Eat Out Less
October 6th 2006 04:14
Eating out is a luxury, but an expensive one. When my wife and I go out to eat, it’s a treat. We do it generally just 2-3 times a month. It’s a nice break. For some families, it’s practically a way of life.
Thus a trip to a restaurant rather than being a fun treat can begun utterly mundane. But it’s an expensive type of mundane that costs hundreds of dollars a month!
I’m not a fan of miserliness, as I detailed in my last post. Unless you’re under severe financial pressure, I won’t urge you to stop going out to eat. The key is balance and moderation. If you go out every now and again, it will be a special treat that you will enjoy, not a drain on your budget.
However, it’s not easy. In single families or families where both parents work preparing home cooked meals can be a challenge. Here are a few tips that can help.
First, share the burden in a house with multiple workers.
Second, is the secret of leftovers. If your family has Sundays off have a big Sunday dinner at the house that’s sure leave to leftovers for Monday and Tuesday (let’s try not to pull it beyond Tuesday, because we all need a change of pace.)
Three, use pre-prepared foods. These are not as thrifty as homemaking foods, but are generally going to be less expensive than eating out. Take a family of four eating on Banquet TV dinners. The larger portion meals cost $1.38 and the smaller are 88 cents. So for two adults and two kids, you’d be looking at $4.52 to feed the whole family. How far would that go at McDonald’s?
Now pre-prepared foods can only go so far. Most people can only stand so many nights of fried chicken and potato like substances before they say, “Enough.”
The best cure for that is my fourth recommendation: buy an indoor plug-in grill. I use and therefore recommend the George Foreman grills. They do excellent job cooking meat, particularly steak and hamburger patties. The device is one of the most simple concepts ever invented. You don’t have to be Julia Child to figure it out:
1) Plug grill in.
2) Put Meat on Grill
3) Wait a few minutes.
4) Enjoy your meat.
These are available at Wal-Mart and most retailers, as well as many discount stores. While I recommend the George Foreman grill as I personally use it, that’s not to say another machine might not work just as well. If you can’t find an inexpensive one in your area, you can certainly try E-bay.
You can get individual patties or filets that are already precut and in some cases wrapped so you don’t have to mess with cutting the meat. These individualized patties are going to be a little more expensive than uncut meat, but much cheaper than eating out.
Along with the grilled meat, you can fix sides such as canned, frozen, or even fresh vegetables that require little preparation (such as tomatoes.) Other good quick sides include instant rice and Stove Stop (preferably the generic equivalent) stuffing. Thus, you can get a quick, easy meal prepared in minutes without spending large amounts of money at a restaurant.
Finally, anything you can do from scratch is going to be less expensive. If you can do a quick baked potato, that’s going to be less expensive than buying a bag of them.
Save those trips to the restaurant and make them special, while at the same time saving money.
Thus a trip to a restaurant rather than being a fun treat can begun utterly mundane. But it’s an expensive type of mundane that costs hundreds of dollars a month!
I’m not a fan of miserliness, as I detailed in my last post. Unless you’re under severe financial pressure, I won’t urge you to stop going out to eat. The key is balance and moderation. If you go out every now and again, it will be a special treat that you will enjoy, not a drain on your budget.
However, it’s not easy. In single families or families where both parents work preparing home cooked meals can be a challenge. Here are a few tips that can help.
First, share the burden in a house with multiple workers.
Second, is the secret of leftovers. If your family has Sundays off have a big Sunday dinner at the house that’s sure leave to leftovers for Monday and Tuesday (let’s try not to pull it beyond Tuesday, because we all need a change of pace.)
Three, use pre-prepared foods. These are not as thrifty as homemaking foods, but are generally going to be less expensive than eating out. Take a family of four eating on Banquet TV dinners. The larger portion meals cost $1.38 and the smaller are 88 cents. So for two adults and two kids, you’d be looking at $4.52 to feed the whole family. How far would that go at McDonald’s?
Now pre-prepared foods can only go so far. Most people can only stand so many nights of fried chicken and potato like substances before they say, “Enough.”
The best cure for that is my fourth recommendation: buy an indoor plug-in grill. I use and therefore recommend the George Foreman grills. They do excellent job cooking meat, particularly steak and hamburger patties. The device is one of the most simple concepts ever invented. You don’t have to be Julia Child to figure it out:
1) Plug grill in.
2) Put Meat on Grill
3) Wait a few minutes.
4) Enjoy your meat.
These are available at Wal-Mart and most retailers, as well as many discount stores. While I recommend the George Foreman grill as I personally use it, that’s not to say another machine might not work just as well. If you can’t find an inexpensive one in your area, you can certainly try E-bay.
You can get individual patties or filets that are already precut and in some cases wrapped so you don’t have to mess with cutting the meat. These individualized patties are going to be a little more expensive than uncut meat, but much cheaper than eating out.
Along with the grilled meat, you can fix sides such as canned, frozen, or even fresh vegetables that require little preparation (such as tomatoes.) Other good quick sides include instant rice and Stove Stop (preferably the generic equivalent) stuffing. Thus, you can get a quick, easy meal prepared in minutes without spending large amounts of money at a restaurant.
Finally, anything you can do from scratch is going to be less expensive. If you can do a quick baked potato, that’s going to be less expensive than buying a bag of them.
Save those trips to the restaurant and make them special, while at the same time saving money.
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Comment by Anonymous
In fact, it's much cheaper to cook regular rice (20 minutes) and making your own stuffing can be done in those same 20 minutes. All this while heating up your grill and cooking your meat/chicken/fish.
The same 20 minutes it took you to cook your way, but much tastier.
Comment by AdamG
Bargain Value
Dragnet Radio Show
The post was written for those who really don't like cooking and want something quick and easy and Chick rice and Stove Top. It really gets no easier than that. And I'd say you could probably make the rice and stuffing in 15 minutes.