Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Eating out...


There is one sure fire way to kill any budget and that is to eat out frequently. You can undo a lot of the good you have done cutting coupons or shopping sales by hitting the pizza parlor or burger joint a couple of times a week. I'm not talking about dropping date night or an occasional night of family fun. I am talking about the "it's six o'clock and I haven't cooked dinner so I am gonna call hubby and have him stop on the way home" night's.

But how can you solve such bad habits? One way is to have a couple of emergency "fast meals" in the freezer for such times. Maybe next time you cook lasagna you can cook two and freeze one! Or maybe you can pick up chicken nuggets and a bag of french fries at the grocery store while you are there. We pick up a couple of meals from Sam's club which we keep in the freezer for emergencies... frozen Chinese food or frozen pizzas work great and can be ready in minutes.

So the next time you are tempted to blow next weeks grocery budget on a quick meal, think about how much food you could buy on sale with the money you are about to spend and remember... you can save $30-$60 a week on take out alone if you just prepare ahead of time for disaster days!

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