Notary Hacks | 4 Easy Meal Preps for Mobile Notaries to Save Money on the Go!

Today, we're going to talk about meal prep, because I tell so many students of ours, if you save money, you lower your expenses, you actually make more profit. With that being said, we want to save money on food costs. It's a really big item that gets away with us throughout the work week because, as you know, signing agents are always on the go. So we're going to take items that you see at Wendy's, at Carl's Jr. McDonald's or whatnot, Subway, and show you how to not only make it healthier, but actually less expensive. Welcome to another episode of Notary Hacks, but this time, Notary Hacks Meal Prep edition. I'm here with the amazing LSS couple, the Vidals. First off, let me say thank you both for letting us in your house. We are literally inside their home in New Jersey. This is not a fancy fox set. Dave is a chef. He's an amazing chef. He's actually tried out for chef shows like MasterChef with Gordon Ramsay. So he is the real deal, and he's going to teach you how to make your food taste better with very quick, short recipes. Thank you, man, for sharing your expertise with the whole community.

No problem. My pleasure. My pleasure.

They're a couple. Notary public loan signing agent. Six figures. By the way, what are the benefits for you and your family and your business?

Well, it's what you mentioned earlier, cost control. I mean, that. That right there for me, a big. A big selling point. And the other one, too, is quality of ingredients. I think, you know, doing it at home, you can control what's going into you, what you're using, the type of ingredients that you.

That's right. I mean, if you eat better, you have more energy, have more energy, you can market better, you can be better. Notary public loan signing agent, have that sustained energy. I'm excited. I got notes in my hand. You're like, Mark, what are you flailing around? I'm flailing around the notes. We got a lot of great information go over. I'm going to let you take over, Dave, and kind of start with some of your hacks and what you meal prep for, you and your wife.

All right, sounds good. Let's get started. The first thing we're going to kind of try to recreate here in the kitchen is a Wendy's Parmesan chicken Caesar salad. And the first hack, Mark, that I just recommend, a lot of folks now, there's going to be a lot of little tips and tricks, but I think the first one, a lot of folks should look into is, guys, think about good quality salad kits. Although you can absolutely chop up your own lettuce and do your own thing, this saves time, Lots of time. So this is what I'm missing of.

Working smarter, not hard.

The hardest step is open up the bag. The only thing I'm going to change on this, folks, is, is although these do come with a Caesar dressing, I'm gonna change it up. I'm actually gonna show folks how to make their own little citrus dressing, a lime dressing to go with this, which pairs really nicely.

I love it. That's the chef coming out of it. How much would a chicken Caesar salad at the time of this shooting cost at Wendy's?

Which is what we price comparison, $6.79.

$6.79. By the time he is done with this, how much is this going to.

Cost out the door with the chicken and everything, you're looking at $2.90.

$2. That's almost 50%. It's more than 50% of my math is quick. And again, fast food in general is less expensive. I mean, this Caesar salad at a restaurant is probably $15. The fact that this is $2.09 is absolutely insane. So please take it away.

The one thing, if you're going to eat it right away, dress it, which is obviously a big thing. But if you're not going to eat it right away or you want to prep a few of these to kind of get through the week, I suggest not dressing it, actually making the dressing separate, and then put your dressing over it once you're ready to eat it. So my lime dressing, Very simple, folks. It starts with half a lime. All right. And we're gonna just squeeze that into our container. Easy peasy, Easy peasy.

Even I could do this, by the way. Not a chef.

Okay, olive oil.

Okay, how much olive oil?

About two tablespoons.

So there's two lime, a little bit of olive oil.

All right, so there's our salt.

Easy peasy. Yep.

A little pepper. All right. And there's that. And there's your dressing. And then this guy. We'll throw in our croutons as well. Bring that in. Give her a toss. This is our container.

Okay, perfect.

All right, we're going to put that in there. We are making grilled chicken Caesar salad. So another hack that folks can consider is pre cooking some things.

Okay.

And grilled chicken in the Vidal household is a staple. We always have grilled chicken. You can actually get it already pre cut in the tenders as well, which I suggest that's another hack. Again, time savings. And then it's grill them up and cut them up.

