I spent HOW MUCH?!

[disneygrl704]

I just added up our eating out expenses since June 1st. We have spent almost $900 just on eating out. That is not including groceries which was another $400. I hate to cook, but I have to do something. I think I'm going to be sick.......

 

[honeybunches]

Don't feel bad, I think it is really easy to spend that much if you eat out at all. The great thing is that you can cut back even half and save a ton of money!!! Do you work outside the home? That's why we eat out, when I don't have something quick to make for dinner. I find that the crockpot often saves me so much time.

 

[disneygrl704]

Yes I work a full time job. So the last thing I want to do is come home and cook! I am going to do better- I have to! It's not good for us to eat out all the time.

 

[ptmmg]

I also work full time and find it hard to cook every night.I have been doing dream dinners now for about a year and it has cut down a lot on how many times we order or eat out!!! I spend about $250 a month and make 10 -12 six serving meals. If we were to go out to eat 10-12 times it would be way more than the $250. plus it gives me the opportunity to try dinners I would never make.

 

[MickeyMom2Boys]

Dream dinners? Can you tell us how that works? I am in the same boat. Really need to get the grocery bill down some!!

 

[luv disney]

I agree, Dream Dinners is the way to go! It is absolutely delicious, here is the website with more info. www.dreamdinners.com

 

[MinnieLovesMickey12]

I just added up our eating out expenses since June 1st. We have spent almost $900 just on eating out. That is not including groceries which was another $400. I hate to cook, but I have to do something. I think I'm going to be sick.......

To be honest with you if you spent $900 on going out to eat and $400 on groceries in the last 60 days (2 months) then that averages out to be $650 month for going out to eat and for groceries. Which is not a bad average. I spent about $600 a month just on groceries for my house. But we rarely go out to eat.

If you want to cook more to save money that is fine. Groceries are always cheaper than restaurant food. But if you hate to cook and you haven't been much of a cook your whole life, trying to change now just might make you miserable.

I don't see how you got by with only spending $400 in 2 months on groceries. You must literally never eat at home. That's only $50 a week.

ETA: if you want to try and eat at home more, I am going to suggest you find the Stouffer's section of the freezer department at Walmart. They have these boxes of frozen dinners you can buy, not tv dinners but bigger boxes of stuff like Enchiladas and Lasagna. You pop them in the oven and bake them for 70 minutes and you have dinner for less than $10.

They also have a section in the freezer part that are bags of pre-made mixtures like stir fry and you just add meat to it. Some of them actually even come with the meat.

I know stuff like that is easier than trying to make meals from scratch when you hate to cook.

Something else we make that is easy and quick is if you have a grill you can grill up some boneless skinless Chicken breasts and slice it up real thin and put it in tortillas with cheese and you have homemade Fajitas. DH also grills steak a lot and we just microwave some baked potatoes.

Having a gas grill makes cooking a lot easier. I also buy pre-made frozen hamburger patties and grill burgers at least twice a month.

Start buying the pre-cooked microwave Bacon that you just heat up in the microwave and that makes for a very fast breakfast, just scramble some eggs and microwave the Bacon for 40 seconds and in less than 5 minutes you have breakfast.

If you hate to cook, convenience food makes things a lot easier. You can even buy pre-cooked microwave pancakes. We buy those for DS.

You can cook more and still not have to invest a lot of time an effort into it.

 

[sherreis]

I used to subscribe to an online menu planner - www.savingdinner.com

We found most of the recipes to be good for our family needs. It really helped me with menu planning and decreasing how much we were eating out. Also learned how to cook ahead some stuff and put in the freezer for finishing at a later day so I could take stuff out on a day that I didn't want to do a lot of cooking. I don't like coming home from work (actually, I am already home - cause I work from home) and having to cook either. I LOVE my crock pot and my electric pressure cooker.

 

[maplevale]

To be honest with you if you spent $900 on going out to eat and $400 on groceries in the last 60 days (2 months) then that averages out to be $650 month for going out to eat and for groceries. Which is not a bad average. I spent about $600 a month just on groceries for my house. But we rarely go out to eat.

This ^^. $650 a month is only about $160 a week... and i know we EASILY surpass that in groceries alone!

And - factor in your time. If you have the time and desire to cook and clean up afterwards - that is great. But for the extra hour + each night...

 

[java]

Easiest way to avoid the going out trap is to have a bunch of quick easy meal items in your pantry or fridge.

For example I always have canned tomatoes and pasta. Finding some random veggies in fridge combined with those I can make. Pas in less than 30 minutes.

Easy least one that my whole family loves
Preheat oven to 400
Chicken thighs(bone in skin on) salt and pepper HOT pan with. Bit of olive oil. Put in thighs skin side down cook on high until the skin is crispy, flip cook another 5 minutes . Flip back to skin side down, and put your oven safe skillet into the oven. Cook for 15 minutes or until juices run clear.
Serve with rice and a salad

The Che has a website and there are a bunch of 5 in 5 recipes on there. 5 ingredients 5 minutes dinner.

