[Intro - Corinne Powell] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell, and I'm the owner of Change Radically.

In this space, we'll talk all things inner wellness, and parenting will certainly come up too. Because I'm a mom to four kids, so parenting is a huge part of my life.

This space is designed for safety. Your inner child is welcome. Your past self is invited to listen as well. And no matter what type of day you're having, I want you to know I'm glad to be with you.

I live out of vulnerability and transparency, so come and be. Be yourself. Be messy. Invite a friend, and please stay a while.

Keep coming back. I want you around. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Corinne Powell: I’d like to introduce my guest to you! Stephanie Iraggi is a Jesus-loving, introverted, somewhat crunchy, and highly practical mom and creator at MamaShark.blog. Prior to having children, Stephanie owned a successful small business- but before her oldest child was born, she made the decision to become a stay at home mom. As the overwhelm of motherhood set in, she realized she was carrying even more responsibilities than she did when she owned her own company- and just like in a small business, there was a need to figure out how to run things more efficiently.  Stephanie realized she needed to learn to do daily mom life more effectively- and now she’s on a mission to do mom life smarter, faster, cheaper, and easier…and to share what she finds with YOU!

All right, so thank you, Stephanie, for being here with me. And I'm excited to... I'm excited to personally learn and for everyone else to be able to hear how we can go about meal planning in a different way than we already are. 

Stephanie Iraggi: I'm excited to be here. Thanks so much. I'm excited to talk about meal planning. I'm on a meal planning kick, so let's do this.

Corinne Powell: All right. So I'm curious, for starters, were you always a planner when it came to food or otherwise, or is this something you've had to learn to become?

Stephanie Iraggi: Yeah, this does come naturally to me. My sister, who's a few years younger than me, used to always rig me when I was younger because I was homeschooled, and so I could kind of structure my day a little bit. I had some control over that, and I would literally plan out down to the minute of when I would take water breaks and to the nth degree. So I'm actually a lot more chill now than I was. It was the other way for me. I didn't have to learn to plan.

I had to learn to be flexible. As a mom, that's the harder piece for me of the, like, nothing is going to go according to my plans, and so learning to not just plan, but actually create plans that you can roll with because life never goes the way you think when you're a mom.

So that's more the middle I had to find. 

Corinne Powell: Okay. Yeah. I'm not a planner by nature. I mean, maybe on the Enneagram, I'd be like a two-wing one.

So I definitely, I've run a kitchen for a camp. I know how to see things and make things happen and put things in boxes, but this planning thing sometimes is not my go-to.

So I'm always happy to hear from someone where this is their thing because I pull something and I'm like, okay, I can implement that and create a little more ease in my life. 

Stephanie Exactly. Well, and that's one of the things I love to do.

I love to kind of get to know different styles of people and learn what makes them tick and learn how they learn and what motivates them because I very much recognize that it's not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to planning and organizing and that sort of thing.

You can't just say, oh, go get a planner. That's not going to work with a lot of people. I am married to a husband with ADHD. My daughter and I are both, we call it neuro-spicy.

We're both autistic. So we're all just kind of a neuro-spicy family. We do things differently and we really have to pull on our different strengths to make up for the fact that we don't do things the way that others do sometimes.

And so I love taking meal planning or whatever, but taking meal planning and being like, all right, how can we make this so that it works? So when I create things, I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do things that I present, whether I'm just having a conversation with a friend or I'm putting something up on my blog on Mama Shark.

How can I make it so that it is usable for people with different strengths and weaknesses? Because we're all different. It's a great thing.

And we don't all need to be type A. We need the type B people in our lives and we need both sides of it to make life work and to make community work. So I want to make life easier for both sides, not just for the people who are like me.

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Not everybody goes at it that way. So. Yeah. 

Stephanie Iraggi: Yeah. You need both because I'm the one that plans everything to death and I seem to attract the people that do the opposite and they're the ones that have me to their house and feed me. So, I mean, you know, I like that. It's a good balance.

I'll plan and tell them what they could make and then they make the food. So, you know. 

Corinne Powell: Yes. Oh, all right. So what have you been thinking about from this angle with meal planning?

You said you've been thinking about it lately. 

Stephanie Iraggi: So I have. So, okay. So here's my thing. I hate cooking. Like I really, I just despise cooking. I like the eating part. I don't like the cooking part. Yeah.

I actually don't even mind the cleanup part that much, but the, I don't know. There's just something about it that it's just never been a love for me. Um, and I know for a lot of people, I don't like cooking. A lot of people, like that's their love language.

