Hi

I was wondering for those of you that have cut out eating out even for fast food or pizza or really scaled back your eating out. How did you do it????

I am looking into cuttijng this area really low in our budget and this is my one of my tempations.

I think the key is planning ahead and preparation. I agree that it is incredibly tempting to go through the drive-thru when you don't have an alternate plan for dinner. I find that I need to defrost and do all the prep work in the morning, and then I am sure of what we will have for dinner. Or even cooking in the afternoon or when the kids are in school, and just reheating at dinner time. Or as a last resort, picking up a rotisserie chicken at the super market on your way home from work and having it with salad or some veggies that cook up fast. I know many moms on here have a weekly/monthly menu, but I am no where near that organized! But just having some sort of plan in place in the morning helps me. Plus I hate to think of how salty and fatty the drive thru dinner would be (not to mention $$$)! HTH!

For me, who doesn't like cooking and likes to keep my life as simple as possible, I do 3 things.

1) I make a menu and post it on the fridge so I know what to cook and what to buy for every meal.

2) I make a lot of 'easy' food. I love my crock pot in the winter. I just throw everything in in the morning and it's ready by supper. In the summer we do a lot of easy BBQs. We also have one night a week of 'breakfast for dinner' which is easy and Sunday nights is a 'night off' where we'll have nachos, or toast, or a pb & j sandwich.

3) I do allow myself some connivence foods occasionally. I always keep one frozen meal (usually a big frozen lasagna) in the freezer for those insane nights where I simply don't have time. The $10 lasagna is a lot however, it's good, the family likes it, it's easy, and it keeps us from spending the $40 going out for dinner. There is usually leftovers from this too which means lunch the next day is covered as well.

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Well...I guess it depends on what your situation is.

If you find that you eat out/carry out because you are pressed for time, try having a few meals ready to eat in your freezer. You can make up lasagna or a noodle casserole and then just have to pop it in the oven. If you know you won't have much time to fix supper you can find a crock pot meal. (Check the recipes here at mommysavers for some good ones.)

If you work or your husband works and eat out every day for lunch, plan ahead and make lunches on Sunday for the rest of the work week, or even the night before. I would make a casserole or soup and put it in individual servings in the freezer. The night before I would put one in the fridge and it would be ready for me to take to work with me. I would get everything ready the night before so that I had minimal amount of work (if any) to get my lunch packed in the morning. I would buy a bag of chips or crackers and put in individual baggies so I would just grab one on my way. (I wash and reuse my baggies to save money, too) I have also been known to make up a whole loaf of bread and package of lunch meat into sandwiches and put them in the freezer. I would add mayo or mustard when it was time to eat the sandwich. Leftovers also make a great lunch.

For us, it was easy to not eat out...we didn't have the money. Hope this helps!

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"It's time to move from what we can do, to what we must do, to what we will do." ~Hillary Clinton

This is excellent advice! Most often I found that we were going out because I had no idea what to make, and then all of a sudden it's really late and there's no time to cook anything. What's the fastest - no thought solution?? Going out of course! Once I had a menu planned and I could look at it in the morning, know what I needed to take out of the freezer (or whatever), and knew approx how long it took to make it ~ it was easier for me to get in the habit.

Another thing that helps us is that, now since we've moved, we live literally 7+ miles from the closest resturant in general so it's not as easy to run out last minute.

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I heavily rely on meal planning. I make a menu for a 2 week period (my DH gets paid every 2 weeks). I have a huge system for this (it took me awhile to get to this point)- I first go with what I have on hand and make meal plans through that (also to see what we are running low on)-then I go through the circulars and coupons to see what I can get a good deal on and etc. When I make my menus, I plan for 5 quick easy meals (there is usually 2 days a week I am super busy and 1 extra day for when something unexpected comes up). I agree with KathrynHannah about the crock pot- it's my lifesaver and one of the best investments I ever made! A lot of the fast/easy meals I plan for in the winter/fall time is stuff I can make in the crock pot- there is nothing more comforting after a busy long day to come home and smell the food cooking!

We have not entirely cut out fast food from our lives- about once a month we go out for dinner, only order a pizza if it is on sale and a special treat. There is the occasions where there will be a sale on frozen foods that I will maybe pick up a frozen lasagna or something just in case (of course that is if I also have a coupon for it!).

Another meal planner but not the way you think
M-ethinic food
T- seafood
W-breakfast for dinner
th-Pasta night
F-pizza
S- grilled
sun- traditional meat and patatos type dish.

I still grab stuff sometimes but make really cheep choices like each of us getting one thing off the dollar menu. Ditching the drinks and little ceasers is pretty cheep with there $5 pizza's

We also have a weekly cash budget for dining out once its gone its gone

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006

This is a problem area of mine. But on my Microsoft Money, there is a spot that will keep track of certain charges for you and compare it to what you have budgeted, one of mine is eating out. I find it helps me to see exactly how much we've spent already. And if you look at mine this month you will see that we are WAY over our budget.

i just up and decided one day enough was enough. The amount of money we were spending on food eating out was crazy. And i really really enjoy cooking at home, just wasnt doing enough of it basically.... Soooooooo, i just made up my mind, and from that point on, i am almost to the point of obsessed of not eating out.... i plan my meals each week... we have talked with the kids in depth about budgets, what our family goals are over the next few years, and what we have to do to get there.... and the kids also gave some good suggestions too....... thats just how it all got started around here.....

I am a sahm, so it does make it a bit easier. All the above ideas are great. But I have one more tip. Have one really good cook book that you can go to for ideas. I like a nice simple one, that has recipes for stuff that will probably be in your house. I have several cookbooks. My favorite is the Not Just Beans cookbook. I use it when I don't know what to make.

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I have nothing to declare except my genius."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) upon arriving at U.S. customs 1882