Do you know what’s one of the most shocking expense categories that people discover when they start tracking their expenses? It’s food. Between grocery trips throughout the week, eating out for convenience and entertainment, and grabbing snacks at vending machines and gas stations, food expenses add up quickly. If you don’t keep track of how much you spend, you might be in for a rude awakening.
Part of becoming more frugal is changing our habits, and that’s not always easy. Today we’re going to make an effort at reducing our food budget by cooking at home.
Don’t tune me out because you think you’re not good in the kitchen or are too busy to cook at home. Increasing how much you cook at home is possible for everyone. With some practice and some adaptations, you can make cooking at home work for you. It’s no only good for your wallet, but it’s good for your body.
Address Concerns and Excuses
This may sound a little backward, but before we actually make a plan for cooking at home more, I want you to think about what has kept you from doing so in the past. What are the reasons you end up eating out or ordering take-out? Addressing these concerns as you make your plan will prevent you from using these excuses or allowing old habits to creep in. Be honest with yourself. Here are a few common reasons people don’t cook at home.
- I’m too busy.
- I don’t know how to cook.
- I don’t plan ahead.
- I’m tired of the “same old.”
As you make a plan, keep your concerns at the front of your mind so you can come up with a way to combat them.
Make a Plan to Cook at Home
It’s no secret that cooking at home takes more effort and planning than going through a drive-thru or ordering take-out. Knowing what you’ll fix before the dinner hour strikes is crucial. Start by making a list of the dinners you like to cook (or eat), know how to cook, or would like to learn to cook. If you’re stumped or are stuck in a menu rut, a simple search on Pinterest will have your mouth watering and your tummy growling for sure. Get some input from your family to make sure their favorites are on the list too.
Look at your calendar and decide how you’ll fit the meals in. If you’re new to cooking at home, ease yourself in with a couple of meals to start. If being busy has you eating out often, choose nights where you’ll have a little extra time to get used to cooking . As you get more experience under your belt, you’ll be able to pull together successful meals more quickly and with less effort.
If you’re already in the habit of cooking at home, make out a full menu for the rest of the month. Even though I always cook at home, sometimes I am too lazy to follow my own advice and make a menu. Making a menu will save you so much sanity! Having a menu that you are excited for and prepared for can put the excitement back into cooking at home when you’re in a rut or have fallen off the bandwagon.
In you Frugal Fresh Start Workbook there is a printable weekly menu planner that you can use. If you don’t have the workbook, you’ll get it emailed to you when you sign up to join the challenge!
Prepare to Cook at Home
When you have an idea of what you want to make and when you want to make it, schedule a trip to the store to shop for whatever ingredients you don’t already have on hand. Look at all your recipes and make a good list so that you only have to make one trip to the store. If cooking at home is new to you, you will probably have to build up your pantry’s stock of staples. For the sake of not getting overwhelmed, try just shopping a week at a time. If you’re a seasoned family chef, you might want to prepare your menu and shopping list for a longer time period.
If your schedule is busy (or you just like saving time), figure out what prep work you can do ahead of time. Could you chop veggies the morning of or the night before the scheduled meal? Could you prepare several crock pot meals over the weekend and stick them in the freezer? How can you involve your spouse and kids in the preparations? One of my favorite ways to prepare is to brown my ground beef in bulk (I stretch it with veggies too) when I buy it, then I freeze it in meal-sized portions. Getting some of the prep-work out of the way makes fixing dinner a breeze and will prevent you from eating out, even at the end of a long day.
Combating Challenges of Cooking at Home
Hopefully thinking about your concerns at the beginning helped you to creatively think through how you personally can overcome the challenges that you face with cooking at home. Figuring out your own solutions is probably more effective than giving you all the answers, but in case you still need some hints, here are a few ways to combat the common concerns I listed above:
I’m too busy to cook at home.
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- Use a slow cooker or Instant Pot. Your dinner will cook while you are away and will be ready at dinnertime.
- Get a rice cooker
with a delay timer. We love this feature on our rice cooker!
- Use weekends to prepare and plan the next week’s menu.
- Make enough so you have leftovers. If you don’t want the same thing on consecutive days, freeze your leftovers for a busy day.
- Keep meals simple. Your dinner doesn’t need to look like a restaurant’s spread.
