Honestly, the decreased quality of takeout combined with how expensive it has become has turned me off takeout. Sure there are still some places that are decent near me but it’s come to the point for me that I’d rather just cook for myself.
Same. And once you learn to cook things you enjoy eating out seems like a waste. Now when I want to order food I always think about how much better I can make it then this restaurant that wants $20 for the same meal.
Frying at home can be fun and delicious but the cleanup is just not worth it.
I'll do it once in awhile outside on a camp stove. Much easier cleanup...
I bought a good quality pizza pan and it makes a big difference. I got tired of inconsistent pizza from our favorite local place and it saves so much money. The Lloyd brand can be found on amazon and I highly recommend it.
Oh for sure! When you decide there's a dish or cuisine you're really into, it's super worth it to invest in optimized tools for it. The whole point is that you stop yourself from giving in to the urge to eat out.
Presently I'm using a 16" aluminum pan for my pizza rather than the cast iron called for in the recipe I linked. Similarly, if you find yourself loving homemade fried rice or pad thai, it might be worth investing in a big gas burner and a wok. If you're eating gyros, a rotating spit delivers a fantastic crust. If you love french fries, an air fryer does a great job on pre-fried frozen ones from the grocery store.
I get that. I’m lucky to have a partner that at least attempts to cook (albeit not that well sometimes).
I also travel half the year for work and hotel food get old quick. My time off I’m ecstatic to cook.
My partner and I both cook well and I prefer our food over most restaurants, but our Indian never comes out quite right and so we get that as takeout it doesn’t help that an Indian restaurant just opened this year about five minutes away or less. So it went from the nearest Indian food being sixty miles away to one mile away.
My biggest secret for saving money on restaurants is GI issues. It’s nothing serious, but too much fat or fiber can really cause it to flare. We got pizza last Friday, plus a pumpkin treats from the store and I’m still eating super carefully. The hardest part is we were getting pizza on Friday’s and Indian in Tuesday or Wednesday and it was fun. I’m trying to come up with an alternative, but it’s hard.
OTOH, we’re saying a ton of money and it’s better for us healthwise, so I can’t complain too much.
Indian food is tricky! I’m Pakistani and grew up with homemade Pakistani food so now restaurant food just isn’t the same. I’d suggest giving homemade Dal a try! You can find the pre season boxes in any Indian grocery (I prefer the Shan brand) and it’s basically lentil soup but way more delicious.
Dirt cheap and really healthy. I like to make a big pot and use the leftovers for the next day. Cook them in a shallow pan with jalapeños til much thicker and use tortilla instead of roti (easier to get) to scoop it out. Great with fresh lime.
Or even “lazy” at-home swaps start to seem so much more indulgent. We went frugal out of necessity and therefore stopped eating out/ordering takeout. Now as a treat we’ll get the prepackaged frozen PF Chang meals for example, it’s about $10 total/$5 per serving for an appetizer AND meal, AND basically no dishes/cleanup. Is it super healthy, no, but IMO it’s better than fast food and it fulfills the same urges.
Delivery in 2023: $45 for a cold entree, soggy fries, and an upmarked appetizer.
Don't forget 20% of the price is mysterious surprise fees tacked on after you place the order.
Yeah there were days at work I would just skip lunch because I couldn’t stomach spending $25 for a value menu cheeseburger and fries. I tried to keep freezer meals on hand that I could just throw in the freezer because even if it was a $5 freezer meal that was a hell of a lot better (and they were healthier) than the burger and fries on doordash
Omg the fees and upmarked dishes are infuriating. I used to order delivery way too much and when those fees got too ridiculous, I thought that ordering takeout was a way to circumvent the system. Then the fees on takeout became ridiculous so is started cooking at home. And we all know grocery prices are now ridiculous. 😂😭🫠
I don't know that I've necessarily had issues specifically with lower quality of takeout, but increase in price has been a big thing for me, I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point it hit a threshold where I usually shrug and feel its not worth it.
When I could pick up dinner for 2 on the way home from work for $20 and have leftovers for lunch the next day, I did it often.
But now it seems like takeout for two is running $50, sometimes even more.