I know some people that love the cook on weekend and have for the week, but that is not me. I do planned leftovers though. Last night we had sausage and meat sauce over pasta. I mad enough for 3 meals. I froze 1. For future crazy day.

Having quick and easy ready to go saves you on those I don't have time to cook days.

 

[lucigo]

I started using mint.com and it has helped me to budget my food money a lot better.

I don't know how people get by on such small amounts of grocery money, but then our "grocery" money also includes basically all Wal-Mart type expenses because its just too hard to try to separate.

 

[disneygrl704]

To be honest with you if you spent $900 on going out to eat and $400 on groceries in the last 60 days (2 months) then that averages out to be $650 month for going out to eat and for groceries. Which is not a bad average. I spent about $600 a month just on groceries for my house. But we rarely go out to eat.

If you want to cook more to save money that is fine. Groceries are always cheaper than restaurant food. But if you hate to cook and you haven't been much of a cook your whole life, trying to change now just might make you miserable.

I don't see how you got by with only spending $400 in 2 months on groceries. You must literally never eat at home. That's only $50 a week.

ETA: if you want to try and eat at home more, I am going to suggest you find the Stouffer's section of the freezer department at Walmart. They have these boxes of frozen dinners you can buy, not tv dinners but bigger boxes of stuff like Enchiladas and Lasagna. You pop them in the oven and bake them for 70 minutes and you have dinner for less than $10.

They also have a section in the freezer part that are bags of pre-made mixtures like stir fry and you just add meat to it. Some of them actually even come with the meat.

I know stuff like that is easier than trying to make meals from scratch when you hate to cook.

Something else we make that is easy and quick is if you have a grill you can grill up some boneless skinless Chicken breasts and slice it up real thin and put it in tortillas with cheese and you have homemade Fajitas. DH also grills steak a lot and we just microwave some baked potatoes.

Having a gas grill makes cooking a lot easier. I also buy pre-made frozen hamburger patties and grill burgers at least twice a month.

Start buying the pre-cooked microwave Bacon that you just heat up in the microwave and that makes for a very fast breakfast, just scramble some eggs and microwave the Bacon for 40 seconds and in less than 5 minutes you have breakfast.

If you hate to cook, convenience food makes things a lot easier. You can even buy pre-cooked microwave pancakes. We buy those for DS.

You can cook more and still not have to invest a lot of time an effort into it.

Thanks for all the tips. My grocery store purchases are mostly junk food and drinks for the house. I do try to buy stuff when it's on sale, but rarely cook. I have had to throw stuff away because I let it go bad and didn't cook it. DH works different hours and most days I don't know until I'm getting off work if he will even be home for dinner. He fends for himself a lot during the week. But he is fine with eating a sandwich or a bowl of cereal for supper. I am going to motivate myself to do better. I am going to start making a meal plan and buying groceries for the week and maybe even Pre-cooking some stuff on the weekends. I can do this....

 

[pat fan]

You can do it!!!

Try cooking a turkey or chicken Sunday (or Monday if time allows) and that will stretch at least 3 days into the week. Nuke some potatoes and cook a veg first night to have with chicken, next night make a quick alfredo sauce (a rue, add milk/cream, s & p, cheese if you want) add chicken and broccoli and serve over pasta. Buy a sauce you like (sweet & sour or teriyaki) add chicken and a bag of frozen stir fry veggies and serve with rice. At least 3 meals out of a chicken and it's even economical!

A pot roast can be used in similar ways and you can throw that sucker in the crock pot first night for even more ease!

Pancakes or waffles are a quick cheap meal to make from scratch, and if your DH is good with cereal, he'll be thrilled with nice warm pancakes that don't take much time at all to cook! We just bought a big box of turkey sausage from BJ's to have for a quick dinner with pancakes or eggs. And please don't use box mix pancake stuff. Scratch is super easy and so much better

 

[disneygrl704]

I am loving all the quick meal ideas. Keep them coming!

 

[howlongtildisney]

I know what it's like to not want to cook every night after a long day at the office. What I do is have a large chest freezer and then I cook a bunch of meals once a month or so. It ends up being much cheaper and healthier than eating out all the time. I've planned it on my own, but last month I used www.onceamonthmom.com. I'm officially hooked! It saved me so much time to have someone else do all the planning.

 

[TxRabbit]

We were a family that ate out a lot. OR we hit the drive through and ate at home. For both financial and, even more importantly, health reasons, I made a commitment to eating in. It can take some time to get your rhythm going with the cooking. But once you do, you realize that it doesn't take that much effort.r And now that eating at home has become the norm, the idea of eating in a restaurant has really lost it's appeal.

There's a lot of control with grocery shopping. You can splurge or can tighten your belt. It all depends on the choices you make. There are multiple schools of thought with groceries... Here's what I do.

I realized that we rotated through the same restaurants, generally eating the same choices at each, so now we just rotate through some family favorite meals. We don't need a great variety. If a month averages 30 dinners, then we will generally eat 3 or 4 meals weekly, 2-3 meals bi-weekly, and toss in a special thing once or twice a month. What these meals are seems to rotate with the seasons. My point is that you don't need to buy or cook a great variety of food. This helps you prepare the food faster too because you streamline the process.