Like they just love to cook. They love to feed people. And I am not one of those.

And so putting that together with, you know, um, running a home and being a mom and I'm homeschooling my kids and I've got a blog and like, there's so much going on that by the time dinner time comes around, like I just, my motivation's gone. I don't want to do something that doesn't sound fun.

And cooking does not sound fun. Yeah. So my mission when it comes to meal planning is how can I make it as easy as possible while still putting like healthy, good meals on the table?

Like, how can I, how can I embrace where I'm at, where my family's at in this season and, um, run with that because I've been through a bunch of different seasons, right? I've had, I've been, my kids are now four and seven. So I've been through the newborn phase. I've been through the postpartum.

I'm, you know, all the crap that came with that. Um, like, you know, there's, there was the before kids phase where, you know, I was working full time.

There's just a lot of different phases and each one of them has looked different when it comes to meal planning. So my current really fun thing that I'm enjoying is I actually went like all out with, uh, meal planning for this kind of school season with monthly meal planning, which is the first time I've ever done this. Okay. Because it's a little more like.

I'm consuming up front, but I basically looked at the month and I'm basically made a formula of like, all right, you know, Mondays, um, you know, are going to be Mexican. I know there's like taco Tuesday, but that didn't work for me. So we've got Mondays are Mexican.

And then Tuesdays, I'm usually working like at least in the afternoons a little bit. So those are crock pot days because I know I'm not going to be there until like right around dinner time. And I don't know. I don't want to cook around dinner time.

So, and then Wednesdays are always rice bowls, um, because we alternate with some friends to do date nights. So one week we have their kids, the next week we have date night.

And so we either do rice bowls or we'll go out on a little date, but when their kids are here, I know that all of the kids, they've got four and we've got two. So all six kids will eat rice bowls. So Wednesdays are rice bowls in a story.

We have leftover rice for later, whatever. Um, Thursdays are either. A new recipe, um, because that's the day I usually have more time or it's an old favorite.

Um, and then Friday's leftovers and then Saturday and Sunday are leftovers or sometimes my husband will grill or something like that, or we might eat with family or whatever. Okay.

Um, but I also, um, planned breakfasts and lunches. Okay. Which I've never done before.

Like, usually that's just not been my style to this point, but, um, I started designating Sunday afternoons. And again, this is the whole, like living in my season thing, because I could not have done this when my kids were younger, but basically I designated Sunday afternoon slash evening, um, to be meal prep time.

And so like this last Sunday night, I made a couple of, um, sausage casseroles that I know that my family loves like a breakfast casserole. And I made some.

Uh, protein muffins and basically made enough for the week with the sausage casserole. They eat. So they, they eat it so fast because they like it. I'd never have extra, but with the muffins, I made a big enough.

I made like four times the recipe and I froze them all or like I froze all, but you know, some of them. And so I now have breakfast for this week and I have part of breakfast for next week or maybe week after, if we get tired of the muffins after a week.

Um, and I have a big freezer, so that does help. Um, I've done the same thing with breakfast sandwich. I've done other breakfast casseroles, you know, different kinds of, I've done pancakes that are like, uh, I tried to do like a protein, a pancake, you know, they have not quite as, um, I'm not going to shoot their blood sugar quite so high and then drop solo first thing in the morning because being homeschooling that doesn't work when they're grumpy 15 minutes after breakfast.

Um, and then I've also done lunches, which I basically took, um, things like, did you know you could freeze peanuts? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I just learned this and it like blew my mind.

I would make like, you know, 20 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut them in half, stick them in Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. They freeze great. The kids think, think it's fabulous and yeah.

And so I'd put, you know, 10 of them in there for the, for the weekly lunches or, you know, six of them or whatever, cause they probably eat every day and stick the rest in the back freezer.

And I have most of the lunches made for two weeks. Oh, I'm done. Um, and they don't get weird. And like, if I left them out on the counter on the fridge or something, um, I'd done the same thing with like black bean quesadillas. Um, just got out my griddle, made a ton of them, cut them up, stuck them in Ziploc bags. I go through a lot of Ziploc bags, but I'm okay with that right now. It's my season. I'm good with it.

Um, and yeah, again, made a bunch, put them in the freezer, put the rest in the back freezer. I've got lunches made for a couple of weeks. I did the same thing with snacks. I've made some trail mix, put them in little bags.

I've done, uh, individual hummuses, you know, little things of hummus and, uh, put veggie straws in bags or apples or blueberries or, you know, whatever can be like divided up like that.

