Can Meal Delivery Services Help You Save Time?

Between work, family, and hobbies, you have little time to spare for time-consuming errands. Unfortunately, you often find that you’re forced to set priorities aside because you’re falling behind on basic tasks such as shopping for groceries.

What if you were able to get delicious meals on the table without all the hassle? This vision of paradise is possible when you have your meals delivered by a trusted provider.

Not convinced? It’s natural to feel skeptical — but chances are, your jam-packed schedule really could use some tweaking. Why not cut out the least essential errands? Below, we’ve highlighted the top three ways a meal subscription will help you reclaim your valued time.  

Simplify Meal Planning

How much of your typical meal prep process is dedicated to planning? In all likelihood, your split-second estimate is far too low. Rifling through recipes, questioning family members — that’s all part of the process. Or, it is until you shift your approach and try meal subscriptions instead.

Turns out, there’s way more to creating tasty meals than dicing vegetables or preheating the oven. Take a closer look at your approach, and you may be surprised to discover that you put nearly as much time into coming up with healthy ideas as you do actually shopping for ingredients or preparing them in the kitchen.

Meal planning is time-consuming, in part, because there’s so much to consider — particularly if you’re committed to eating as nutritiously as possible. First, you need to determine which recipes are capable of meeting your unique dietary needs. Now, add not only your personal preferences to the mix but also those of other household members.

Your budget also comes into play, as does the sheer availability of necessary ingredients. With so much to think about, you can’t be blamed for feeling tempted to throw in the towel and order takeout instead.

What if you can stop the endless search for recipes or the constant need to jot down grocery lists? With a meal service handling all this, you’ll free up both time and mental space to dedicate to other concerns. Yes, you’ll need to set aside a little time when you sign up to designate your preferences, but this minimal upfront effort will hold huge benefits for your busy schedule later on. 

Fewer Errands to Run

Grocery shopping can be a time-consuming affair even under the best of circumstances. If you enter with a list and a strategy, you just might escape without dedicating an entire evening to the store. However, if you’re like most shoppers, you ultimately end up zig-zagging through the supermarket in search of hard-to-locate products. Without a list, you might waste time browsing impulse items — and this remains a risk even when you know exactly what you want to buy.

Next up? A frustrating wait in the checkout line, followed by bagging and the trip from the store to your vehicle. Add traffic to the mix, and you’ve just dedicated a whole lot of time to picking up ingredients when you could have been pursuing hobbies, spending time with family, or simply relaxing. Sure, you can opt for curbside pickup, but this often involves far more idling at the curb than expected.

It should come as no surprise that a meal delivery service can drastically cut back on your need to run to the store. Subscriptions make major stock-up trips a thing of the past. The same goes for “quick” visits for a single forgotten item — visits that inevitably last way longer than intended.

Streamline Cleanup

Cooking is nearly always a messy process, even when trying to limit this problem with single-skillet meals. Ultimately, most dishes lead to several dirty pots and pans, not to mention mixing bowls, cutting boards, knives, and more. The counters and the floor are also at risk of accumulating crumbs or other residue.

All this mess can limit your enjoyment of the completed meal since you’re probably dreading returning to the kitchen to clean up. However, delaying cleanup is even worse and can result in an overwhelming deep clean that occupies hours of your precious time.

While the time it takes for your box to arrive may vary depending on the specific subscription you select, you’re almost guaranteed to cut your cleanup time dramatically with any type of meal delivery service. Services that involve cooking at home often include many partially prepped ingredients, plus easy-to-follow directions that prevent you from using unnecessary kitchen tools or counter space.

Plus, along the way, you’re bound to learn tidier, more efficient techniques that limit your mess-making potential. What’s more, by eliminating leftovers, this approach keeps you from cluttering your fridge with extra containers.

The Final Verdict: Meal Delivery Services Save Precious Time

From planning to shopping to cleanup, delivery services streamline nearly every aspect of the meal prep process. Once you’ve signed up and started to receive meals on your doorstep, you’ll be amazed by how much time you’re able to free up.

Say goodbye to long checklists, endless lines at the store, or huge kitchen messes — the right delivery service will actually have you looking forward to whipping up tasty meals.