So part of meal prepping is meal prepping some of the bigger items in bulk. Right. So usually the proteins, chicken, your steaks, your shrimps, whatever you're going to use throughout the week. I love chicken, but honestly, I have no idea how to cook it.

So, Mark, the seasoning is real simple. You're literally going to throw salt, pepper, and garlic powder and just a little bit of olive oil. Again, the staple here in salad, it's that easy.

All right.

All right, this is. Is about six, seven tenders right here. Keep it to about half a teaspoon. If that's something you don't need a lot, here's where you can load up. Garlic. This is garlic powder, granulated garlic. All it is is dehydrated garlic, you know, powder.

So she'd get at Costco. I mean, by bulk. Yeah, exactly.

And this has no sodium to it. You can go nuts with this stuff. A teaspoon of this again, for our six to seven tenders.

Okay.

All right. Just say if you got something like this, go, 1, 2, 3. You know, that's all you need.

1, 2, 3.

That's all you need.

So half a teaspoon of this, about a teaspoon of this, and about three twists of this.

And last but not least, tablespoon of olive oil. Olive oil on protein. What it does is it helps. It kind of has an acidic property to the protein. Just helps the protein relax, be, you know, kind of get into its element. If you ever grill a passion, another.

Passion he uses, and that's the protein. Chicken like that, I'm relaxed, man. I don't know. So that's it.

Grab the top tongs and, you know, mix her up. Mark, I got a great idea.

What?

You're doing the cooking?

No. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Where's my wife? Don't show this to my wife, because she's gonna have me start cooking. She makes the best chicken.

Hot grill pan. This has been on the stove. This, if you don't have an outdoor grill, is something that folks should invest in. Again, very easy. And just all I can say is throw it on.

They don't have this. What could they dub at? They don't have a barbecue. Just a. Just a good old pan or what?

Yeah, just a good old pan.

Okay.

Good old pan. You know, nonstick. Just throw it in there. What I look for is if you look up the edge of the tender, you kind of see that halfway. Mark, turn White, that's when you're about ready to flip. But right now, it's one of those where you just kind of let it do what we're doing right here. It's getting the grill marks, it's getting all that good flavor.

So for your non chefs out here, including me, this white is what he's speaking of. When this white goes about halfway, it's time to flip. That's cool. I didn't know that, actually.

And I'll show you another little hack right when you're about to take it off. Because that's always the big thing. Chelsea is wonders, is it ready? So I always say you're going to have a sacrificial tender. Okay. What that means is you're going to split one open. But it's very. You can do it right here where you'll split open. I'll show you how that works. Let's let these guys still do their thing. This goes quick, though. You're talking these tenders on the grill, nice and hot, you know, and the. The grill itself. So your little pan, this could be on the stove already while you're prepping something else. Then once you're ready to throw your protein on, you throw it on.

And we're going to let this run in real time so you can see how quick this actually takes to cook. Cooked. How long is this good for? Meaning some meal preps this today. How long in the fridge, is it good for a. Not only does it taste good, but it becomes not good for you.

Two to three days. Cook, you're good to go. If you do want to hold it longer, let it cool, package it up, and put it in the freezer immediately after cooking. Yeah, well, let it cool down. Let it. Let it cool down. And then put it in the freezer.

So what I heard is if you cook on a Sunday night, the protein part the chicken, and we're not doing beef or the shrimps. But. But is it probably a fair thing that you're a chef to say that most of your proteins last two to three days?

They do, they do. Chicken especially is good. I wouldn't hold fish that long. For instance, if you grilled fish 1, 2 days, use it already. Steak will hold also, you know, nicely.

So basically every Sunday and Wednesday, you should probably recook your protein for the meal prep. I always say that. Cause I don't want some of you guys meal prepping for the entire week. And like Friday, you're rocking the chicken from Sunday night. Based off of the lessons, I'm Getting this. I'm looking for this white strip here. Some. Some of the LSS students are like, mark, I know how to cook chicken. Not all of us do, man.

Now you're good there. So now if you go and you grab that. That. See how we pulled away? You're good to go.

Oh, look at those.

Now you got the nice drill, Mark.