Now I don't spend my day with the kids going, mom, I'm hungry, mom. I want something to eat mom, mom, mom. And I can have their friends over and I don't hear that from them.

And I'm not like, oh, what am I going to feed everybody? Like they get up and, you know, they might need some help getting breakfast, but like breakfast is already made. Yeah. Which makes it really easy to go into our day.

And then when it comes to snacks or lunch, like we have a snack bin, I have a snack bin in the pantry that has the things of, you know, crackers or, um, applesauce or whatever.

And I have the thing in a little bin in the fridge that has string cheese and like blueberries or whatever the snack is for this week. Like also the, I've got to pick, I make sure I only pick one or two because otherwise I get like overflowing bins and they all go bad one or two things a week. And then I put, uh, I've got a bin in the freezer that will have the lunch things or, um, you know, sometimes I'll put like a, I'll make yogurt popsicles or something like that and stick those in the freezer. So they have options. They can go get the options.

They don't have to ask me, you know, unless it's like a special treat that I've told them, you have to ask them. They don't have to ask me about this. They don't have to ask me. And they also don't have to make a bunch of decisions.

They're not standing in front of the fridge going, Oh, I don't know what to eat. Mom, what should I eat? And then, you know, I'm having to prepare a meal for them and for me and for the little one and all different things. Cause nobody wants the same thing. It's just like, here's your options, which doesn't work for everybody, but in the moment it's working and it's great. Right, so yeah, I basically created that formula of like, um, two to three snacks, two lunch options, and then the dinners, like I said, like by kind of day. And so I just plug in what I'm going to do.

And then also because I'm just a little extra, sometimes I put the, I, I planned it out with, I made like a spreadsheet with this so I could see all this.

Cause I have, I have my friends who love spreadsheets and I'm like, I don't know. My sister would rather have her, her toenails pulled out than a spreadsheet like this, but it makes me happy. You wouldn't have to use a spreadsheet for it, but it's just kind of nice sometimes.

Anyways, on my spreadsheet, I actually marked the week of my cycle because what I've realized is like, when I'm like.

On the cycle, like part of my cycle where like my period I'm tired, I like do not want to cook. And so when I make meals earlier in the month, I actually freeze leftovers.

Like I freed freeze part of it. And I pulled those out that week. Like I hardly cook at all the week of my period because I'm so darn tired. I don't want to do it. And then like the week before I know that I'm going to be like craving a bunch of carbs.

So I kind of let it be a little more carb-heavy and it's still kind of, you know, not that difficult. Because that week I can also be kind of, you know, a little grumpy, sometimes.

And so that week it's a little bit easier, but I know that, like week, I guess if you call period week, week one, week two, I always have the most energy.

So that's when I put my new recipes. Like that's when I put something that I want to try or I want to make extra or whatever. Like that's when I do that. And that kind of fills up for the next couple of weeks.

And so it's kind of basic. I'm just on like my energy level and what I know I'm going to like naturally hormonally feel like doing. But so far it's been awesome.

Corinne Powell: That's so cool. I'm like nodding my head over here and smiling because just today I recorded an episode with a friend who's also a nutritionist about cyclical living and how balancing, not balancing, we didn't use that word. But like figuring out what our body needs.

Based off of on our cycle and the weeks and what's going on and what serves us during those weeks and supporting ourselves. And you're talking directly about it.

There's a practical way that we can do what we just talked about. And so I love that because, you know, Hey, I have less energy this week. I'm going to have more energy the next.

And so I am aligning my life accordingly. So kudos to you.

I'm interrupting the episode to let you know that I've recently paired the Change Radically Workbooks with complimentary videos that expound on each topic. I teach from my heart and from my experiences.

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Stephanie Iraggi: Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's been a game changer because just like, even just the fact of being able to give myself that freedom to be like, I'm not going to cook at this time.

Like letting go of that guilt and that weight of feeling like I'm not, I don't have enough things. I'm going to spit. I'm going to spend money that we shouldn't because we're eating out because I don't want to cook and we're eating junk.

And I'm like, I mean, now that there's anything wrong with eating out or eating junk every once in a while, but like not having to feel that guilt and just be like, this is the week that I don't really cook. 

This is the week that I'm going to pull out the leftovers that I intentionally stored away for that time. Like that. That's, you know, we, we carry enough weight as moms letting that one go. It feels good. Right. Yeah. Just giving us, you know, little hacks.

