The Secret Financial Power of Home Cooking

December 12, 2016

If you could save an extra $500 per month or more by doing just one thing differently, would you do it? Think about what you could do with that $500: pay off your student loans or credit cards, save for a home purchase or home renovation, power up your retirement account or even take a fabulous vacation. If you’re like many Americans who are feeling squeezed for cash to apply to your big goals, there is one simple thing you can do to save a lot more money – cook and eat at home.

I’m as guilty as the rest of us. While I love to cook, I am the first one to order a pizza when the time crunch of work, kids and activities gets crazy. Plus, as an extrovert who works from home most of the time, I enjoy taking my computer to a café so I can see some actual humans.

The keys are 1) moderation – set an “eating out” maximum for the month and 2) preparation – plan to eat at home and shop in advance for ingredients. Need motivation? Here’s how much you could save:

Save money on breakfast

Let’s take a typical breakfast on the go: a ham, egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin with a cup of gourmet coffee for $5. Eat that every day and you’ll spend $35 per week. How to cut this down?

Cook your eggs. Making your egg sandwich at home could cost you as little as $1.00 if you kept all the ingredients on hand and cooked from scratch (not to mention that it might taste a lot better). Your savings per week? $28 or $1,456 per year.

Brew your own coffee. You don’t have to sacrifice coffee quality. My serious Nespresso habit costs me about a dollar per day and I save the pricier coffee shop brew for when I’m out meeting friends.

Buy prepared in bulk. Even reheating a breakfast sandwich in the microwave and brewing a coffee pod would only cost about $2.50 or less per meal. Your savings per week: $17.50 or $910 per year.

Save money on dinner

Unplanned take-out food is the easiest place to fall off the wagon when it comes to your meal budget. For a single person, take-out Chinese food or a pizza dinner would cost about $15-$20 depending on where you live, and you’ll get two meals out of it. For a family of four, a take-out meal costs about $40.

Stock your pantry and fridge for easy meals. Having a well-stocked pantry and fridge is like having money in the bank because you’ll always have ingredients on hand to pull together a quick and easy meal. See the Food Network’s list of essentials to keep on hand and these suggestions from Real Simple magazine for easy meals you can make in a hurry.

Making dinner at home can save you about $7 to $15 per person. Replace just one person’s meal out per week with a home-cooked version and you’ll save $364 to $780 annually. That’s $1,456 to $3,120 for a family of four.

Use your slow cooker. My slow cooker is my favorite piece of equipment in my kitchen. I load it up with ingredients in the morning, turn it on, and presto! There’s dinner at 5 pm.  See this list of easy recipes from Cooking Light.

Save money on lunch

A typical lunch on the go costs $10-$15. Sure, you’ll want to eat out occasionally with co-workers in order to connect and have a change of scenery, but you don’t have to do it every day. How much can you save from bringing your lunch?

Bring leftovers. What better thing to bring for lunch than last night’s yummy leftovers? Bring a hot lunch of leftovers just once a week and save $520 to $780 per year.

Stock sandwich ingredients at home. You can make 5 tuna subs at home for the cost of buying a single one at the sub shop. Your savings? About $28 per week or $1,456 per year.

Save money on snacks

That mid-afternoon latte and muffin or trip to the smoothie shop can cost you $3 to $7 per day easily. Buy snacks you like in bulk and keep them in the office to save $520 to $1,300 per year. If you’ve got kids, you’ll save even more by keeping a cooler in your car stocked with healthy snacks to keep the hungry hoard at bay.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing

I’m not suggesting that you should never eat out again. Rather, be mindful of how much you are spending on food out and set some limits. If you’re saving for a big goal or trying to pay down debts, this is an easy and almost painless place to cut back on your spending. Your return on your investment for preparation and cooking – or even just reheating — is high. That’s the secret financial power of home cooking.

 

Do you have a question you’d like answered on the blog? Please email me at [email protected]. You can follow me on the blog by signing up here, and on Twitter @cynthiameyer_FF.

 

How Not to Eat Your Retirement

September 27, 2016

“I am eating my retirement.”  This was my friend’s reaction finding out that she was spending about $1,000 a month eating out by organizing transactions in her online account. She told me that she wants to eat at home but struggles to grocery shop and meal plan. I told her that with a few online tools and kitchen gadgets, we can come up with a plan to get her to eat at home more.