- Enlist your family’s help!
I don’t know how to cook.
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- It’s time to learn! There are loads of videos and tutorials available online.
- Start with dishes you love so your motivation will be high.
- Search for simple recipes.
- Learn some versatile basics.
- Get other family members involved.
- Have a freezer cooking day with a friend.
I don’t plan ahead to cook at home.
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- Choose a day each week to plan your menu.
- Plan your shopping trips so you have ingredients on hand.
- Search for freezer meals that can be made now and stored for the days that don’t go as planned.
I’m tired of the “same old” homemade meals,
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- Challenge yourself to add a new recipe or two to your menu each week.
- Follow some recipe boards on Pinterest to get new ideas.
- Ask your Facebook friends to share their favorite go-to recipes.
- Get suggestions from family members.
Whatever your reasons for not cooking at home, there is a way to make it possible. It may take some creativity and discipline but it will be worth it. You will save a significant amount of money over eating out, getting take-out, or buying pre-packaged food. That is money that can go straight to making the financial goal that you set on Day 1 of the Challenge a reality!
- What have you done to make cooking at home a reality for you?
- What are the challenges that keep you from cooking at home?
Challenge– Day 5
Make a plan for cooking and eating at home. Your exact challenge will depend on where you’re coming from and what your current habits are. Set a specific goal for making some or all of your upcoming meals at home. Find recipes to use and make a shopping list so you won’t have any excuses. If your time at home is limited, get to know your slow cooker and get excited about some new recipes. If you already eat at home, choose a couple new recipes to keep things exciting!
I am always cooking at home. I noticed that every week I would purchase groceries and of course some would go bad. But now I learned to buy bluk of food that doesn’t go bad. And very careful look at what I can used versus what I want. I don’t eat out only on special occasions its over because it was August. I learned this part
That’s great Carmen! Those are all great ways to wave money! Keep it up!
I generally cook the same meals most weeks so it’s not difficult recipe wise or food shopping wise as I don’t even need to think about it. These are tasty family favourites like spag bol, chilli, roast meat&veg. My instant pot is a total lifesaver for when I get home from work&feel really lazy. I buy in bulk when things we use regularly are on sale&buy good quality meat when it’s marked down so I have a well stocked freezer. Also I treat myself to takeaway once a week & never order takeout outside of that. My lunch mainly consists of leftover dinner. I also sort lunch for my partner & son.
I have to eat very low carb and higher fat, which tends to mean meatless meals aren’t as much of an option that would satisfy. What I do is go for a combo of canned meats and on sale but quality meats. Also cheaper cuts.
Chicken thighs and legs quarters, humane or otherwise, are generally fairly cheap and versatile. That, canned tuna, and canned sardines are a staple. I’ll mix it up with whatever beef I can find on sale. My current strategy is get one splurge meat that is only for 1 meal and nicer (i.e. ribeye steak) and then some beef that can be stretched (i.e. stew beef, roasts, ground beef).
I also prefer to get frozen veggies because of price and longevity. Plus they are freshly frozen, which helps keep nutrients longer.
Meal planning has been a huge help so far since starting. I haven’t purchased anything from a store or takeout because everything is here at home and prepared. Some is par cooked or fully cooked and placed in the freezer so all I have to do is warm it in the toaster oven or microwave.
If you are stuck and not sure what to cook (we’ve all been there), Google is your friend. Do a search for recipe, followed by three or four things you have on hand. You’ll get tons of ideas – it’s kind of like a treasure hunt. When I do this, I commit to actually cooking one of the recipes that shows up in the search results – I pick one and see how it works out.
Also, if you like pizza and like easy, here is the best pan pizza recipe! Delicious – and even better the next day. You’ll want to tweak it (I use less olive oil and sauce) – check out the comments for ideas and adjustments required for alternate pan sizes.
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2013/01/the-pizza-lab-the-worlds-easiest-pizza-no-knead-no-stretch-pan-pizza.html
We cook it using cake pans, and it works out great.
Thanks for the recipe Laura! I agree with you that if you make figuring out what to cook fun, it’s much more enjoyable and you might even find or invent the next family favorite!