This Gordon Ramsay. I'm guessing that was probably two minutes.

About two minutes.

I love it. I'm learning. I live notary hacks is. I'm a notary, and these are hacks that I've never learned. I. Again, I'm trying to speak to the person who doesn't cook like me. Okay, so how much did all this cost?

$2 worth of chicken right here.

That's unbelievable.

So this is two servings. It's six tenders.

Three servings. I would argue three servings.

You could probably do three, you know, or for the more hearty appetite, you.

Know, it's one serving, and this is antibiotic free. And so, like, you can do. You can feed our bodies better by cooking home. I want to keep saying that, because one of your favorite things you said was money, and then what you're putting in your body. Okay, so. So what am I looking for here?

So you're ready to test? Grab one of them.

Okay.

All right. What you're gonna do is you're gonna press it. You're gonna kind of split it against the pan. And what you're looking for is that nice cooked. See, you're fully. You're ready to go. So another way of testing is they say test the juices. So if you look. If your juices run curious. So you see how the juices are starting to run. No blood. So now if you want to leave it another 30 seconds, just for good measure, you leave it on there.

This has been such a great notary hacks. We're gonna keep bringing the heat every single day. Literally bringing the heat. You know what I mean?

And with that, here we are. Our take on the Wendy's Parmesan chicken Caesar salad.

Look how beautiful that looks. This goes right in the fridge.

Goes right in the fridge.

And you got Monday lunch. And again, this out the door. $2.90. Incredible. Super easy. Let's go to your second item that you want to show everybody how to make. Next on the list. It looks like a Subway tuna sandwich. By the way. A Subway tuna sandwich kind of grosses me out. You know what I mean? If you've been to Subway, I'm sure you have your Little twist on it, make it delicious. But y going to compare a tuna Subway sandwich cost to what it is making your own house. So, David, that being said, man, I'll let you take it away.

All right, perfect. Mark, I promise you, I will minimize the bane of your existence with mayonnaise in a fish sandwich. We're going to make it with a few different things, kind of mimicking when you go to Subway. We're going to make a six inch. All right, we're using a multigrain Italian, Italian bread here. Again, it's not expensive. You can get about maybe three to four sandwiches out of something like this. So one more way for people to economize using a good quality tuna fish. Kathy and I always prefer tuna fish packed in olive oil. And I always recommend that everybody consider the same. A little bit more flavor, a little bit. You already got the little bit of fat, so you're not adding a ton of mayonnaise to get that same fat content in it. And our fixings, just like you would in Subway, would be lettuce, red onion, tomato.

So while he's getting that done, let's talk about the pricing on this. Because remember, a half a meal prepping is not only eating, eating healthier, like the good quality tuna. Let's talk about cost specifically here, because we are business owners. So how much do you have the Subway cost at?

So we figured that was about $6.59.

For a six inch.

For a six inch.

And then when said and done, how much per sandwich can you make here with the ingredients?

The way Dave's making it, the sandwich will be $2.75.

Again, over 50% savings by making it at home. You know, I propose to you and everybody else is, you know, time is money. So is it worth spending 5 minutes meal prepping so you can make $5? Does that math make sense? Right? So you're literally making money by spending time making your lunch. Because if you're spending $6.59 at Subway, you can spend five minutes while doing that. Is there anything else you should be chiming in here? How much mayo do they do?

So I just added a little bit of mayo as I go. You know, it goes a long way. That was about a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half, not the three gallons that they like to throw in some way.

And I love your little hack of getting the olive oil because we all know the benefits, the health benefits of, of olive oil and not needing to douse it in your cup of mayo.

So a la Subway, we're now getting ready for our fixings.

You recommend keeping these on the side, maybe a piece of foil and then.

Put that on or in a Tupperware or in a Ziploc bag. Whatever you want.

We're prep this as if we're going to do. I love these hacks, man. I'm not a chef, but I'm picking up on a lot. Let's get back to this though. Meal prepping makes all the sense in the world because you're actually making money by doing it. And so because every dollar you save is a dollar you earn. So I love this problem too with going to Subway is all sudden you add the coke and then you add the chips. Now your, your meals, 10, 15 bucks. When you can just get some water in your, in your bag, eat healthier. Maybe you get fruit instead of chips, you know, instead. So now you're eating healthy throughout. So I think it's absolutely amazing. So I think it's pretty self explanatory. What's going on over here? Now we got the six inch right here.