Things to do that can benefit all of us. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Because, you know, as you were talking, I'm like, oh yeah, that's right.

There are times when I do the prep on the weekend and it makes an incredible difference to the week to have either the breakfast muffins, the baked oatmeal, the meals made in advance, but that can be a lot some weekends. 

Stephanie Iraggi: Right. Yeah

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Like the way that you're saying, well, certain nights, we just have these meals. You're not necessarily saying what you're putting in the crock pot, but you know, it's a crock pot meal on Tuesdays.

Stephanie Iraggi:  Exactly. Yeah. 

Corinne Powell: Or Mexican. Like there's several things you can have. So it's, it's just, you're giving yourself a guideline or I don't, you know, like something that helps you think a little bit less and feel a little less stressed.

Stephanie Iraggi:  Yes and there's, there's definitely an ease to that. Just that mental prep that you took away by saying, Hey, I mean, we know that this category of food, we need these five ingredients for, even if we make it a little differently. 

And that can be easier when I go to the grocery store and it's like, okay, I'm no, I'm getting this, this, and this, and I don't have to think about it every time because I know I use this, this, and this helps. 

Stephanie Iraggi: Exactly. Yep. 

You know, you can, you can, it makes it easier to roll with it either way, rather, whether it's like, you know, it's just been a crazy, crazy weekend. You didn't have time to meal prep. You just got to roll with what you've got.

Like you kind of have a template for like, all right, I know, like it's already narrowed down, like what you probably are going to have, but it's also flexible enough that if you have the ability to be like, all right, I'm going to plan out what we're going to do. Like, you know, I'm a planner. So I can go through and be like, all right, we're going to have these meals at these times and these meals at these times. And I can go ahead and make the grocery lists.

And if I have to, I mean, it's kind of an overwhelming cart and budget hit, but like, if I need to, I could actually shop for two weeks at a time and probably get most things other than like the, you know, milk and stuff that you tend to run out of. Right.

Because I could look at it ahead enough ahead of time enough to do that. It can go either direction. You know, so if we're sick and it needs to shift great, if we're doing great, and I can, you know, go get it all great. Or, you know, there's been weekends where like we were out of town, but I could actually, I knew how I could buy ahead of time, the stuff so that we'd have meals when we got back until I could go to the grocery store and get the next round of meals, you know, it kind of gives you a bigger zoomed out picture, I guess, if you need it as well. So, yeah. Yeah. And then I use all my like day-to-day meal hacks, which is pretty fun.

So that stuff, like, I mean, one of the obvious things that we kind of already hit on it was like looking at your calendar and, you know, if you're going to be gone in the afternoon, use your crock pot.

But I also am kind of in love with the delayed start feature on all my devices. So instant pot, microwave, oven.

Crock pot, like a lot of these appliances have delayed start features so that like I can put a bag of like frozen broccoli in the microwave and tell it to start microwaving at five o'clock.

Oh. And so I could put something in the oven. I mean, obviously if it's within a decent range, you don't want like meat to go bad or something, but like. Yeah. Yeah.

I could put something in the oven and tell it to delay start and tell it to start. So that everything's done at five 30 and then I can go on a walk with my kids. Right. And then we come home and dinner's done.

Corinne Powell: You know, like setting up all these scenes that I'm like, oh, this sounds lovely. Like even the way you were talking about, I prepped this and it's in the freezer and we just grab it.

And I'm just like, oh yeah, I just want to live that. It's just lovely.

Stephanie Iraggi:  It is lovely when it works, when it works, it works well. And yeah, I love, I love delayed start. I love, I think part of it is I like the blocking, you know, they talk about time blocking. This is like task blocking, right?

Like taking, um, like, you know, I said, I hate cooking, but I like, uh, checking off things off a list. So that whole meal prepping all at once on Sunday, like I can do that.

Cause I'll put my podcast in and like, just go to town and like, check off my list. Right. Like that's, that feels good. Yeah.

And having that task blocking, if you will, whether that's doubling up on the meal you make and freezing the rest or, um, I mean, something as simple as like, if I'm cutting up an onion, I think about, um, you know, the rest of the week or even a couple of weeks.

Like, do I need onions? Chop all the onions, freeze the onions. And then, you know, only do that once. Anything that can be put together to save time later.

I also, I don't actually usually cut up onions cause I buy the frozen ones because those are a gift from God. They're already cut up in the freezer section.

Which is also like, I mean, the whole pre-cutting thing, but, I am, there's certain things that, that are just kind of cost prohibitive when it comes to like buying them already made and cut up.

