While me and Clay were dating, eating out was our go-to. The year that we were engaged, we lived about 2 hours apart so we only saw each other on weekends. We would meet up on a Saturday morning for breakfast out, followed by lunch, some activity, dinner out and then we’d head our separate ways!
It was FUN. I love eating out, it was what we got used to when we were together. We found all of the best restaurants. So, when I moved to his town after we got married what did we want to do with our spare time? Eat out!
I was starting a new job, he was busy with graduate school, so when the evenings rolled around we both just wanted to grab a quick bite and relax until the next day!
We SO did. For about 6 months we ate out whenever we pleased, and ate whatever we pleased. It wasn’t until we sat down to look at our budget together, and we both noticed our pants were getting a little bit tight that we knew we had to make a change.
While convenient, eating out was NOT a good choice for our health or budget.
The spring after we got married, we made a big switch, and we haven’t looked back since.
We started eating at home 90% of the time.
Funny thing was, I realized quickly that my cooking repertoire wasn’t as extensive as I had thought. It also was not very healthy.
Around this time, I also started eating gluten free.
These two changes made a HUGE difference in our lives. And guess what. Cooking at home (most of the time!) is not as hard as you might think.
How to Start Cooking at Home
1. Stick to 5-10 ingredients.
Don’t try to get too fancy too quick. There’s no need to have a different type of meal every night of the week that requires lots of ingredients.
Instead, master about 5-10 ingredients and build simple and healthy meals from those.
When you feel confident with those ingredients, move on and add a few more things.
Example:
Chicken, Beans, Sweet Potatoes, Broccoli, Rice, Carrots
From these ingredients you could make:
-Chicken and Rice Casseroles
-Baked Chicken, Baked Sweet Potatoes, and Steamed Broccoli
-Chicken and Rice Soup
-Power Bowl (all ingredients over rice)
-Loaded Sweet Potatoes
-Chicken Taco Rice Bowl
-Baked Chicken, Baked Carrots and Steamed Rice
There are tons more things you could make with these ingredients. Once you’re comfortable with baking chicken, or steaming a sweet potato, you can move on to more things. The key in the beginning is to make quick and healthy meals that you enjoy!
I did an entire series on cooking with 5 ingredients for 10 days. You can check those out here!
2. Meal Plan
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Meal planning is KEY when it comes to success in cooking at home. You can read all about how I meal plan here!
If you don’t have a plan, you won’t stick to it. The idea of thinking of something to eat will overwhelm you, and you’ll end up grabbing take-out.
Another reason you have to have a plan is so that you’ll have all of the ingredients you need on hand and ready to go. If you have to go to the grocery store in order to complete a meal. Guess where you’re going to end up. Grabbing take-out.
It really doesn’t have to be difficult, I break down how I meal plan here, and I even give you my family meal plans every 10 days here!
3. Look at your budget.
If you’re anything like me, there’s nothing better to get me motivated than looking at the bottom line.
Let me tell you, if you’re frequently eating out and you don’t know exactly how much you’re spending on it, it’s a lot. Like A LOT!
Look at it. Break down how much you spent on restaurants in the past 2-3 months. If you can’t figure that out, look at how much you’ve spent in the past week and multiply that number by 12 to get an approximate idea of how much you’ve spent for 3 months.
You will probably be blown away. Add that to the number that you’re spending on groceries every week (and then you’re not eating) and you will be embarassed.
Seriously, think about what you could do with all of that money. Buy a car, get a down payment on a house, give it away, go on a trip. Really, it will be a large number. Think about that every time you are tempted to just go grab a meal.
You can start to cook at home!
It’s really not that hard.
Pick 5-10 healthy ingredients that you actually like and find ways to make a meal out of them, meal plan and look at how much money you’re actually spending on your takeout habit.
You can do it!