So here's our six inch. We're getting this, this, you know, getting the bread ready. Now this is now a preference. If you want a little bit more mayo or a little bit of mustard or some cheese or whatever. Now you do whatever you want. I'm trying to just keep it kind of. You went Subway. I want a tuna sandwich with lettuce, red onion and tomato.

So if you're gonna meal prep this, you'd only put the tuna in here. So let's do that, if that's okay. I love it. Bada boom. So again, the little hack is putting these on separate.

Excuse me, how does that taste?

Delicious. By the way. If you compare it to a Subway sandwich, it's literally 50% off. Boom. And then he's gonna put the fixings inside the container so you're sandwich doesn't get soggy. I mean, it's healthier, it's cheaper. I mean, this bread looks delicious. And bada boom. And now we have a Caesar salad and a Subway tuna salad. And we're saving money. This is amazing. You're the man. Okay, so you're not stopping, baby. Because of the magic of editing, we are on number three, meal prep. So we're down chicken Caesar salad. We have a tuna fish sandwich from Subway. And now I think this is really super awesome. Cause I always. We always buy pasta from the store. You know, you're in Whole Foods or you're at Ralph's, you're at Safeway's. And there's that beautiful huge glass thing. You're like, ooh, I'll take a pound of that pasta. I'll take a pound of that roasted beef. Whatever. We're gonna do a pound of pasta that you would get at any grocery store in America. And so, Dave, I'm gonna let you take it away. Rock and roll.

Once again, comes loaded with your favorite ingredient in the world.

The funny part is, I actually love store bought pasta. I'm going to be honest with everybody.

It's good, it's legit. But the thing is, again, for that everyday eating, it might be a little too heavy. So. So what we did here was create something that's a little bit more healthy, veggie centric, you know, giving you a little bit more juice. And again, control the ingredients.

Is that a chef word?

That's a chef word.

Another day word is pleasant on your palate. Pleasant on the palate, baby.

Here's a great food hack, by the way. And actually, most people don't know this. Restaurants, even the really good ones that serve pasta, they pre cook their pasta. So that's something I recommend folks consider as well is pre cook your pasta. It starts off with boiling water, 3 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons. And so it's gotta be salty to the taste and let it boil. You want to cook it down to al dente. Al dente. What that means is just again, when you bite into it, you don't want it to just go dip.

You don't want it to turn to.

Mush in your mouth.

So a lot of restaurants you said pre boiler pasta. How good would just plain pasta boil be in your fridge?

You could probably hold on to it in the fridge for a week.

Wow. Yeah.

So it doesn't clump.

So it doesn't clump.

Toss it around.

Okay, so that's a Little Chef hack, which I didn't know.

Can of corn, drained.

Okay.

Veggies. You can add anything you want.

What's Chef Dave gonna do?

So we're gonna do a little bit of green pepper, a little bit of red pepper. Gives a little bit of contrast.

He's chopping those up. Let's go over the cost, right? Because again, the reason I want to share this with you or have the Videl share this with you is it's about saving money. And to your point, better quality ingredients. Pound of pasta that you'd get is how much in the store?

Almost five bucks.

Almost five bucks. So by the time he's done, if you Wanted to equate whatever we're making today to a pound. What are you spending for a pound of the homemade pasta?

$1.43.

Again, I mean, this is blowing my mind. You know, it's funny, I'm not that my amazing wife does a lot of the cooking, most all the cooking in the family. And so sometimes I don't realize, you know, how quick something like this can actually be. And so, I mean, the Caesar tallow took five minutes. The tuna fish sandwich took five minutes. The pasta, I mean, by the time we're done, this can be another five minutes. And so if you can spend five minutes your time and save three or four dollars, you're paying yourself back in those dollars per hour. And so, I mean, I'm learning something new right now. And I wish when I was full time signing agent mode, I probably meal prep more because I would have made a lot more, saved a lot more money, and eventually ultimately made more money. So I should say, I was gonna.

