With the New Year on the horizon, you may be reflecting on how many times you’ve eaten out this year and wondering how to stop eating out so much during this upcoming year. Whether you want to save a little money, focus on your health, or simply gain control of your routine – I have several tips to help you eat at home more often (without going crazy).
You may be wondering, “Why is a food blogger talking about how to stop eating out?”. Well, one of my biggest goals is to inspire you to eat homemade. I want people to view cooking as more of an experience and less of a chore. And while this is a food blog (not a finance blog), I also care about your finances and firmly believe in spending intentionally. This inflation is no joke, y’all!
As we all know, there’s nothing wrong with eating out. It can be a way to celebrate or just get out of the house. However, when you are grabbing food out multiple times per week for multiple meals… it can turn into a habit and eat away at your finances (and your waistline).
Let’s Talk About Values
With that being said, I realize that this topic may come down to what the individual values. For some people, they may value convenience over money while other people may value money over convenience. At the end of the day, it’s up to YOU to be aware of what you truly value and make decisions in alignment with your values. Don’t be that person who eats out every meal and then wonders why you don’t have any money to travel. Wake up and realize that you may value travel over daily eating out (you feel me?!). Please know that I am saying that will all the love!
I value eating at home because it saves us money (allowing us to put that money toward other things we value like travel, investing, and home improvement projects), allows me to make better food choices that are in alignment with my health goals, and saves me time (allowing me to multitask at home or be more productive). I also believe that cutting down on time in restaurants makes the times that we do eat out seem more special!
This post is all about How To Stop Eating Out.
Top 5 Reasons To Cook More At Home
Save you time
Have you ever thought about how much time it takes to eat at a restaurant? You show up, hopefully park easily, and if you tend to go at peak hours – there may be a wait. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes it’s 20 minutes, and sometimes it’s upwards of a 45-minute wait. Then you sit down and wait for your waiter/waitress, you wait to order, you wait for your meal, then you wait for the check. Even if you don’t have to wait for a table, the waiter/waitress tries to create an experience for you and/or not rush you. Any sort of restaurant experience with a group of people takes a MINIMUM of 1 hour – but usually longer.
This can be a nice thing if you are having an anniversary dinner and you want a longer more relaxed dinner. Again, if you don’t eat out very often – a longer experience can be very enjoyable and special. I mean, who doesn’t like to be waited on?! But if you are finding yourself with not enough time in the day, yet making time for long dinners – you may be surprised at how much time you can save by having a plan for dinners at home. I suggest having simple meals that take less than 30 minutes to make and have an easy cleanup, like this one pot jambalaya or this one pan nacho recipe.
Yes, it’s less effort to eat out. But odds are it takes the same amount of time (or less) to eat at home.
Take back control of your life
I promise I’m not trying to call anyone out, but I am trying to bring some awareness to this topic. We’re all busy. We all have jobs and responsibilities. However, I find that for the people who constantly eat out more than 50% of their meals, the problem is not lack of time, it’s a lack of thinking ahead and organization. We are in the habit of grabbing something quick, just going through the motions and making decisions at that moment. Getting organized and creating a realistic plan for the week is key to always having something ready to eat in the refrigerator. When you don’t have anything planned for dinner and you are hungry like… NOW… the odds of you opting to grab something out go up by like 99.9%. You can read more about this topic in this blog all about meal prep tips.
Save you money
Now, this can all depend – of course. If you are shopping at Whole Foods and grabbing caviar, you may not be saving any money compared to eating out. However, if you plan your meals around cheaper meat options like chicken or frozen fish, in-season produce, and other affordable groceries – odds are you are saving a ton of money compared to eating out. We have all heard this before, so I don’t want to harp too much on it. At the end of the day, we can all spend our money however we choose to. But if you are anything like me and you like to be intentional with spending – it may be a good idea to take a deeper look into how much you spend per month on restaurant food (including coffee and alcohol) and set a budget around it that you feel comfortable with.
Create an experience for your kids/family
If one of your goals for the New Year is to spend more intentional time with your family/spouse/kids, then creating an experience around your dinner table at home is a great place to start!
Generally better for your health
We’ve all heard the phrase “out of sight, out of mind”. Many times when we eat out, we turn a blind eye to the way the food is prepared. Have you ever been to a hibachi restaurant and watched how much butter they put into your meal? I am willing to bet your eyes widened as you thought, “Dang, that’s A LOT of butter”. Even if you choose the healthier options on the menu, most restaurant food is going to be higher in calories and larger in portion size compared to the homemade version (generally speaking).
