Many commercial motor vehicles don't even have a small kitchen or a small sink. But if you want to save money by cooking and eating in your truck instead of constantly having to eat your meals in restaurants or from truck stop offerings, you may have to create a set-up like we did.

We have described on our food and recipes page and meal preparation page how we go about making some of our favorite foods in our truck. We have also described some food storage ideas. Below, we'll share with you some more ideas in greater depth.

In this photo, Mike is inserting a knife in between other eating and cooking utensils that were being stored (at the time) in a glass canning jar.

The unfortunate thing was that after awhile with the movement of the truck, the metal utensils would start to "clink" inside the jar -- either against the glass or against other metal utensils.

To fix that problem, we moved most of our utensils (except for an oversized pancake turner and oversized ladle) into a large flip top plastic storage box. This worked out much better.

We stored the oversized utensils on a vinyl covered hanger that we hung from the lip of the upper bunk along the back wall of the sleeper berth. In fact, we ended up hanging a goodly number of things in this manner.

In this photo, Mike is setting up a classic small kitchen makeshift countertop in his truck on top of the ice chest. See the oversized pancake turner in the foreground.

Mike devised an easy way to take care of garbage and trash in the truck: he looped one opening of a plastic grocery bag on the arm of the passenger seat. Once we had sufficient items in one, we would tie it up, throw it out and replace it.

Here, Vicki is washing our electric skillet with soapy water in our makeshift small sink in our created small kitchen.

All we used was a dab of Dawn dishwashing liquid (the blue non-antibacterial variety) and water that we had obtained from a water vending machine.

When we were done washing dishes, we dumped the water into our portable toilet, which in this photo had been placed temporarily on the driver's seat.

If our meal preparation called for using our hot pot, we would use that as the small sink in our small kitchen.

The neat thing about using these appliances to clean in was that we could warm up the cleaning water. Some truckers with fancier trucks may have built-in sinks, plumbing and water heaters.

In photos above, we may have used a baby wipe as a dishcloth. But there were times when we used regular cloth dishcloths.

To dry them out, we would hang them (or dish towels or both) on a plastic hanger that we would hang in the sleeper berth.

We dried them out to keep them from molding or mildewing or creating problems in the laundry bag until we were ready to wash and dry clothes in a laundromat.

Money saving tip: We recommend using regular household appliances connected to an inverter rather than using 12-volt products. Not only is it the case that many 12-volt products simply don't last long, but if you ever get out of your truck -- such as staying in a hotel room or coming off the road altogether -- you won't be able to use them in AC-powered outlets.

You can save a lot of money by making meals in your truck as opposed to eating out in restaurants. Even if you decide to eat things that are commercially canned or freeze dried, you can still usually eat less expensively than buying restaurant food.

In some cases, you may be able to wash your dishes at a company terminal where you have access not only to hot water but a larger sink and drainage. Check your facility if in doubt.

You can rewarm many meals or entrees pre-made by your home support team in as little as a crock pot plugged into an cigarette lighter style inverter.

If your company forbids the use of an inverter, folks there may need to be informed about the cost of eating meals out. Tell them how you want to be able to set up a small kitchen in your truck. Not only will you be able to save money, but you provide an aspect of security for your rig and your load by staying in your truck. It can be a win-win situation for both of you.