Say, while Dave's normally boiling the pasta, he's chopped everything. By the time the pasta's boiled.

That's a good little move. Got it. So what she just said is when he's boiling the pasta to make it, he's actually doing this. So it really makes it more time efficient.

And you could make this part of another process. So you may be making some rice or you may be making a meal that requires these ingredients. Start prepping everything ahead of time. And you're just then just using as you need it.

But you can really control what's going in your body, right? Our body really is our base and foundation for everything we do do in life. And, you know, health is our wealth. And I think a lot of times notary public, loan signing agents, so on the go, go, go that they're eating, you know, the Subways and the Carl's Jr and they think they're saving money by going to, you know, the pasta and getting in bulk, like only $5. But like, this is a buck 43 for lunch, first off. So contrast.

So contrast. We got our corn, we got our red pepper, we got the, the green, the, the pasta. I'm going to forego adding any salt to this because again, we over salt salted our water, so there should be enough salt in the pasta to hold that together. A little bit of black pepper, by the way, invest in a pepper pepper mill, folks.

This is an investment. This is an investment that always pays you back.

Yeah, this pays you back and it gives you much better flavor. A little bit of black pepper to preference. A little bit of mayonnaise, Definitely a.

Little bit of olive oil.

So I'll add a little bit of olive oil.

How much olive oil you think is in there?

So that is probably again. You're probably again 1, 2 tablespoons maybe, you know, and then just bring it all together. And now we're just, you know, mixing.

I mean, okay, so if you're making a. This is roughly a pound. I. Correct.

This is four pounds. Okay, so.

So four. So. So four pounds of pasta at the grocery store would cost you 20 bucks. This costs all of $5, $6. But my point is, is you now have, in theory, four meals throughout the week. And frankly, when I'm looking at this and I go, man, I'm thinking, how good would the grilled chicken be on top of that soup with the grilled chicken? Yeah, yeah. You need a sous chef. Just let me know. Absolutely. But I think the grilled chicken on top would be amazing. But it gives you so many options cooking from home. Can I get a little taste of this?

Go for it. Hold on.

I love how we're at the Vidals, you know what I mean? And just like, bam, bam, bam. Wow. I mean, honestly, some chicken on there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now how would we package this up?

Yeah, please.

Our little Tupperware, you know, start loading her up. So we're good. This is about one serving here. About half a pound of pasta. That's what we're looking at in this little container.

And what I love too, is when you cook for yourself, you can portion control. Right. I mean, part of being healthy is make sure you're not taking a ton of calories. And so. But I mean, bada boom, there's another meal. We have store bought pasta. We had tuna fish sandwich, and then we had this chicken Caesar salad. I mean, this is unbelievable. I am so sad that this is gonna be the last thing Chef Dave's gonna show us how to make how to save money. Eat better. Better. While I have never really eaten here, this restaurant is so popular on the fast food chain. So Dave's going to show us how to save money on a chick fil a chicken sandwich. Take a look.

All right, perfect. So thank you, by the way, for your help in preparing the chicken. All right. Phenomenal job, but, yeah, let's get started. I'm going to use the same multigrain Italian bread that we had used before. Chick fil a is on a bun. So you can put a bun if you want, using the same ingredients that we have for multiple things.

Helps save money ultimately. Right? I see the tomato, the same tomato we used earlier, the same bread we used earlier. So the really key to saving money is multi purposing different foods. They all taste delicious. But again, this is Italian bread, which is delicious.

Lop off a piece of the bread to make our sandwich. So we're making about a 6 inch sand sandwich as before.

So while he's doing that, I mean, so what is a Chick Fil A chicken sandwich cost?

So we saw that just the chicken doesn't include like fries or anything like that. $6.19.

Okay, six bucks. What is this gonna end up being said and done?

He'll explain the sauce. Even using the brand sauce. $2.93.

We're using, I would argue the same quality ingredients. A nicer restaurant using antibiotic free chicken multigrain Italian bread. So we're using the quality ingredients. So I would argue the price savings is more than $4. I would bet it's like closer to $10. And again, super inexpensive. This whole thing's 2 bucks. Okay, Dave, so what we're doing here.