This is seriously the Achilles heel of our budget. I love your points about identifying the reasons why you eat out and the reader comments are great. I’m not certain if I’ll tackle this one right away but I know the 12-16 hour work days for both of us are the reason behind the eating out. But the other reason is because although I can cook I really don’t like it, so the second it’s a choice between cooking or anything else I will choose any other obligations before. Any tips for making cooking fun?
For me it’s new recipes that get me excited about cooking because I get tired of the same old.
55 yrs ago my mother taught me to shop. Here are her basics:
* Plan menus based on groc. store ads. You may “feel” like chicken but the sales are focused on beef.
* Plan a version of meatless Mondays. Pinterest does make it easy to expand your cuisine.
* Buy in season. The price differences are major. * If possible buy ahead. Pantry items on sale, freezable meats, chicken etc. * Stick with your list. Mom fed a family of 5 plus a dog, 2 cats and a parakeet with 30% of the average cost of groc. for a family of 4.
Great tips! Thanks Kbee!
Menu planning with my husband is like pulling teeth and now we are living overseas some items we can’t find like orange juice concentrate and everything is sold in much smaller quantities plus the prices are way more expensive on base or we have to times everything by 2.66 for the conversion rate and do t even get me started on cooking in celcius so it has been a challenge for us. This is by far ou biggest challenge that we are working on. Ohh did I mention we have 10 month old twins. Yeah it’s a little crazy over here.
Oh Megan! Those are some very real challenges! Maybe you can find a local who can give you some international cooking lessons!
My husband and I lived in Central America for a little bit before we had kids and cooking was really hard! We tried to find ingredients that we were familiar with, but they were expensive! We tried to substitute ingredients that we found and had LOTS of flops! Thankfully my husband will eat pretty much everything. One time we invited someone over for an “American meal” and it turned out so terrible!
I can’t imagine doing all that with twins in tow! You are a trooper! Just keep doing the best you can! Remember that sanity is worth a lot! 🙂
Cooking from scratch is actually a hobby of mine, but when I decided to return to teaching after 14 years off cooking itself became an issue. The time needed to do the actual cooking wasn’t there, especially when I was used to starting anew each day rather than incorporating scratch cooking with bulk planning, and often it was just too easy to pick up pizza or a box of chicken on the way home. One thing that has helped me a lot has been planning meals. I try to take things out of the freezer and move to the refrigerator 2 days before I need it so that they are thawed and ready to prepare.
Going to restaurants is really fun for us. We love the conversations with friends, the chance to try something a little different, and frankly I get tired of my own cooking sometimes. It’s just important to PLAN for these outings (which we have cut tremendously). We allowed ourselves to get lax, and like you stated, when you begin to add up the costs it’s eye-opening. Now we allow ourselves the treat of going out to eat a couple of times a month, rather than the expectation of what had been a weekly Friday night Mexican restaurant plus out to eat Sunday after church plus drive through on Tuesday because it was Scout night….
For the one who said she is unsure of herself in the kitchen I suggest checking out a couple of children’s cookbooks from the library. Oftentimes they have simple recipes with surprisingly tasty results. In fact I still use the pancake recipe that was in my 40 yr. old Holly Hobbie cookbook:)
You’re so right! Eating out isn’t a problem when you’ve planned and budgeted for it. It just becomes a problem when it accidentally trumps all your other priorities (like paying off debt or whatever the financial goal is) because you didn’t plan for it.
That’s fun that you still use the pancake recipe from when you were young! I still use the chocolate no-bake recipe from my very first cookbook (I was maybe 8). I know it by heart! 🙂
A few years ago, I wanted to get into cooking foods from different countries, but was really intimidated. Then I found that Amazon carries a line of books called “Easy Menu Ethnic Cookbooks”. The line is made for children so the recipes are simple to make, but not unauthentic. There aren’t a lot of recipes in each book, but some of the books can be purchased for only a penny plus shipping. Lots of fun to try something different, and very tasty, too!
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Easy+Menu+Ethnic+Cookbooks
Planning ahead is crucial. Especially when working a 9-5. I made a new rule where even if I fail to plan that doesn’t give me an excuse to go out to lunch. So basically I have to bring something or wait until I get home. Getting those smoothies blending at 6am is a lot easier now!
I’m loving all your frugal recipes!
Amy x
That sounds like a great rule to keep you in check! Thanks Amy!
