It’s a busy month in our house. Lots of extra work hours, medical appointments for various family members, volunteering, plus just the usual busyness of a family of five. Nothing extraordinary, just lots on.

Usually, these busy periods mean we buy extra takeaway and don’t eat particularly well. Shopping and meal planning just seems to fall by the wayside. Then we feel worse ourselves, which doesn’t help us cope with the extra busyness. I’m sure you’re familiar with the cycle?

But recently a couple of people had recommended Hello Fresh, and I’m so glad they did. We started last week, and have been LOVING it. As you know, I love to cook, and Hello Fresh feels like the perfect combination of still getting to cook, but not having to do the thinking, planning and shopping behind it. It’s the best of both worlds really! The meals are fresh and healthy, easy to prepare, delicious, and what’s more, they have been big enough that my husband and I have enough for left overs for the next day’s lunch. An added bonus we weren’t expecting is that we don’t have waste anymore. No more throwing out of old leftovers in the fridge, or mouldy cream that I didn’t get around to using in time.

We’ve been ordering the meals for 4. We have two adults and a 7, 5 and 22 month old. As I said, we’ve had enough for two adult size lunches the following day.

Is it cheap? Not particularly, although we’ve only done it for 2 weeks so I haven’t been able to compare it to our usual grocery bill yet. I do know that we’re not wasting food now, and it’s also resulted in very few trips to the supermarket. Instead of grabbing a packet of biscuits or popcorn from the supermarket, I’ve cooked from scratch using ingredients in the pantry - another way to save money and eat more wholefoods. Long term I have no doubt the cost would pay off, as good health is quite hard to put a value on.

If you want to give it a try, you can save $50 on your first order by using coupon JESSIELEA (this is not a sponsored post in any way, it’s just an offer to give friends a bonus to sign up!).

Check out Hello Fresh yourself and see what you think. I’d love to know if anyone else gives it a try and what you think of it.