Freezer Meal Co-op

Some friends and I are doing a freezer meal co-op.  We had our first meeting about 1 week ago where we went through how it's all going to work and picked meals.  Essentially, 10 of us will meet, pick a meal and then go home and make 10 of our meal, 1 for ourselves, and 9 for the other women.  So each month we will have 10 different meals that can quickly be made for supper.

In theory, I really like this idea.  However, after shopping the other day for my meal, ham and potato soup at Costco, I am not sure how I am going to feel about it.  It seems like it is going to be expensive, even after finding ham at a good price at Costco, as well as getting everything else pretty good, my meal is going to cost $9.40.  The meals usually feed between 4-6 people.  So you can see our household is already going to have a problem.  I can flush the meal out with bread and a salad, but that just adds to the over all cost.

Because we generally don't buy meat and eat only the venison we get each year, I am nervous that this will increase my food budget a fair amount.  And I am trying to decide if the increase in cost, which I haven't confirmed yet, is worth it for different meals that help me stay out of a food rut.  We'll see.

And I am hoping to do another freezer meal with a friend where we make like 20 meals a piece in a weekend of crazy cooking together.  I think I am going to like that option a little more because we can decide together what to make and she also has 7 in her family so we can theoretically go the "cheaper" route and do bulk things that feed a lot of people for comparatively little money.

Has anyone else ever done something like this before?  I have a sister in law who does a lot of this and seems to really love it, but I think she does it on her own and not part of a group.  But I guess if I was left by myself to do this I probably wouldn't.  Doing it with other people forces me not to procrastinate and thus it will actually get done!

And here is a website that give recipes and directions on how to do your freezer meals, I admit that I haven't looked at it a ton, but there are lots of recipes on there, and they sound super yummy.  Plus it appears that she has been doing this for a long time so that is always a bonus!

Once A Month Mom