What does it mean to live more with less? I'm Katie Wells and welcome to the Maximized Minimalist

podcast. If you found yourself caught up in the hamster wheel of modern day motherhood and want to

rewrite the script, congratulations you're in the right place. I'm here to be your guide and help you take

back your motherhood

and achieve a simpler, more joy-filled life. Cheers to being a maximized minimalist. Enjoy the show.

Hey everybody, Katie here on the show today. We've got Karen Howell. She is the founder of

Meal Planning Secrets, which is a step-by-step guide that she designed to teach busy women the right way to meal plan without wasting all of your valuable time with your family.

And she is so passionate about helping people, especially moms like herself, live their best life by reducing the time and stress associated with meal planning.

Meal planning and food in general is a topic that's so near and dear to my heart.

I used to struggle in this department very hardcore for a long time until really the last few

years.

And on the show today, she's going to be giving tons of really good strategies that you

can walk away with and implement to help simplify your time in the kitchen. And I hope you enjoy.

Okay, Karen, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yes. So tell us, me and my listeners, so what got you started with meal prepping? So was this always

like a habit of yours or was there a reason you specifically got into it or chose to do it?

You know, it was not always a habit. My husband and I've been married for eight years and

I had this idea when we got married that cooking dinner was just kind of

going to be this romanticized thing where, you know, you come home from work and you pour a glass

of wine and you're like in the kitchen like cooking together. And it never ended up that way.

You know, we were working long hours and my husband had like a

really long commute and then I would make food for dinner that he wouldn't eat because he's a very

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