If you are trying to save money this year, you may be looking for ways to cut your household expenses. If you have not done so already, you may want to think about cutting back on dining out. Dining out is often viewed as an enjoyable thing and a convenient option for those of us that are short on time and would prefer not to use our time cooking or cleaning up the kitchen. The good news is that with a little advance preparation and planning, you can spend relatively little time in the kitchen and enjoy nutritious and tasty meals with your family while spending less on food.
The key to sticking with a plan for eating more food prepared at home is to plan your meals in advance and do the grocery shopping once a week. Stopping at the store on the way home from work every day takes time, and food costs can add up quickly if you do not look at what you are spending on groceries for the entire week. To make a meal plan for the week, take a blank piece of paper and make a column for every day of the week. Next, divide each column into thirds. The thirds represent three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Now comes the fun part – choosing your meals. You may want to look at the weekly ad for your favorite grocery store for inspiration as well as to get an idea of what is on sale so that you can base some of your meals on items with good prices. Of course, you will want to choose things that fit the amount of time you have to prepare the meals on each specific day as well as whether the food will be eaten at home or taken to school or work in a brown bag or lunch box. Once the meals are selected for the week, use your meal chart to start a grocery list. Look at the foods that you will be preparing and write down what ingredients you will need. After making the list, add to it any items that you know that you need such as milk, toilet paper, and the like. Finally, browse the grocery store ad again and make note of any items that are at such great prices that you want to buy a few of them if your budget allows.
Plan a trip to the grocery store when it is convenient for you, and use your list to help you shop quickly and efficiently. If you have the kids with you, they will quickly learn that if it is not on the list, it does not go into the cart. Speaking of the kids, depending upon their ages why not let them help with the preparation of the meals as well as setting up the table and cleaning up afterwards. This can help you to feel like eating at home is less of a chore and can provide some quality family time in addition to sitting down at the table together. As an added benefit, if you eat at home most of the time, you will find that dining out is a real treat on those occasions that you do go to a restaurant.
Photo by jdurham on morguefile.com.