But I think there's seasons for that. Even to like, sometimes you have to prioritize that.

Like if you're, you know, in a season where you don't have a lot of time or, you know, a lot of people are sick or whatever, like buy the already cut up stuff by the frozen stuff. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Like do the cheat meals because that's your season. So like, there's no shame in that and like embrace that as well.

I know when I give myself permission, we shop at Costco a lot. So when I just give myself permission every time I'm there to pick up like the, the fajita kit or a meal in the back. And then I know one day during the week, like we don't have to think.

And I, you know, I'm an intuitive and I'm like, I said, I'm not really the planner, so I don't plan which day that is. It's just kind of like, we've got it for the day when we need it.

But it's, it's such a gift.

And to give myself the permission to do it and the money that it costs, which I mean, Costco is a great deal, but you know, even so, even if it's not the money that it costs is worth it because the value of my time, the value of not being as stressed, like this is a big deal.

Those things are valuable.

Stephanie Iraggi:  Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, even just looking at like. How much it would cost to go. Eat out or just get fast food. If you're like, I can't tonight.

Like, I usually try to keep a couple of pizzas in the freezer for that exact reason, because like, there's just nights where you're just like, Nope, this is not happening tonight.

And you can either spend, you know, what at this point in this economy is a ridiculous amount of money on one fast food meal. Yeah.

A couple of pizzas in the oven or fajita, you know, the fajita or whatever, and like have that already there and done. Yeah. You probably saved yourself money at the end of it and everybody's happy. Right. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I'm curious. Your rice bowls. What do you, how do you make those?

Stephanie Iraggi:  So they're very flexible. One of those flexible meals again. Basically I make rice, usually Jasmine rice.

Cause that seems to be the preferred one in my house. And we do that in the instant pot, stick it in, press the button. Done. And pretty much anything goes.

Our favorite tends to be like a Mexican flavor. Can you tell we like Mexican food? And so, you know, we'll, I'll warm up some black beans. We got some cheese, some salsa, some sour cream, you know, we'll add in whatever else is just kind of around, whether it's, you know, different veggies, different meats. Okay. Sort of like the, the catchall. But we've done, we've done a lot of combinations. Like you can put a whole lot of things in a rice bowl. Cause it's just kind of a blank slate.

It just, it's kind of a filler that you can just put, I mean, you could do kind of an Italian twist. You can do like a pizza type flavor.

You could put some, um, you know, uh, mushrooms and sausage or pepperonis in there and add some cheese to it.

I mean, you can do like just about whatever to a rice bowl and yeah, you know, so you can, you could do all sorts of Asian flavors in there too. It's super easy just like whatever's in the fridge that's leftovers or that we want to pull out or even just something like, I mean, you can get like canned chicken out and dump some salsa in there and it's good, you know?

Corinne Powell: There's a new meal idea for me. 

Stephanie Iraggi: Yes. Yes. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of that. And like with the crock pot, just take in, you know, there's so many like decent sauces out there now, like take some chicken or even to some degree beef though.

That one's like, I feel like a little more finicky with what you put on it and dump some sauce in there, whether it's like a butter chicken sauce or a Italian, uh, marinade or whatever.

Put that in the crock pot, leave it for a few hours, microwave some veggies. Like you got your meat, you've got your veggies, you, you, you got a meal done. Like easy, easy meals, healthy meals.

They're just very low prep. 

Corinne Powell: Yep. I know.

I think sometimes we overcomplicate things because there will be times where I think, oh, you know, we need to make dinner, but really when it comes down to it, a lot of the meals that I make are the simplified ones.

Like I might saute shrimp and add some dried cilantro and little salt and olive oil. Like, and then. And that goes over the rice or the pasta or whatever.

And it's like, that really didn't take long. When I step back and remind myself, no, we don't, it doesn't always have to be that involved.

And yeah, the Instapot, I didn't get an Instapot until I was in the middle of my pregnancy with my last one.

And I am so glad that it is my friend. It is truly like, I am so. I am so grateful for the Instapot. It's great.

But yeah, it makes things simpler and more efficient.

And so sometimes it's just thinking of stepping back and considering, I think too, like, do, are we overcomplicating something?

Is there a tool that could actually help to make this easier on us? Yes. And, and remembering that the value is worth it.

Stephanie Iraggi:  Yeah. 

Corinne Powell: It's worth it when we consider what time is it giving back to us? What amount of stress are we not having to carry? These things are worth our consideration.

So I love that you got us, you got us thinking like we can keep this ball rolling.

