Bridging The Gap From Dining Out To Eating In

Chuckle . . . snort . . . the blackened chicken comment cracked me up.

I think it's really great to have a strategy list to mix and match when combining your budget with your schedule. I used to feel like a failure if I didn't do something from scratch every night. An occasional frozen pizza is a huge help, as is giving yourself permission to do less elaborate meals as you mentioned. Even grilled cheese is better than a take out burger, I guess.

Cool post.

I've recently become a full-time student and we're living on one income - his, thanks dear.

Two years ago, when he was deep in credit card debt and eating out every night he wouldn't have thought this possible. In fact, many times he told me he couldn't live on anything less than his current salary (alone), just look at his debts and expeditures. Now, I'm cheap, but I was also finding it hard to live on my salary (we weren't together then, just roommates, long, sordid tale with a happy ending), which was 1/2 of his. And, granted, his expenditures included a flat-screen LCD, a lovely digital Pentax camera and an XBox. Mine included lots of clothes and trips.

Fast forward to me not working, a mortgage and school. I will admit we did get some help from a sad source, his mom passed away and we got the life insurance, not a ton, like $50k. Before that, though, he started running his purchases by me - you don't need a new fancy ipod, you have two; why do we need Showtime, we never watch it, it's $10/month, we can buy shows on iTunes - an entire season for two months of Showtime, etc. The life insurance allowed us to buy some sweet furniture for our new house (a leather couch, but it's a killer couch and won't EVER need replacing) and tuition for my first semester. But, otherwise, it sits in a savings account and gathers interest (I know we should probably invest it, but it's nice to have those liquid assets there and I don't trust the stock market, too much speculation) and we live off of his income. We paid off the cars and paid off his credit card debt.

But, I think the biggest thing is that we don't eat crap take out every night. We've become very good in the kitchen. We shop sales and at Market Basket (I love that store, cheap cheap cheap). I get America's Test Kitchen recipes in my e-mail. We have a slow cooker. And, I make huge amounts of the food we like a lot and we freeze it. Red beans and rice can be relatively expensive to make (Andouille is $7/lb up here in the north)but if a big batch is made and frozen we can get 5 meals out of it, making it like $2 or less per serving. Much cheaper than even $5 chicken fingers. I do the same with soups and some sauces. It's great too, because while a lot of what i cook is pretty labor intensive the first time, with the red beans taking like 1.5+ hours of prep and 1.5 hours of active cook time and another 4 or so of inactive cook time, I get back hours by defrosting and dumping in a pot on the stove. Market Basket also has roast (already cooked) chickens for $3.99, so, we have roast chicken one night and then quesadillas or burritoes the next night with leftovers for nibbling and, in the case of the burritoes, frozen burrito filling for a whole other meal and the cost of some black beans. It's 4 meals in one, easy. For $3.99 + rice and veggies and cheese.

Most months we end up with money in the checking account, that I then squirrel away in savings knowing that my husband has a tendency to view surpluses as free money but the savings account as off limits. And, he gets some money per check for a personal checking account that he can do what he wants with, although, sometimes it's good to question those purchases too. And, rock band for the Xbox is a good investment, which sounds stupid, but a great party game, something to do when you're bored, it's collaborative and additional songs are like $1.99 - although we do not need Oasis all the hits for $15! Much preferred to the $60+ he'd been spending on games he'd get tired of in a month or a week or a few days. And when the game actually makes us rock stars we'll be set!!!

Okay, that was a lot more than just what we eat, but all of it can be easy, fun and healthier than the way we were doing it before.

We buy some 'convenience foods' and some 'ingredients.' Start with all convenience foods if you have to, but otherwise focus them in problem areas.

For example, don't eat enough veggies? Try buying prepared baby carrots and pre-washed salads.

Hate certain kinds of prep--e.g. shredding cheese for pizza--but others not such a big deal (e.g. soaking beans overnight)? Buy shredded cheese (for pizza it works fine to throw it in the freezer!) and more dried beans. If you hate planning ahead but don't mind shredding cheese, do the reverse.

We buy a lot of canned soups and Ritz crackers since those are easy for my partner to snack on when he's feeling hypoglycemic. We also keep some frozen chicken fingers on hand for "lazy" dinner nights, although it turns out grilled cheese with a tomato soup is also pretty easy, as well as the occasional "snack tray" dinner (include three to five of the following: carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber sticks, pickles, olives, little sausages, hard boiled eggs, wheat crackers, buttered toast, microwave quesadillas).

Frozen pizza, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, mac and cheese -- those are some of my favorite quick meals. Thanks for the mentions. Having a perfect, well-balanced meal every night can be a lot of pressure so going for a well-balanced day or week is a good target.

This has reminded me of a tip from my cooking teacher (home ec teacher by trade with a bit of gourmet at the college class): she said most people cook the same 5-10 meals and just cycle them through every week or so; then they try a new recipe and if it's good, add it to the rotation and possibly replace one that they're tired of. I think that helped me to realize that I didn't have to constantly try new things.

"Ugly Cake". Hilarious!! I've made some of them in my time.

Great article and very timely for me since all these increasing grocery/gas/restaurant prices are clobbering my budget and my job will not exist after March. I am envious of people who can even afford frozen pizza!!

If I can expand on the healthy snacks tip, it is critical to remember that "quick snacks on the road" add up in calories and costs as well. We were heading out to the in-laws, 90 minutes away, and the call went out for "can we stop for a snack"? 5 minutes at the 7-11, and we'd spent about $12--two Vitamin Waters, a coffee, a diet Coke (about $1.50 for each of these), a bag of chips, a package of poptarts (my choice--I know, I know...), a couple of candy bars. Absolutely empty calories, a lot of packaging and waste, and no reason to have stopped.

We're going for a long drive this weekend, and I am going to be prepared: for Christmas, we each got a Sigg 1-liter aluminum drink bottle, which I will fill with water (kids like to put a to-go Crystal Light packet in there, green tea with honey and lemon) so we have drinks. I am also packing a small cooler with baby carrots, sliced peppers and celery, hummus, oranges, homemade chocolate chip cookies, sliced cheese, and whole grain crackers. And, most importantly, gassing up the car the night before so there is no reason to stop.

I have found that you can constrain your dining out to really special nights by only eating things that you couldn't reasonably reproduce at home: pasta is one of the big markups, steak is another (both are easy to make at home, and much less expensive at home than in a restaurant), salad (please!), soup, seafood, etc. YOu can really do these yourself, for much cheaper. I learned to make limited sushi choices too (crab, avocado, cucumber, egg, shrimp) because our family loves to eat it. An order of California roll (6 pieces) is $4 at our local sushi place--I can make 10 rolls (60 pieces) for about $7, because I have already made the investment in wasabi, gari, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. That feeds 4 of us for dinner, and there is enough leftover to make Bento boxes for the kids for school lunch.

Another tip is to either split an entree with someone when you go out, or to ask for a take-home container to be delivered with your meal (If I'm eating out for business, I usually do this, and take half of the entree home for the hubby or for my lunch the next day). Restaurant portions are huge, expensive and generally not altogether healthy (lots of butter and exotic oils), so splitting it between 2 meals is a great way to minimize the damage.