by Claire
Many of you have asked about what practical, day-to-day things I and my children have done to start saving serious money and paying down debt. Sundays are always a day that remind me of what huge changes we have made in our basic, everyday spending.
In June of 2012 I started making serious changes to our diet and eating habits. I wish I knew exactly how much of my debt can be attributed to eating out because my guess is that a good chunk of what I owe came from food! How pathetic is THAT?! But as I talk to friends and family about this, I know I am not alone in that very bad habit of eating meals out. Eating out is not only bad for us from a nutritional standpoint–it is just darn expensive! This last week I did not have a plan for meals after the move and I am sick of dropping $25 to Subway for a meal…not to mention sick of the food!
But how do we avoid it? As a mom who works outside the home while raising two very busy kids, I have to have a plan. And Sunday is my day to execute that plan. I spent five hours cooking today. I made our meals for the evening and lunches/snacks using the same ingredients. I start every week with the goal that we will not find ourselves in a drive thru window eating like seagulls! That’s a running joke with the kids “only seagulls should eat out of windows!” This is a huge challenge given our weekday schedules. This week we even have “to go” items for our evenings that we will eat “on the go” but they are made from all real food ingredients. While eating in the car is not great we DO make it a family meal! I am super proud of that and love to hear my kids tell other kids that we do this! And I cannot tell you how far this is from the old Claire. My sister (a dietician) STILL cannot believe my transformation. I used to make fun of her for her refusal to buy pre-shredded cheese. 🙂
So challenge yourself and your family to not eat out for ONE week or maybe even a MONTH! If you are doing two drive thru meals per week and we estimate $25 per visit, you’re saving 50 bucks per week and eventually $200 per month! Make eating out a treat and not the norm! Seeing restaurants as undesirable and making better choices at the grocery store has made an enormous difference in my debt snowball. Our grocery budget is $300 per month! The bulk of that savings has come from a dramatic reduction in packaged foods and instead making things from scratch. Eating at home is always better than eating out and then I took it a step beyond and started making a lot of our food with unprocessed ingredients which keeps us full longer and cost less to make in the long run.
For those of you that might be interested, my go to meal planning websites are www.thescramble.com and www.momables.com. Check them out!
Born and raised in Texas. I’ve at least driven through every state in the US courtesy of a roadtrip loving Dad.
I’m single with two children and a good parenting relationship with their father.
I am a “life is just half full of funny” kinda gal. Humor is my saving grace and I am thankful for it every single day. I have a strong Catholic faith and am thankful for that foundation.
I read a lot for a living but still enjoy a good book. I love biographies but in recent years have found the need for fun fictional books–sadly, for a long time I just didn’t enjoy fiction!
I love live theatre of any kind–from local productions to Broadway.
I love to scrapbook and pride myself in my kids’ albums.
I love being a mom but also love my career. I’m blessed to have found a balance allowing me to be at everything my kids need and want me to be at–while also having a career.
Favorite Quotes: Well behaved women rarely make history.
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. -James Bryant Conant
Great idea! I do this sort of thing all the time, though there’s only one of me 🙂
The other thing I’m looking at is getting a slow cooker, the premise seems simple – chuck the stuff in before bed/at breakfast time and take it off when you get up/home!
Lately I have been making meals on Sundays too. It is much easier to just grab it and go than to stand in front of the fridge and stare. I stopped buying shredded cheese too. They coat it with “cellulose” so it stays separated & I don’t need any additional junk in or on my food thank you. It only takes a minute to shred it myself. 🙂
They also coat it with something called “natural mold inhibitor”. All I can think of is natural cleaning products for the shower, not food.
I know wha you mean. Our little family of 3 is in a little bit of debt as well and we are working hard to get out of it right now. It didn’t hit me until our year end statements from our credit cards last year. How did we spend $10k on dining in one year???? We justified it through our “extra” points we get from our rewards cards, etc etc… but have ending up in debt… so was it worth it in the end?? No…. We decided that since we get the same rewards going to grocery store as opposed to eating out, we eat in most of the time and cook at home. Boy has that saved us tons of money. We don’t touch our cards anymore and use debit or cash for everything! It amazing how quickly we are paying down debt not using our cards and eating in!
Hi Claire,
My wife and I do not eat out that much and I still think one area we can save is our food consumption. We do try to eat healthier which I know can cost a little more but it is not just that. I will definitely check out those sites. Thanks for sharing.
I have taken to cooking mass amounts of meals 3-4 times a year (as a working mom, I never have time to get a home-cooked meal on the table otherwise) and its been worth its weight in gold. We eat out maybe once a month but even that is a specific planned date night event. Otherwise, I put about 60-70 precooked homemade real-food meals in the freezer over the course of a weekend, we make about 12 options each session and then every Sunday the only thing I have to do is pick out what we’re having for the week and write it up on the board for my husband to get out of the freezer on his way to work. Each meal is made so that there are enough leftovers for lunch the following day so lunches are always always brown bagged unless the company is comping a meal. Muffins, breads, sides, sauces and cookie dough (balled and flash frozen so that I can make one cookie at a time if I want) are also frozen and ready to go at our convenience. Our total grocery and household spend for everything: food, cleaners, paper products, household items, vitamins and supplements averages to no more than $300 a month and our state is one of the highest cost of living states in the US. It’s not easy but I started it when I was pregnant with my first and have just kept going.
I seriously giggled out loud when I read “only Seagulls should eat out of windows!” I set a goal for us to eat dinner at home all week, next we will work on lunches for hubby and I.
It’s nice to see a post like this that proves it’s extremely affordable to eat healthy. As an excuse for eating unhealthy foods and eating out, people claim that it’s more expensive to buy healthy food at the grocery store. It is NOT. Sure, it’s expensive if you buy lobster at the grocery store or out-of-season produce or other very expensive items. But the produce section always has a ton of on-sale or in-season vegetables and fruit for less than $1 for an entire pound. Whole grains, beans and tofu are dirt cheap. Many other basic, healthy foods are so cheap.
Way to go! This is *very* key in our low spending budget/high savings rate. It’s to the point where I basically detest vacations because eating out has become so unappealing over the years. Our food tastes better, our expenses are lower, and our waistlines are slimmer. After 10 years of this (a change we made when my child was born and my spouse was unemployed), I no longer even find restaurants appealing. Sure, maybe once in a blue moon. But we find we are just often disappointed, any more.
Of course, you don’t have to cook it all on the weekend to enjoy. I am glad that works for you, but I am a “rather wake up early and cook every day” type person. Just to say, when you see the benefits and make it a lifestyle priority, you will make it work however that works best for you. I find the comments about how much time we must spend cooking extremely exaggerated. Plus, there are 4 of us in this household and we work together as a team. If everyone cooks one night a week, and we go heavy on the leftovers, is really all we need. When the kids were younger we just focused on quicker/simpler recipes. They certainly exist.
Did you ever have credit cards that offer an end of year summary? You could look back and see where the money was going.
The other great thing about cooking from scratch is farmer’s market shopping. Actually buying from the farmer, no middleman.
Lol to the comment about the seagulls. Air rats we call them here.
Thanks for creating such a blog! My family of 4 is learning how to eat a natural/organic lifestyle and diet on $400 per month. It’s a struggle, but well worth it! Thanks for all you do!