If your cooking skills involve menus as opposed to recipes, use online tools to create recipes. If you are fine buying the food but need help with organizing recipes online, tools like Big Oven can help. If you need help coming up with recipes, tools like Emeals will deliver recipes for all types of cooking and food preferences. If you struggle with recipes and food shopping, websites like Blue Apron not only provide the food and recipes. You can also make enough so part of your dinner can be the next day’s lunch.

Slow cookers are awesome for making easy healthy, meals. Crockpot.com has a ton of recipes on their website. You can prep, freeze and dump the ingredients in the night before, turn on the Crockpot and come home to a great meal.

Indoor grills are a lifesaver. I can cook delicious grilled chicken, turkey burgers and fish in a few minutes. It is also almost fool proof. You simply turn on the grill, spray oil, sprinkle a few spices, slap the chicken on the grill and in about 10 minutes, you have restaurant quality chicken breasts. Many are no stick so the cleanup is a breeze.

Spices can make or break a meal. If you are not sure what spices to use, websites like Cooksmart offer great guides to picking spices. Check out your local spice store (mine is Penzey) for blended spices and even guidance on what to choose.

Are you eating your retirement? Thankfully, saving money on food doesn’t have to cost a lot of time anymore. In this day and age, technology, a few kitchen tools and spices can make planning and cooking meals at home easy.

How to Survive the Holiday Break With Your Kids

December 22, 2015

I really do love my kids. But after two weeks of being indoors with them, we both welcome the new school year. I am always on the hunt for inexpensive things to do to keep my kids occupied during this season. Here are some of my favorites: Continue reading “How to Survive the Holiday Break With Your Kids”

Eating Healthy On A Budget

April 28, 2015

Okay, I will admit it. I am a little bit of a health nut. I love to run, do obstacle races, and do CrossFit and decided to also do the Insanity videos because I felt I needed a little something extra. My husband just looks at me, shakes his head, and loves me enough to give me the Epson salt when he sees me struggling to get off the couch – without commentary. Now that is true love. Continue reading “Eating Healthy On A Budget”

Do You LUV Your Brand?

September 12, 2014

As someone who travels a lot for work, news from airlines always gets my attention.  Southwest Airlines is doing an overhaul of their logo, their paint jobs on planes, their snack bags…virtually everything associated with their brand.  We see the same images and messages all the time and after a while we stop noticing. I always think of Charlie Brown’s teacher when I hear a friend of mine threaten her kids with some form of punishment (which never happens, they still get ice cream after failing to listen to anything she says).  The same “you’re going to bed early” or “no technology if you don’t do X” or some similar thing is held out as a consequence, yet there are never consequences. In order for her kids to take her seriously or for companies to get us to pay attention again, sometimes a change is required.  Southwest is doing exactly that with their makeover of their logo and branding efforts. Continue reading “Do You LUV Your Brand?”

How I Plan to Kick Off The New Year

January 02, 2014

A new year often brings new changes. In fact, some research shows that we’re more likely to initiate changes in our behavior during the beginning of a time period like a year, month, or week. Here are 3 steps I plan to take this month to kick off the new year: Continue reading “How I Plan to Kick Off The New Year”

Eating Out Can Take a Big Bite Out of the Budget

November 26, 2013

I took a call last week from a frazzled father of two young kids who was stressing over his budget. He made good money but was living paycheck to paycheck and still coming up short some months, which meant charging some things on his credit card.  After reviewing his monthly expenses, what jumped out was the fact that his family was spending over $500 a month on eating out,  and many of these meals ended up on his Visa card.  His wife worked part-time and felt like between working and dealing with the kids, she had no time to make dinner, so they’d head out to a restaurant at least four times a week.  Not only is this expensive, but eating out is usually not good for our health either.  Continue reading “Eating Out Can Take a Big Bite Out of the Budget”

5 Ways to Reduce Food Waste in Your Household

September 12, 2012

If you’re like the average American, nearly $500 of your hard-earned money goes down the drain annually because of wasted food. $500 a year would go a long way toward shoring up your retirement savings or even paying down your credit card debt. Continue reading “5 Ways to Reduce Food Waste in Your Household”