Everyone listening, you know, we can just consider our life, the meals, the energy we're putting out in thinking about our grocery shopping. And what, what do we have available? Like when you talk about, well, we're going to have to go to the grocery store. We're going to have to go to the grocery store.

I just allow, like, I'm just giving options of like these couple snacks and then we're eliminating a lot by just narrowing things down sometimes. 

Stephanie Iraggi: Yes. Exactly. Yes.

Corinne Powell:  Thank you. 

Stephanie Iraggi: I don't know if you, are you familiar with Kendra Adachi from the Lazy Genius?

Corinne Powell: No. 

Stephanie Iraggi: You should definitely. I'm, I'm a huge fan of, of her stuff.

She's also got a book called the Lazy Genius Kitchen, which is also really good. Okay. Put a little plug in there for her. But she talks about decide once on things.

And I love that because like the mental work. Yeah. Is often heavier than the physical work.

Like you were just talking about, like reminding yourself that like that meal only took this long. But the reason you have to remind yourself of that is because you've been carrying the mental work. Right. Like you have the mental weight of.

Yeah. Preparing that meal and what it takes to prepare that meal. And so when you find things that you can decide once on. That takes away the mental work, which makes the physical work easier as well.

So I'm, I'm a fan of like, I mean, so pools, pool meals this summer, like. I would pick that that was going to be a sandwich or like a roll up, you know, in a tortilla. That was, that was the decision.

Whatever we had default peanut butter and butter. Peanut. Butter and jelly. Default was peanut butter and jelly, but we could do turkey and cheese.

We could do, you know, chicken and cheese, whatever, like whatever we had available. But the default was if we're going to the pool, I'm making sandwiches or wraps. That's it. I decided it once.

And then it was really easy to get to the pool. Like as far as, you know, going to go have lunch at the pool or dinner at the pool, because that was already decided. Yeah. And I just kept those things in stock for the summer. And that was it. Yeah.

So, um, yeah, make things easier on yourself, especially in like the season that you're in.

I mean, if you're in a season, you know, if, if someone's in a season where they have lots of time and they love to cook, like by all means, like make your gourmet meals and like live it up, enjoy it.

But a lot of moms are not in that season because that's just not the time and energy we have. So, you know. 

Corinne Powell: Yep. Or when that's not feeling fun anymore. Some of us, like, I know I actually love to cook, but right now, not so much because I'm so stressed in other ways, stretched in other ways that it's like, actually, no, I don't always love cooking right now.

But I know that in a few years, I'll probably feel that way again. Right.  And so I just let it be what it is right now. And I, there's, there's something good in that.

Yeah. So, all right. Well. So if my listeners are interested to connect with you further, where's the best place they can find you?

Stephanie Iraggi:  Yeah. So my blog is mamashark.blog

And so you can find that at www.mamashark.blog. Not.com or.org.blog. And I'm on there.

If they go to the click on the button that says the launch pad, they can actually find a ton of meal planning resources. And a lot of them are free. And I've also got a course called master your menu.

Where I go through how to create your meal plan, but on a budget each week.

So without like feeling like you have to do, you know, how you look up those meal plans on like Pinterest and you're like, well, that looks delicious, but. Yeah. Cost and time and making different things.

No, like this actually kind of shows you how to take what your family needs and wants and create a meal plan based on that. And that actually stays within your budget each, each week as well. So. Yeah.

So I think that's a great way to start your day off and just, you know, check out the free stuff there, check out the master your menu and just, you know, check it, check out mamashark.blog. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Awesome. And I'll be linking that in the show notes too. 

Stephanie Iraggi: That'd be awesome. Thank you. 

Corinne Powell: Thank you.

If you've been enjoying what you're listening to and you want to hear more around these topics, I've got previously recorded episodes that you can enjoy. From season 4, episode 4, Intuitive Eating with Peta Coote Part I; from season 4, episode 5, Intuitive Eating with Peta Coote Part II; and from season 3, episode 3, Tools for Effective Communication. Those are all linked for you in the show notes.

Here we are. We've come to the end of another episode. Sit back and reflect on what you heard. What's the one thing that resonates with you that you can take away and do something with?

Let's not just listen. Let's listen and take action. Now, action may look very different for us. But it's doing something with what we hear.

I hope that you'll share today's episode with a friend that you think would also enjoy it. And please come back next week.

I hope that you have a fabulous week and that you remember when you pillow your head at night, when you're going through your days, that who you are is good.

And I'm glad that you're alive.