We Did It — A Month Without Eating Out!!!!
I feel like I should break into the dance from Dora the Explorer…”We did it! We did it! We did it…yeah!” That’s right. One month. No eating out. At all. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I figured the kids would give me a really hard time, but once we told them what our goal was, they went easy on us.
There were a few nights where I had to get creative, like the day I forgot to put the roast in the crockpot, and we picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner. I made all the sides. And then last night my kids begged for chicken nuggets. My daughter pleaded, “but mom, today’s the last day of September. Aren’t we close enough?” I told her that we weren’t going to quit when we were almost there.
I think there’s a broader financial lesson in our experience.
- First, we’re often capable of more than we think we are. Our family used to eat out A LOT. My husband and I have been married for twelve years, and the longest we had ever gone without eating out until this point is twenty days. Yet we succeeded when we put our minds to it.
- Second, getting the kids on board helps. Kids don’t like to hear that they’re going to be missing out on their favorite things. But when they understand the reason, they’re less apt to give you a hard time. In our case, we explained to the kids that it’s healthier to eat at home. We also explained that we only had so much money, and so we needed to pay for things that were more important. In this case, we mentioned that giving up eating out meant that we could pay for soccer.
- Finally, don’t sabotage yourself in the eleventh hour. As tempting as it was just to run out to McDonald’s last night, we knew that we’d regret the decision in the morning. Sometime when you get close to your goal, it’s tempting to lighten up and bend the rules. Don’t do it. It begins a slippery slope that’s hard to recover from.
In our case, now that we’ve made it a month without eating out, I am confident that we can hold our eating out this month to two times. Had we given in to the kids last night, I would have been discouraged by our failure on the last day, and I’d be more apt to just throw in the towel, admit defeat, and blow a bunch of money on fast food this month. But we succeeded. I’m confident, and I’m ready for another challenge.
What are you doing to live a more frugal life this week?
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By Lynnae McCoy, on Oct 1, 2007
I'm Lynnae, wife of one and stay-at-home mom of two. I'm committed to getting out of debt by being frugal with my choices in life.
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Way to go! I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I can completely sympathize with you about those busy nights when you don’t have dinner planned; it’s so much easier sometimes to just get take out.
Good job on not eating out! I can’t believe it’s already been one month. Seems like Sept. just started and now it’s already october!
My frugal/organizing thing for the week is I put up jars I’m saving for next year’s pickle making. My kids go thru pickles so fast and one big jar costs like 3 something. I’ve made the bed for the cukes, been saving jars during the summer. Now I was sick of looking at them on top of the fridge, so I put them away in a cabinet. I’m ready for pickles next year.
Way to go Lynnae! You probably barely missed eating out, now that September is gone. That’s one of those hidden costs that seems like nothing, but when you pay attention, a trip once or twice a month can really add up to $20 or more (depending on how many Happy Meals you’re buying).
Awesome job!
Good job! I bet it will get easier from here on out.
Thanks everyone!
WOO HOO!!! :)
You and your family must be feeling pretty proud of yourselves right about now and very well you all should! :)
Congrats on accomplishing your challenge/goal! :)
Good job! I know how hard it is when you’ve got things going on with the kids and still have to cook when you get home, so well done:)
CONGRATULATIONS! My family did that challenge a few months ago, and we felt an ENORMOUS sense of triumph once we’d done it. Plus, we found that once we “broke” the habit, we had much, much fewer eating out impulses. It was AMAZING how freeing it was!
Somebody should start a club . . .