I want to note that none of this is to make you feel guilty. We are all distracted in this noisy world and sometimes we just have to roll with it. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like things have gotten out of control. You haven’t done anything bad – you were just trying to keep up and get to the next day. I do believe, however, in taking some time to pause and reflect on how you want to adjust things and then put a plan in place to let those desires come to life (this principle applies to everything in life).
5 Tips On How To Stop Eating Out
…And Cook Daily (Without Going Crazy)
Take A Time Inventory
We all have the same 24 hours and the way we spend our precious time is up to us (I know, I know personal accountability sucks sometimes). I think most of us feel like there’s not enough time in the day to accomplish everything we want to accomplish. One thing that has helped me is doing an honest time inventory – writing down a short note on a piece of paper that represents what you did during that hour.
I only do this when I notice some of my bad habits starting to creep up on me (like how much time I spend on TikTok or Netflix). This exercise just brings some awareness to the time spent procrastinating. P.S. I fully believe in having downtime, but again intentionality is key in everything. Are you intentionally Netflix & chilling to recharge? Or is this just procrastination to avoid the things you want to be doing to better yourself or move closer to your goals?
Take a time inventory to be aware of how you spend your day, and work slowly on swapping procrastination time with activities that move you closer to your goals. Those activities could include meal planning, making a grocery list, grocery shopping, or ingredient prep.
make a realistic plan
Consider your lifestyle. Are you a nurse working long overnight shifts? Are you a single parent with three children to look after? Do you have a partner who can split the work with you? All of our lives and situations are different – so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. The only point I want to make here is to be realistic. If you’ve never cooked before – don’t plan a 3-course meal every night (honestly, I don’t know anyone who has time for that). Choose recipes that you know you can handle, within a realistic timeframe, and consider the clean-up so that you can be successful.
Are you the meal prep type? Does your family enjoy leftovers? Does the idea of cooking multiple recipes at once give you anxiety and you’d rather stick to cooking for 30 minutes each weeknight? There’s no right or wrong here – all just awareness and doing what works for you. For more tips on making a realistic plan – check out this blog post all about meal prep & planning tips.
call in support
There are so many ways to call in support. First, consider the people around you – your partner, roommate, or kids – and ask for a little help with prep, meal planning, or clean up. One thing we like to do is swap making dinner with a cousin of mine who lives close by, sometimes I’ll make a simple dinner and ask them to join and they return the favor on a different day. We don’t plan it (although you could do that if you are super organized) – but she tends to call and offer on a day that I need the break most and vice versa.
Another way to call in support is to use convenience foods. Just because you are eating more at home doesn’t mean we need to throw convenience out the door completely. Consider buying a rotisserie chicken for an easy protein or pre-cut veggies to minimize the prep. Or make large batches to freeze so that future you can get a break from cooking when you need it most.
List your old reliables
I recommend having a list of at least 5 meals that are your old reliables. To me, an old reliable is something ready in less than 30 minutes, always hits the spot, and is minimal in clean up. Having these in your weekly rotation (or in the back of your mind for a rainy day) is a great way to keep it simple while staying on track. Some of our old reliables include:
- One Pot Taco Soup
- Sheet Pan Nachos
- One Pot Jambalaya
- A simple spaghetti and meat sauce with a bagged salad
- Rotisserie chicken with an easy salad and frozen garlic bread
Give yourself grace
Change takes time. So, give yourself grace as you take the steps toward eating at home more often. Like anything new in life, there is an adjustment period and a learning curve. The journey won’t be perfect and it’s okay if things don’t go according to plan. Just keep showing up and building that habit. You are learning a new skill and it will get easier as you strengthen that muscle!
Final Thoughts
If you took the time to read this entire post, I believe that means that you want to take the steps toward cooking more frequently. Whether you want to save time or money, create a family dinner memory for your kids, be intentional with your life, or improve your eating – it is a worthy pursuit. Please note that some seasons of life will require more eating out than others. Other seasons of life may require you to call in more support. But give yourself grace when life gets crazy and pivot back when you catch your breath. I by no means have it all figured out. But when I find myself being pushed around by the craziness of life, I just try to pause and reevaluate so I can take the steps toward my goals. That’s all you can ask of yourself! I hope you found some value in this post and if you need any support – feel free to reach out!
This post was all about How To Stop Eating Out.
Did you try these tips? Make sure to tag me @thespicegirlkitchen_ on Instagram or @thespicegirlkitchen on TikTok! I love seeing you CRUSH IT! I will be your ultimate hype woman!
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