Eating out and cooking at home can be both enjoyable and rewarding! Instead of relying on restaurants all the time, you can use your leftover grocery budget to enjoy dates, movie nights, or weekend trips with family or friends.
Shifting your mindset from ‘dining in’ to ‘financial smart’ allows you to enjoy creating great financial experiences down the road!
A Reality Check On Restaurant Expenses:
A casual dinner out will run you approximately $30-$50 per person. Although that may seem like a small amount at first glance, it is relatively normal considering today’s hectic lifestyles and full-time job requirements.
However, when you compare that single meal to your grocery budget, the perspective is much different.
That same amount of money will buy you numerous days of food at home, creating this perception of going out as a financial drain; however, it is actually a significant portion of your total monthly food budget disappearing within one day.
As this continues several times a week, it will begin to remove funds from savings, debt payments or future financial goals!
So here’s what I found out: People like eating out at restaurants, either because it is fast or the atmosphere or good quality food. Eating out is also an opportunity to relax or hang out with friends or enjoy quality time with family.
This does not mean you shouldn’t eat out anymore.
The overall objective here is to develop a balance in your dining out expenses to fit into your ordinary budget and future plans to support you rather than take away from what you are trying to accomplish financially.
If you are trying to repay debts or save money, eating out too frequently will significantly slow you down.
Two Main Reasons People Don’t Cook at Home More Often
Many people do not cook more at home, based on these two reasons:
- The flavor of the food from scratch is not as good.
- The amount of time it takes to cook is too much.
While these two reasons may make sense, you also may not like to spend all day in the kitchen and no one wants to eat overcooked chicken or bland meals after a long workday.
The good news is that new kitchen gadgets make cooking much less complicated than they did in years past.
You will not need a professional chef’s skills or a complex recipe to prepare these delicious meals; sometimes just having 2 or 3 good kitchen tools can totally change how you enjoy cooking!
Kitchen Tools That Make a Big Impact
Many times, if you want to create restaurant quality food at home instead of mediocre meals, then having the right kitchen equipment will play a huge role.
For instance, if you have a simple meat thermometer, then you can use that to ensure your chicken is properly cooked, juicy, and not dry. Or if you own a pressure cooker or multi-cooker, then those appliances could also be utilized to produce great-tasting meals in less time because they tenderize and add flavor to dishes that are normally difficult to do so otherwise. Simply using the proper seasonings can dramatically change any typical dish into something amazing when done properly.
Once you have your kitchen set up with the right tools, cooking at home becomes much quicker, easier, and much more enjoyable, thus reducing the urge to dine out.
By preparing meals for two to three days each week instead of cooking dinners every day, you will save time and energy. You can store the excess portions and easily reheat them; in fact, it only takes about five minutes to reheat cooked dinner(s).
This type of approach to cooking reduces the stress associated with having to cook all three meals every single day, which is why preparing all your meals the same way is just as easy as ordering restaurant take-out food!
There is still room for Restaurants in our lives
Just because you are cooking more at home doesn’t mean you have to stop having any restaurant visits.
Having a nice dinner or a night out with friends is an important way to keep friendships alive, create lasting memories and help keep life variety-filled.
The main difference will be when you do eat out, you’ll know it is intentional spending.
Instead of going out randomly throughout the week, going to restaurants will be planned, significant outings. When you do go out, the restaurant experience will be a special event rather than part of a normal routine.
And special occasions tend to be much more fun when we are able to create and enjoy them.
A creative way to help make this happen is to set up a `fun fund’ from money left over from grocery shopping.
When you spent a relatively normal amount on groceries during the month, you can use that excess money for entertainment or dining out at a later date. The result is a positive, cyclical pattern:
- cook more at home
- spend less for groceries
- save money
- use saved dollars for fun activities
This is a simple system, but it is effective in keeping your motivation high and makes you financially responsible without limiting you.
Therefore, when you cook at home, it doesn’t mean that you no longer can eat out; it simply means that you are taking control of your spending.
When you have great-tasting, fast cooking, and affordable meals at home, there will be no reason to not enjoy a few special dinners out and the same goes for social gatherings.
This small adjustment can produce significant monthly savings for you while not affecting how you live and have fun doing things you enjoy doing.
Long-term, when comparing dining out to making dinner at home, it’s really about using both in a more intelligent way and in an equal distribution.
