Does a successful meal have to be an expensive one? Not necessarily. At LMCU, we love budget talks and are happy to share a few ways to create an elevated meal without breaking the bank.

There are two types of people: Those who cook and those who don’t. If you’re one of the latter, the months of November and December likely bring less joy and more stress over what you’ll come up with for the holiday menu. Here are a few bites on how to streamline your holiday meal planning process.

1. Simplicity
If you’ve had to go to the store to get an obscure spice you’ve never heard of every time you've followed a recipe, you’re not alone. You don’t have to use everything but the kitchen sink to create a satisfying meal.

Find a few ingredients to center your meal around. See if you have some food you want to use up in your fridge. Check out what’s on sale at the local grocery store if you’re starting from scratch. Even sticking to the traditional food groups of grains, fruits and vegetables, protein, and little something sweet will do the trick! Deciding what your main ingredients are will streamline the planning process.

2. Efficiency
You can start your meal planning by thinking about a select group of foods you want to spotlight! Search engines will now become your best friend if they haven’t already. Using keywords like “simple”, “easy”, or “cheap” will help you find exactly the type of recipes that suit your goal of simplicity and efficiency.

Once you have a few sites bookmarked, start putting together the final list of ingredients. Feel free to group them by meal or area in the grocery store. You could even list out the measurements of each ingredient to make sure you have enough for your meal!

Finally, pick a day to go shopping. Aim to schedule it for the less busy hours (early in the morning or later at night) and bring your list along. Find some joy in the ease of having it all set up beforehand. If you can’t find what you’re looking for – ask for help!

3. Budgeting
By keeping things simple and planning ahead, you’re sure to save during the holidays. Use LMCU's budget tool or if you’re looking to even further the process, check out the different services LMCU has to help.

Put into practice, some examples could be choosing pumpkin, green bean, ham, and apple.

LMCU wants to encourage you to spend this season focusing more on who's at the table than what’s on it. Hopefully, these three bites on simplicity, efficiency, and budgeting can alleviate the stress that tends to come with this time of year.