What about snacks?

A lot of ladies have asked about snacks! I have gone back and forth on snacks as our children have grown! Like all things meal planning you have to take into consideration your budget, the age of your children and your lifestyle.  Because these things seem to change, our snack policy does as well. Here are some of my thoughts.

Ask before you eat if it's not a meal time. I'm pretty chill, in my opinion, when it comes to the little things in life.....but not when it comes to opening my refrigerator!😂 I'm not sure why it bugs me, it just does. Don't randomly open the fridge and don't eat outside of meal time without asking. When you meal plan to stay within a budget and find ingredients missing, it's a pain!

We serve three meals a day, no snacking in between meals unless you are under 4ish. I think little ones need to eat smaller meals and more often. This means there were many years when EVERYONE was around four or under😂and everone was snacking. We've also had one child in particular who seemed to crash, so to speak, without snacks. He had high protein snacks for years.

I don't buy snack food. Not really anyway.  I find that I waste a lot of money and food when I buy snacks. The children eat them up in no time and I end up throwing out lunch or dinner. I'm happy to make littles peanut butter toast, a hard boiled egg, etc. It doesn't take too much extra time! The exception to this rule is rugby. Or any other physical activity! I buy a lot of granola bars in the spring and summer! We love to hike, fish and swim! This requires lots of yummy snacks😁!

I make three meals a day for nine people.  It takes a lot of food, preparation time and clean up engery! I enjoy feeding my little tribe! I love filling their tummies and making memories around the table, but adding one or two mini-meals in between the three big ones would be over the top for me! In addition to feeding bodies I need to nourish souls and minds!