The eat in challenge

missmis99

I am happy to say that since I have been on winter break (almost 3 weeks now) we have made a challenge to either only eat out on weekends or a holiday.  So, pretty much that meant that I needed to start cooking during the week. I am happy to say that we have stuck to our challenge (except for 1 night of pizza).  

This is a big adjustment for us.  We use to eat out 2-3 times during the week which was getting really costly.  I hope that next week when I go back to work it can continue.

Just had to share. 

erincassidy06

Good job! It's a hard adjustment. But you'll get use to it. Me and DH ate out alot when we first moved in together. Now its about twice a month. One thing that I have found help full is planning out a menu for the week and making a list for the store. That way it is less stressful when its time to cook and you have already done the hard part of "what are we eating tonight?". I have lots of yummy blogs if you need some fresh ideas!

aweilba

Great job!  It's soooo hard to stick with an "eat in challenge," especially with how busy our lives are.  DH and I really try to only eat out on weekends or if invited on a double-date or something with friends. 

My dad is a professionally trained chef, so I know a lot about cooking, and LOVE to cook.  DH, on the other hand, is not much of a cook, but really wants to learn.  We've made it a goal to try to make at least one new recipe a week with each other, so I can teach DH how to cook.  It's been so much fun!  Although I still do most of the cooking, on the one night a week where we try our new recipe, DH is all about it and really has fun with it.  He's been helping out in the kitchen more now, too, since he's more comfortable with cooking.

hinmighty

Thats great!!!  We have been trying to not eat out so much for weight and cost reasons.  I've been doing pretty well, but my DH has not been.  He always seems to "forget" to make a lunch for work and ends up eating out at work...

e_jakiela

That's a tough challenge.  I never ate at home before DH moved in. He loves cooking, so al lof our meals are home made. On days when he is really busy, we use frozen meals such as: Bertolli's Skillet meals (Chicken Florentie is awesome), and pot pies.  We buy them at BJs or Costco.  They are really healthy, cheap and you still eat in

 Our challenge now is healthy snacking. DH and I often work from our laptops in front of the TV and eat massive amounts of junk.  Our NY resolution is to snack better. Cross fingers for us

trinalo

This makes me smile. We hardly ever go out to eat- myabe once a week, if that. I love to cook, so most nights I make something. If I'm feeling lazy, we usually have pizza or something else frozen on hand. So this would be an easy challenge for me.

SpookieCat

I'm with Trinalo on this one.  I allow myself 1 lunch out (so Subway) per week, and then I would be shocked if we ate out more often than once every two or three weeks.  I know that on occasion if there are no social events it can be for months at a time.  We both find we can make our own food cheaper and tastier than going out.  And we have more money to spend on wine!

Like others have suggested, I like to cruise food blogs and my recipe books, buy all of the groceries for the week, and then I try to do as much prep work as possible at once.  For instance I'll cut up all of a head of brocoli right after buying it, wash it, and put it in a tupperware.  Some gets steamed with dinners or thrown in stir frys and I also bring veggies and salad dressing (as dip) for lunch with me.  So I can just reach into the fridge, grab the veggies I need, and then we actually use them all before they go bad. 

I also collected all of my favourite family recipes when I went away to college.  I put them in a book together.  Grandma's crock-pot recipes are awesome.  While Monday night dinner cooks, I toss everything for Tuesday into the crock pot, leave it in the fridge overnight, and then I take it out and turn it on in the morning.  

For lunches I like to make tuna salad in a container and bring the bread separately.  We have a toaster in our kitchenette at the office I can use.  I do the same thing with tomato sandwiches (dice the tomato when I get there so the breads not soggy).  I keep Knorr vegetable soups handy for those mornings where I don't have the time to put everything together for lunch.

And finally - we've found an awesome local bakery that makes up dough and freezes it.  So you can buy a ball of pre-made pizza dough, unthaw it in the fridge all day, roll it out and you're ready to go!  I can make a 13" pizza with all the fixings (1/2 and 1/2 toppings for DH and I) for about $8.  This will do 1 dinner and 1 lunch for each of us.  Use your local resources.  I have an awesome butchery near my office who has reasonable prices and great quality meats.  10 minutes in there and you have fancy (cheap!) meal ideas for a month.

jessNlane52804

When we set our budget after the wedding, we decided to only eat out once a week. It makes our date nights eating out more special and we both eat much healthier when we prepare food ourselves. I usually cook 2-3 meals per week and the other meals are leftovers or something frozen. We are really getting into Trader Joe's frozen food because they do not have as many preservatives.