Eat at Home More Often: The Savings Pledge Series!

We all know that dining out is more expensive than eating at home. Not only does it affect our budget, but it also is often not as healthy. Why then, do Americans still continue to dine out so often? Let’s take a look at few of those reasons and how we can combat them:

Convenience
Convenience is definitely the most common reason for dining out. It is definitely easier to cruise through the drive-through that it is to pull out all the pots and pans. Two solutions that I use to make cooking at home more convenient, even when I’m short on time, are meal planning and freezer cooking. When you have a plan already in place it makes it a little more difficult to stray from it. If you are not already doing meal planning for your family, I very highly suggest it! Just sit down and take some time every week or every other week to select 5-10 dinner time meals that you know your family will like. Want to save even more? Base these purchases off of what you already have on hand and what is on sale during the week you are shopping!

It’s Just Better
Although I think many of us love homemade food, sometimes there are particular dishes that the restaurants just make better. This is a great time to challenge yourself to take those most loved restaurant recipes and not only make them at home, but made them better and more healthier too! If you want a little help in the process, let the internet be your guide! I love the website CopyKat Recipes  which takes restaurant dishes and turns them in to easy to follow recipes for you! They have things like McDonald’s Frozen Strawberry Lemonade, Subway Orchard Chicken Salad and Ted’s Strawberry Shortcake!

Atmosphere
Sometimes it is just more fun to meat up with friends and family at a restaurant. One solution for this is to have a themed dinner at your home. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. Just get the whole family involved and have fun with it! If cooking dinner for a bunch of friends and family is just to much work, consider doing a potluck. Select a theme and a main dish and then ask each attendee to bring their favorite appetizer, side dish or dessert to match the theme.

What other reasons do you dine out and what things help you to eat at home more often?

This is the third post in The Savings Pledge Series. Have you taken the Savings Pledge yet?