to battle over food. I refuse to put padlocks on my pantry or anything. I have friends who do all that. I have friends who do it and it’s what they do and that’s fine for them, but I will not.

Kathi Lipp (22:12.712)

Mm-hmm. my gosh. Yeah, that makes sense, right.

Kathi Lipp (22:21.902)

Yes, 100%. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (22:30.905)

So it’s, buy this, you know, I buy what I buy and it lasts as long as it lasts. And if I don’t wanna go to the store, then you’re gonna wait until I go to the store or you’re gonna wait until I order groceries. You may have to go five days without snacks. You’ll live, we all live.

Kathi Lipp (22:35.468)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (22:40.716)

Yeah.

Right. No, that makes total sense. And yeah, there are definitely tiers of snacks, aren’t there? You know, it’s like…

Tonya Kubo (22:52.665)

Yeah, I will tell you one thing I do though. So I will buy extra and then I stash the backup. Like I have a back stock stash that goes, it’s on the top shelf of my closet. Nobody looks for food there.

Kathi Lipp (22:59.427)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (23:08.128)

Right, okay, I used to wrap things in aluminum foil and market liver and Nobody in my family ever Like we never ate liver the entire time they lived in our house and they still don’t know that Yeah, but you do what you have to do, right? We

Tonya Kubo (23:20.005)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (23:25.391)

Yeah. But I’m telling you, nobody gets more excited than when they thought there was no more Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Can you tell what Brian Kubo’s favorite cereal is? They haven’t seen any Cinnamon Toast Crunch for four days and suddenly they’re Cinnamon Toast Crunch out. I’m the hero.

Kathi Lipp (23:33.203)

Ooh, yes.

Kathi Lipp (23:38.754)

Yeah. Okay. I love that. You are the hero. Yeah. Roger. I have obtained hero status several times when I’m like, no, I know where that is. And you know, when we had kids in the house, there were two things like there was the liver trick and also there was Christmas box. think it was number five. We never had anything in Christmas box. Number five, except for the food that like

Tonya Kubo (23:50.777)

Haha.

Tonya Kubo (24:00.987)

Mmm.

Kathi Lipp (24:06.678)

I didn’t I wanted to buy the big pack but I didn’t want to put it all out at one time because we had four teenagers, you know I mean Justin ate face cream one time like

Tonya Kubo (24:14.413)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (24:20.975)

haha

Kathi Lipp (24:25.802)

Okay, number six, leftover makeover Monday. So we have like our big kind of family meal on Saturday, but I always know that that’s going to be a loop meal on Monday. So if I roasted chicken, it’s going to be chicken tortilla soup or chicken tortilla salad or something like that. You know, so planning, we’ve talked about it before, loop meals, leftovers on purpose. And then number seven,

This is new, something new I’ve been doing. And can I just tell you, Tonya, I’m kind of a genius. I’m not gonna lie, not gonna lie. You know, I make a lot of dishes. Like I’ll make soups, I’ll make, you know, all these things. And then it’s like, I wish we had baked potatoes to put that on or I wish, so what I’ve started doing is once a week, it’s like my carb prep.

Tonya Kubo (24:59.971)

Okay?

Tonya Kubo (25:22.171)

Mmm.

Kathi Lipp (25:24.296)

I will put, I’ll prep six baked potatoes and put them in the air fryer. I’ll do a big pot, or instant pot of rice. I do jasmine rice, that’s the one I do. I’ll do a batch of pasta on the stove. I’ll do my slow cooker with oats and fruit and bananas and spices, and I’ll do one batch of muffins.

And I can get all of that prepped in about 40 minutes. And we are set for the week. We don’t have to keep making rice or keep making. And so I do six air fryer baked potatoes because we take some to our neighbor. But also that gives us four that if we wanted to have a baked potato as a side dish, great. Or if I’m running out of ideas for lunches.

Tonya Kubo (26:21.711)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (26:21.784)

then I’m just gonna throw a baked potato and we’re gonna find what’s in the fridge and use it up and use what’s left over. I did fried rice the other day, because I channeled my inner Kubo and just did a bunch of stuff in there. This makes such a difference. I feel so much more prepped for the week. And all of these are relatively inexpensive to do.

Tonya Kubo (26:34.944)

Yeah

Tonya Kubo (26:42.235)

Mm.

Kathi Lipp (26:47.234)

but they make such a difference to getting dinner on the table or lunch on the table. I know you’re a big rice household. Do you do anything else to kind of prep for the week?

Tonya Kubo (26:53.019)

Hmm.

Tonya Kubo (26:58.943)

Yeah, so for us, I mean on Sundays I usually cook the equivalent of what would be two like big meals. With the idea is one’s gonna be Sunday dinner and then leftovers will get us lunches for a couple days and then the other one is going to be our like repurposed Monday and Tuesday night dinners. Because that’s sort of what we need to do. So for us, you know, like we’re probably making rice twice a week.

Kathi Lipp (27:07.575)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (27:18.02)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (27:21.475)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (27:25.645)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (27:26.055)

And then there’s very rarely leftover rice and if there is then that becomes fried rice. We will, so potatoes, my family doesn’t like leftover potatoes except Lily and I will eat cold potatoes for lunch. Like we’re weird like that. It’s kind of fun for us. And I will make a loaf of bread. So I make, I have an easy sourdough recipe. So I make a loaf of sourdough bread probably every other Saturday. And that’s something that can get us through.

Kathi Lipp (27:30.798)

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (27:35.352)

Hmm.

Kathi Lipp (27:38.754)

Yeah, I love that.

Mmm, yeah.

Kathi Lipp (27:50.424)

nice.

Tonya Kubo (27:53.883)

I think it’s helpful. Although the homemade sourdough bread is not quite like store-bought bread, right? It like just doesn’t quite last as long.

Kathi Lipp (28:00.738)

Okay. yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah. Well, it’s so good to, you know, know what’s going to help your family get through and don’t make potatoes if your family’s not going to eat potatoes. You know, if they’re not muffin people don’t do a muffin. Yeah, Tonya, go for it.

Tonya Kubo (28:10.843)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (28:17.979)

one thing that I do love to make ahead. I love to hard boil eggs over the weekend because I like a hard boiled egg for breakfast. And so does Lily. She doesn’t like to take them in her school lunch because she thinks it just makes her whole backpack smell. She’s not wrong, but yeah, she’s not wrong. But you know, she’ll take a hard boiled egg. I’ll take a hard boiled egg. So that is something like I bought my Instant Pot purely for two reasons. One was to make hard boiled eggs in bulk.

Kathi Lipp (28:24.328)

yes, yes. Yes, yes.

Kathi Lipp (28:32.898)

They smell. It does. She’s not wrong.

Kathi Lipp (28:42.111)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (28:47.181)

and the other was to make my own beans.

Kathi Lipp (28:50.902)

Okay, you know what? You’ve just reminded me of something, because I want to start making beans along with the prep, but the eggs, I had forgotten. And you know, I love eggs on salad. Like that makes me super happy. And I also love egg salad because apparently I’m channeling my 95 year old Eunice, because it just makes me so happy. Okay, this is so great. So guys, don’t try to do all these things. Take one thing.

Tonya Kubo (28:56.699)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (29:03.963)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (29:10.989)

Yep!

Kathi Lipp (29:19.732)

Make it a habit and then build on that habit and you’re going to have a much easier time Tonya. This was so great Thank you i’ve got some ideas from you that I am going to i’m going to instigate and i’m so excited about it Eggs and beans are going on the list. I love it. Well friends. Thank you for hanging out with us You’ve been listening to Clutter Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp now Go create the clutter free life. You’ve always wanted to live