hungrypuggle16's Journal, 27 May 2014

That would be a shocker for me too, 600 bucks on convenience meals. Time to pull out the crock pot and find some good recipes. My kids are grown and gone and I don't cook but on the weekends. I have a convenience lunch (fast food) and then don't cook at night and still cannot get motivated to budge the scale. Good luck on your new life plan, change is good. Get the kids involved in menu planning and cooking, I have container gardens around the yard to grow some veggies maybe that would help!  

I have planted some veggies :) and my husband and I made a goal/promise to eachother that we will go through the whole month of June without eating out at all. 

Wish that was my problem lol, i might have $100 a month to eat on total, used to feeding 3 people on $70 a month so you can imagine lots of $0.39 boxes of mac and cheese (hard to afford heathly food, but i am trying myself :P) 

We've been there. We were eating out so much because it was easy, then we sat down and looked at our bank statement and realized how much money was just flying out the window. Now, we occasionally eat out, but rarely and we have a lot of meals that we have 1/2 left, so we freeze it for another day. Also, we used the excuse that it was quicker, but by the time we got the kids rounded up, drove to the eating place, ordered, and got home, we could have made a meal in that time. Get groceries and make some yummy, home cooked, goodness for the family. They'll learn to love it!! And it will make going out more of a treat. 

Hey, HUNGRYPUGGLE16, you can do it! You'll probably have to shop weekly (instead of biweekly) to keep your home produce bin fresh and keep you out of the prepackaged aisles. FARMERBLUE, try buying the whole wheat pastas and making a quick cheese sauce. You've probably always got milk and flour, a little good cheese that melts well is not a wallet-buster, and the pastas 16oz bags at WalMart are under a buck. I'm always on a slim budget to make meals that feed 6-8 servings. You're doing great just by cooking and you can make it very interesting with a little focused menu planning. Just a sidebar, boxed mac & cheese serves 4-5 ppl, homemade can easily double that and give you leftovers that can be mixed with a chopped onion, a 1.69 roll of ground turkey and chili powder for homemade Chili Mac the next day! I always cook big pots of beans and freeze portions, an excellent addition to your Chili Mac. Inbox me for some frugal tips/recipes if you'd like them. BTW - my tip for mac-n-cheese, Italian blend and cream cheese (0.99)...Way more than I meant to say but willing to share heads to help :D 

Thanks guys. I almost didn't want to post because I've been in that place where I only had like $150 for the month. We never had any extra to eat out. Now that we are doing better financially it's like we've been binge eating. I feel so wasteful. Thank you for the comments. 

Let us know what you got at the grocery store. Maybe we can help you come up with some meal ideas. :) You can do this!  

I have to admit it does take planning ahead. Meal planning that is, I used to meal plan on saturday and do the shopping then cook ahead meals and freeze them on sunday. But I also had the kids helping with prep and cooking... they are on their own now and can cook great meals! So make the change and get the family involved, no more arguements when they helped plan and cook for the meal too!