Great tips Stephanie! 🙂
We split up the work. My husband and I each cook 2-3 meals each week, which doesn’t seem as daunting as having to cook 4-6 meals every week. We each get nights off from cooking and we try to plan it around our schedules. There are certain nights one of us gets home earlier, have after work obligations, etc.
We also try to cook a couple meals on Sunday evening (because it tends to be a slower time of week for us) to start the week with some available left-overs for lunches.
That’s awesome that you both cook! My husband often cooks on the weekends when he’s home and I LOVE it! It’s nice to have a break and fun to eat someone else’s creations!
Love this! For me it is all about the Sunday prep. I plan the weekly meals, then chop/cut EVERYTHING so that all I have to do is actually cook the night of. I try and use the crockpot as much as possible, too.
That’s great that you take care of all the prep on the weekend, so when you’re swamped during the week you can still cook!
Thanks for the motivation! We already make all of our meals at home, but I’ve been needing to start coming up with some type of loose menu plan so the food in our stockpile doesn’t go bad. I’m going to get right to it!
Awesome Stacy! We already cook at home too, but I am excited to be better at planning a menu and find some new recipes too!
I’ve found the website budgetbytes.com recently which I really like. Most of the recipes are super easy and delicious. Plus, she prices them all, so you can really cut down on your grocery bill!
Thanks for sharing Heidi! That sounds like a great resource!
I got yesterday and today’s goal all at once. I asked my wife to be my point of accountability and to make sure that taper convenience buys and to make sure I eat what I cook before it goes bad. You’d be surprised how much food goes to waste when you really look at it.
Focusing on not wasting food is a good one Crystal!
We only eat out Wednesdays and lunches on the weekends. I write a menu for the week and shop from it. Done that for several years. Nov and Dec, though, plans went out the window while we moved to a new house. Each week I would buy food I expected to cook, but we were so stressed and tired we just stopped out and ate many MANY days. (Having two kitchens that were both in shambles with half my stuff didn’t help.)
Even when we don’t scrap plans and eat out, I still spend way too much in groceries. But I cook fancier, and I cook for too many – even cooking from ingredients at home, that gets expensive. I’ve already reserved a “cooking for two” book from the library, to try to counter that.
I have also been guilty of not cooking what’s on my menu, thus wasting the food that’s fresh and letting other ingredients sit forever in the pantry. I’ve been trying to use up the pantry the last three weeks (doing very well, actually!) and committed to cooking what I plan. So I’m hoping to see progress on the expenses.
January sounds like a great time to get back into the cook at home routine! I love that you already found a cooking for two book (and at the library!!)!
I cook a lot, and shopping carefully has been one of the biggest ways I’ve reined my budget in. This is a great list. Let me add one tip for single people though (maybe also for couples, or a parent and child — small groups) — make SURE you’re ok to eat everything you cook multiple times! I often make one-bowl recipes (soups, stews, grain salads) that have a lot of different kinds of vegetables or whatever, so there’s enough variety in there to make it interesting since I eat almost everything four or five times. Another thing I do is prep ahead (on the weekends) so I can just come home and heat something up, because I rarely have the energy to cook on a weeknight. Regarding the fresh start challenge — I saved $5 today at the grocery store by (in one case) not buying something that would have been an impulse and (in another) asking a clerk to cut a big piece of cheese in two for me, because there’s no way I could eat a pound of feta before it went bad and had to be tossed 🙂 Putting that $$ in my savings instead.
Great tips! Changing up the leftovers so it’s not the exact same for 4 days is perfect. Great job saying no to an impulse buy!
We try to plan out some basic meals, and consider which ones have leftovers (and which ones get gobbled up right away!). I struggle with putting supper in the crock pot or pulling meat out of the freezer so that it has time to thaw. We were struggling with meal planning for quite a while. To combat that, I printed off recipes that were hits or ones that look good and keep them in a binder in plastic sheet protectors. I should also make a page for writing favorite recipes from cookbooks with the page number.
A really easy favorite in our house is “biscuits with stuff on top”. Basically, a can of refrigerator biscuits with spaghetti (meat) sauce and cheese on top and bake until the biscuits are done (I usually add a few minutes to the instructions on the label and follow the oven temp). One jar of spaghetti sauce is enough for 2 cans of biscuits. I’ve started baking the biscuits for about 5 minutes before putting all the stuff on top since some of the batches we’ve made come out a little doughy. Also, this recipe is very adaptable! You could add beans or diced tomatoes or make it a meatless dish.