When you operate like this...you generally buy the same things over and over again. Except for things like produce and milk, I don't buy groceries for a weekly plan. I buy groceries to stock my pantry and freezer so that I can make whatever I feel like making from my stock on hand. In this way, I can stock up on things when they are on sale or on manager's special (reduced for quick sale). For instance, my family loves several dishes made from Hot Turkey Sausages. They were on sale in Target for $3.99 and they had reduced $2 for quick sale stickers on several. I grabbed all 7 that were reduced and paid $1.99 each. These sausages are in the freezer waiting for me to be in the mood to eat them.

I do this with just about everything. The concept is not to make a list and then shop for what you need. The concept is to look in your pantry and freezer and figure out what you want to eat from the stock on hand. Know what you need to make a variety of dishes so that you have stocked what you need to cook what your family likes to eat.

And I cook with the basic concept of, If I'm GOING to cook...then I cook A LOT. A go to dish for me is a tomato based sauce with pasta of some sort. In the pantry, I have jarred tomato sauce, canned chopped tomatoes, and some sort of pasta. In the freezer, I might have the turkey sausages, chicken breasts, or ground meat. Depending on which protein I use and what fresh veg I have and how much I feel like cooking, at least once a week, we have tomato sauce with added protein over pasta. I have my methods of stretching the jarred sauce. I cook a ton of pasta. And I make sure that I am cooking AT LEAST 2 dinners worth. So the next night...or in two nights...we just reheat...no cooking.

And that's the basis of the Cook a Lot philosophy...when you cook...cook for strategic leftovers. My family calls it "Deja Vu Dinners." You don't have to completely repeat though...for instance, if you grill chicken for dinner (we do...A LOT), then know what you can do with cooked chicken for another meal. We might have grilled chicken, grilled corn, and a steamed veg (or grilled veg, like asparagus) for night one. Easy, easy. Know a favorite seasoning for the chicken (we like Kick n' Chicken spice mix by Weber). Then we have chicken tacos for night two. On night two, reheat the chicken and just set out taco toppings, bag o' grated cheese, salsa, bagged lettuce, etc. Every one assembles their own taco. No real cooking and everyone is their own "cook." The key is to grill a ton of chicken when you grill it.

This concept works over and over...you can start with chicken tacos. Put chicken breasts and jarred salsa in a crock pot. Shred the chicken and eat your tacos. You can use the leftovers to make chicken tortilla soup. Or chicken chili. Or enchiladas. Or a jambalaya thing?

A lot of this is family specific. But I'm just trying to share this concept of kitchen management and thought. It has helped me because as much as I like to plan things...I don't operate well with a specific meal plan. I do much better operating in the limited freedom of eating what I feel like from what I have on hand...and purchasing veg and fruits, etc, based on season and sales. You have to spend some time thinking and possibly researching how to prepare meals that your family likes, but this is time well spent. Adding no cook/little cook days (everyone makes their own sandwich/wrap/taco for dinner), Deja Vu Dinner days, and other grocery prepared food (take and bake pizzas, rotisserie chicken, etc.) helps to ease the burden.

 

[Happyjen27]

That's probably where I was 2 years ago. AND I also cooked home a lot, so I had a big grocery bill too.

Here is what I did: I wrote a number on the white board in the kitchen. I started with $250.00. That was our amount to go out to eat with. Once we ate through that, we couldn't go out to eat the rest of the month. If we knew we had plans with friends or mother's day brunch, we would have to make sure we left enough money left on the white board to cover it.

It worked. I gradually weaned us down to $125 per month for out to eat. We've gotten so good at it, that now I don't even need to write a number on the white board, we've just gotten in the habit of cooking at home.

Both DH and I work full time and we've got 6 year old twins. We all love to go out to eat. I personally love cooking, so that works in our favor, and of late, I've gone all organic, that, too has helped us eat at home where I know we can eat well.

Just wanted to share the whiteboard tip with you, it really helped us stay on track, because we would get home and while trying to figure out what to eat, we would check the white board, see only 17 bucks there and realize we were eating at home that night.

 

[McDISer]

This ^^. $650 a month is only about $160 a week... and i know we EASILY surpass that in groceries alone!

And - factor in your time. If you have the time and desire to cook and clean up afterwards - that is great. But for the extra hour + each night...

DIS should have a like button.

 

[Jeff_G]

Another way to do this, set a dollar amount for eating out next month and pull it out in cash. Then only use that case for eating out and when its gone, no more eating out.

I do most of the cooking in the house and this summer has become a chore. Im really lacking inspiration for meals lately.

 

[moonsandmarshmellows]

I agree with making different meals and freezing. I do a mix of homemade meals premade and then froze, crockpot meals and store bough frozen meals.

I also get a lot of meal ideas off of Pinterest. It helps me to not have the same things over and over. With all that we barely eat out.