Teaching Your Family to Eat at Home More
For every family there are nights when the kids have after-school activities, or you have a late meeting, for us many soccer games, only to get home late, with an empty fridge, and hungry stomachs that are screaming for food.
Are you prepared or do you eat out?
With some easy planning, and very little cooking times, thank goodness we don’t have to run to a restaurant to eat out every night. Can you imagine the food bill for the month? I don’t know how families do it. And for us, in this stage of life, we save most the eating out for “date nights” for my husband and me. The kids do well making their own dinners anyway, and they like to be creative in the kitchen.
It’s true, as the times we’ve asked our kids to come, they say they’d rather make a nutritious meal at home! I never thought I’d hear those words, so I guess our hard work of “controlling” what goes into each dish, and our teens listening, has paid off.
How to Avoid Eating Out:
1. In the morning, or even the prior weekend, think ahead to what dinner will be and either use the slow cooker, or take meat (or food items) out of the freezer.
2. Prep in advance. Choose a day where you can cook extra foods, or get meals ready for the week.
3. Make extra when you cook; try to get 2-3 meals out of one larger recipe. IE, cook two whole chickens, eat one for dinner, use the other and leftovers for chicken soup with pasta and enchiladas (adding rice and beans).
4. Take advantage of your freezer. Learn which foods freeze well and which don’t.
5. Always keep your pantry stocked. Keep a list in the pantry of food items/dishes to cook using pantry items. Show your kids!
When you save money, and you eat healthy (knowing what you’re putting in), it feels good to be good stewards of our finances and bodies, doesn’t it?
And now that my kids are all teens, one almost 20, I can give myself a little pat on the shoulder (good Mom!) knowing I’ve taught my kids well.
Not perfectly, but well.
What’s your struggle with eating out, or are you disciplined when it comes to home-cooked meals?
Hello and welcome to my home and table!
I’m Sandy—lover of food, family, cooking, THE BIG BOARD, travel, and bringing people together. Through great recipes and connection around the table, we become better, stronger, and more courageous people. Feasting on Life is real, and every time we do it, we grow a little more. Read more...
We rarely eat out mainly because we just prefer home cooked, know what you’re eating meals, but also the cost involved. We will go out on occasion or grab something quick, but like you I try to plan ahead to have meals ready when we get home from games/practices and when we have tournaments or more than one game a day I try to always pack food with us…sandwiches, fruit, nuts, granola bars, etc..we may go out for one meal with the team but we don’t eat every meal out. Yikes.
With an empty nest, there’s only the two of us now, but we still try to eat at home more than we eat out. We don’t always succeed, but thankfully we both enjoy cooking.
Patting yourself on the back is in order. :)
I plan out our meals for the upcoming week on Saturday morning while looking at the calendar so I know who’s on first and what’s on second each night :-) I usually make something big on the weekend and either have planned leftovers during the week, or, if it’s a rare calm week, throw the leftovers in the freezer for crazy time. This works well. My DH and I also trade off one night a week where I will take a son to lessons while DH cooks dinner. Every Wednesday is a “fend for yourself” night. The kids can have peanut butter sandwiches, leftovers, cereal, or whatever they can find. DH and I do our own thing.
Two nights a month, DH takes our younger son for lessons – they have to leave about 4:45 and don’t get back until 7 p.m. On those nights, I send DS with a sandwich to eat in the car, and DH eats whatever I’ve made when he returns.
Once in a blue moon on a busy night I will plan for Five Guys. It’s rare, so it’s a great treat.
I find it’s all about the planning. As long as things are on the calendar I do okay. If something unexpected crops up on the schedule, I struggle. However, I’ve been keeping extra packages of Trader Joe’s soup in the pantry, and I always have frozen homemade rolls in the pantry. I put those to use in real emergencies.
Surprisingly, my family and I are really disciplined in eating all of our meals at home!!! It’s partly out of necessity, it’s more economical. It’s also because we believe that eating “real food” is the best for our bodies…so yeah, it takes more time in the kitchen…for sure…but you know what? It’s also created more time to spend together, because we’re hanging out in the kitchen and talking while we’re preparing meals :) :) Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)
I struggle with it so badly! It is just my husband and me and we eat out almost every night! My problem is forgetting to get something out or doing so and not feeling like eating what I pulled out of the freezer. We live 5 minutes (if that) away from many restaurants. So it is really easy to go get something. I would love to start cooking at home more! It’s just getting that umph to do so. I think I’ll start actually making some of those recipes I have pinned on my Pinterest board! :)
We eat out 3-5 days a week. It’s our guilty pleasure. We use it as an excuse when my daughter has an activity to just eat out instead of cooking. We don’t do fast food for dinner so at least we’re not eating too unhealthy but too many dinners out can be tough on the budget. We are trying to be better at cooking at home. We even bought some new cookbooks to inspire us. I love to cook as long as it’s something new. :)
Our boys are just starting out in school so our schedule is still pretty easy… But I’m trying hard to establish good habits now so when we are in that season, not much has to change :-) I often double a recipe and freeze half, right now I use those frozen meals on nights I have meetings, then I don’t have but a few dishes to clean before I leave the house. I menu plan every week and choose crock pot meals on busier nights and meals that take a bit of preparation on nights when I’m home in the afternoon and have the time. I think that’s been my biggest learning curve, plan your meals for when you’re most likely to have the time to cook. Eating out as a family is truly limited to once or twice a month, it’s a treat. It’s better for our budget, waistlines and time!
Hi Sandi,
Man, I agree with you!!! We are a missionary family and we just can’t afford going out to eat anymore. We even have a hard time findind places to eat that you don’t have to pay a fortune for a heathy meal. We too like to eat at home most of the times. I use my crock pot a lot and try to encourage other to do the same.
We do have a big kitchen in the community where we live, but even having to pay $2 a meal, at the end of the month it adds up a lot and we find ourselves not eating healthy at all. That ends up reflecting in our health.
So, thank you for your encouragement and for the tips. I will definately try to think even more ahead that what I already do and enjoy our family times more.
Blessings!
Another thing that works good is the fuzzy logic programmable rice cookers. We have one and I can get it ready in the morning and set the timer – supper is ready! Add a salad or carrot sticks and you are set. I often do rice and beans, seasoned rice and chicken (chicken is either put in later in the day, or is warmed up in the microwave and mixed in at the end.) And there are many more options.
I also have been known to make the main dish in a Le Creuset, put rice in the rice cooker on program, then run to pick people off while the oven is turned off and the Le Creuset keeps things warm.
With my husband in grad school and me getting to stay home with our baby, it just wouldn’t work to eat out much. Those meals are definitely the exception. On Monday our kitchen sink went from a slow drain to a near no-drain, despite plunging, snaking and Drano, and the husband declared that we were eating out so we didn’t have to worry about dishes. So out we went, and we were both so disappointed by dinner. I remembered why we are okay with eating at home so often. We save so much money and eat better.
Any extra money went to the plumber today to fix the sink. It’s a good thing, too, since we’re having friends over tomorrow for dinner. (Thanks for the constant nudges to open up our small home and stop comparing what I don’t have to what others have.) I’d rather have a functioning sink and a the ability to eat at home and clean up than eating out.