I totally know what you mean Kellie! I struggle with planning ahead to take out meat and put something in the crock pot too. I am resolving to be a more diligent menu-planner now!
“Biscuits with stuff on top” sounds like something my kids would love (sometimes they are hard to please)!
This is SUCH good advice! Can I add one more thought? My cooking skills are minimal, so I struggled with meal planning for years and when I did manage to pull something together, it often wasn’t a crowd-pleaser.
I finally gave myself permission to put REALLY, REALLY simple things on our weekly meal plan – scrambled eggs, hot sandwiches, frozen pizza. Some of those aren’t super-frugal or very healthy, but they all beat eating out. Over the course of 2+ years, I’ve slowly worked my way up to being able to tackle simple recipes. But as you say, it’s a habit. And honestly? When I started, even using a slow cooker seemed intimidating!
Thanks for sharing your experience Abby! I love that you “gave yourself permission” to keep it simple! That is great that your skills have improved over the years! 🙂
Meal planning can be overwhelming for those who are not used to it. One idea that may help is to have theme nights. For example, Breakfast for Dinner; soup and salad night; Pasta night; Meatless Monday;Mexican (or Chinese, or Italian…).
It definitely helps to think about what’s already in your freezer and pantry.
I love the idea of theme nights! That gives you some direction so you don’t get stumped. We have breakfast-for-dinner pretty regularly. That’s one that everyone likes! 🙂
My husband and I are actually pretty good with cooking at home. He does go out for lunch a few times a week, but he does not have a problem bringing his lunch from home out somewhere just to get out of the office. I enjoy going out to eat for lunch to catch up with co-workers, but I keep it to once or twice a month. I usually make a bunch of food on Sunday for the entire week. This week, im going to try out mason jar salads. I saw a pinterest article about making mason jar salads for the entire week! My husband bought the new revised Moosewood cookbook and challenged us to try to make one recipe a week from that book (he is too cute), that keeps us in the kitchen and give us some together time too.
Those Mason jar salads look so pretty too! I’ve thought about making them for my husband for his lunch, but I haven’t done it because for him, that would be a small portion of salad (for me it would be a perfect amount, but he is a rabbit when it comes to greens), but the alternative is that I just don’t make him any salad! At least a quart of salad would be better! And I love the idea of doing the whole week at the time!
Stephanie, you could also make salad in multiple jars to send or a half gallon jar, though I don’t know how feasible that would be.
We hardly eat out anymore (partially due to having restaurant hating toddlers, and partially for budgeting reasons) Our secret is….. The Crockpot! That is my favorite, most indispensable kitchen item. We prep it the night before, and then turn it on before we go to work. Seriously we use it for 60% of our workday meals. Even if we just buy chicken quarters and throw them in with a little BBQ sauce. Takes 5 minutes to prep.
Also – I know they are more expensive, but we love the steamable frozen veggies. Yes they cost more then a regular bag of frozen veggies, but the convenience is worth it to us… and it makes eating healthy easier… and is still WAY less expensive then eating out.
Prepping the crock pot the night before is perfect! When I don’t plan a menu, I find myself thinking of lots of great crock pot recipes at 4pm… too late to do anything about it! We’ve bought the steamable veggies too. Anything that makes getting veggies on the table (and into people’s mouth’s) is probably worth it! 🙂
Although, we cook at home the majority of times, I definitely have been slacking in the menu department. I have a list of 20 meals, my new goal is to try to keep my freezer and pantry stocked of the ingredients necessary to make the meals. I know from past experience, if I have a menu planned then I am less likely to eat out. This week I did a freezer and pantry inventory, chose my menu for next week, wrote a grocery list and pulled my coupons.
Thanks for the Frugal Challenge, Stephanie. Now that I chose a 6 month goal, I’m already thinking of other financial goals that we can accomplish.
I have been slacking in the menu department as well. We still always eat at home (we live in the Boonies and would have to drive 40 minutes to “eat out”), but it is definitely much less stressful to have a menu in place! Taking a freezer and pantry inventory is a great idea!