Chicken up pretty, you know, kind of making a little chef Y here. I know, I know. With the grill side up. So our chicken's down on the bread, similar to the tuna sandwich. If you wanted to take your fixings kind of on the road, let's do that. You know, you can do that. Another little food hack for all our Chick Fil A fans is you can buy the Chick Fil A and again, no sponsorship here, you can buy the Chick Fil A sauce in advance.

It's such an amazing hack because let's be honest real quick, man. A Chick Fil A sandwich is chicken and a special sauce.

Chicken and special sauce.

So you get the special sauce for this whole container is $5. Right. That's a hack within itself.

And you use it for other things.

That's right. It's unbelievable. I've never had a Chick Fil A sandwich.

I'm going to have a bite, all right.

Don't make fun of me when I take a bite, by the way. So this is how much I believe.

If I remember Preference for about $5.

$4.99 and then whole package.

And with what Dave will put on there, again, to each his own light or heavy. 4.6 cents. Just a sauce.

So. Yes. So the Chick Fil A sauce recipe calls for one ounce of their special sauce. One ounce of the special sauce equates to 26 cents. So a chicken sandwich at Chick Fil A is just chicken a bun and this. And you can make a ton of chicken sandwiches with this and. And save so much money from paying at Chick Fil A.

So we're gonna go and add a little squirt of our Chick fil a sauce.

26 cents worth.

Okay. We're going to add lettuce. Okay.

Close her up. And with that, I mean, look at this. $2.93. What I love is this cost $2.93 after we spent money for taxes and everything else. So this is like 293 out the door. This is why you need to be meal prepping. I mean, literally, we've done four meals today. As you can imagine, so many other things. I hope this has inspired you to meal prep other meals. You can save four to five bucks every single meal you eat. You do that twice a day. Let's say you say four bucks, that's eight bucks a day. Eight bucks a day times five is $40. $40 times four weeks is 160 bucks. I mean, that's unbelievable. It's $160. I can go to a car payment. Gosh knows gas is expensive these days, Right? And so it offsets some of your gas bills. Things are only as expensive as you make it. So this is incredible.

So, Mark, I'm going to wrap this part up for us to take to go and that part up somehow right there for somebody to give a little taste test.

Okay. So just for the records, a lot of people in the background, a lot of amazing people helping put this production together. And I'm about to get made fun of. But I'm going to take a bite of the chicken sandwich. I've literally. I'm not lying. Never had a Chick Fil A sandwich before. Oh, wow. I'm guessing what makes Chick Fil A sandwiches famous is the sauce. Just like in and out. Let's do this, baby. Guys, thank you so much for letting us in your house. We're literally in New Jersey in their home. You allowed the loan signing system community, the YouTube community. Excuse me. I don't know how Guy Fiera does it. I've had you talk and I still too at the same time. I think the biggest lesson that I learned today is literally prepping doesn't take as much time as you think it does. That's probably the biggest thing that I learned. Remember, every dollar you save is literally a dollar earned. I know it's cliche, but it's truth. If you can control your exp, especially in a market like this, you will actually make more money. Remember, so many people are worried about making more money than lowering expenses. If you can lower expensive, you've actually made more money. And that brings this episode of Notary X to a close. Once again, thank you. I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million times more. Thank you both so much for letting us in your house. But follow my channel for more great information. Just like this. And remember, I believe in you so much, but I just can't believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

Let's go.

So he's going to teach us how to make a chick fil A. It was a chicken meal. Prepping the meat part of the week's. Start that over.

Oh, here's a little notary. A little notary trick. Never mind. Let's redo that. Sorry.

What is this? Bow tie.

This is bow tie?

Yeah.

This is. This is a bow tie pasta.

My wife's smiling in the background. I knew that. You know what?

I put a little bow tie in.

I'm laughing. Oh, my God.

We all know Mark wants to be a celebrity chef.

Judge you good.

I My wife making fun of me. I hear her laughing. I think it's almost in Audi.

I I It's. It's that. That. What is it? What is it?

Was it on the page?