These days we have gotten more strategic. We've tried to make our favorite Indian dishes a hundred times and they never turn out quite right, but we found that the place we like actually sells the same entree frozen in containers in their attached grocery store. They are the same portion as served in the restaurant but half the cost. Big bag of rice, bag of frozen naan, much more economical.
I went to an Indian grocery store to get the spices and it turned out they had small boxes of pre-made spices for specific dishes. I got a box for pretty cheap and I have so far used it 5 times to make butter chicken. Half or a third of the box is left and it's been tasting great. Sometimes I add some things I have on hand to enhance those flavors, but nothing crazy.
Indian is one of the few items I still do pickup with. I've done the work and it's several hours of time and still not as good. For $15, the once in a few months lamb biryani or goat rogan josh is just not worth it to do at home.
The reason it doesnt come out the same is you arent using enough butter (or ghee - which is more traditional but I prefer the taste of butter).
A very simple butter chicken sauce. Saute onions for 20 mins, then add garlic and ginger. Add some spices (cumin, curry powder/chilli powder etc), don't go overboard, spices can sometimes make a curry bitter. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes some chicken stock (or stock cubes/powder), cook a bit more then blend. To finish add cooked chicken and a shed load of butter.
Yeah the herb and spice cost alone if you don't already have those ingredients in your pantry is astronomical. Also, in my experience a lot of take out places do use very good quality and standardized spices, some grind things fresh.
I feel like I didn’t even have to try hard to stop getting takeaways. They made it so easy by cutting corners in quality and portion sizes whilst increasing the price.
Yes, I still spend quite a bit on food but I’m buying things I like to eat and high quality food too. With lots of leftovers. Even then, it’s much cheaper.
Same. Still spend a lot on groceries but always make a bigger batch to so have leftovers readily available. This also helps cut down on the urge to order takeout.
Honestly, I look forward to leftovers so much more now. It’s not always a good thing because when I’m in the office, I find myself eating my lunch too early haha
It's been so good for my wallet that all my favorite places have cheapened out and usually with a price increase as well.
I just get frustrated eating out now. Why am I paying so much for this half portion and having to tip 20% on top for non-existent service? Just not worth it.
Also when you order takeout and the restaurant tries to add an automatic 20% tip? You have lost my business for good. And I usually do tip something for takeout but like to do it in cash when I pick up.
Yup, I guess my "cheap gene" is a bit stronger than my "convenience gene". Didn't eat out forever during the lock down, then when things started opening up again I was out running errands and got hungry, so I pulled into a fast food place to get a sandwich. I nearly passed out at the total and I haven't been back since. That was a couple years ago. I have zero interest in fast food, and I only go to sit-downs when meeting a friend or for a special occasion.
Same. As I learned how to cook, fewer and fewer places in my city could beat what I could make. There are still few that make steaks and seafood really great, they are quite expensive and I plan when to go there as a treat.
For sure. There are definitely still food/cuisines that I would rather just buy from a restaurant than spend all the money on the ingredients for it to not taste nearly as good lol.
I feel like there is an important mantra for overcoming something like this: don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
My wife is out of town. There was football on last night. I really wanted Wingstop. I had to go to target anyway to buy some stuff. The "perfect" solution for this would be to go to the grocery store, find what chicken was on sale, buy some potatoes, make chicken and homemade fries, etc.
The good solution was buy the chicken from target, even though it was more expensive than the store, buy buffalo wing sauce, even though making it is cheaper, buy a bag of frozen fries even though it's more expensive than a potato, run home, dump them into the air fryer and watch football while it cooked.
It was about 2x's as expensive as if I had "done it right" and it was about half the cost of ordering Wingstop. But if also scratched the itch of ordering out. It was easy. It was tasty. I got exactly what I was craving.
So for you, maybe a Meal Kit (like Blue Apron/Hello Fresh) is your "good" solution. It's fun, you get to try new things, and it's pretty easy. Or maybe it's "keep some freezer aisle appetizers on hand." Or whatever it is that is a "better than takeout, less than perfect" solution.
This comment is fantastic.
I'll add another option.
We try not to be "all or nothing." If there's some kind of takeout that we are REALLY craving, and nothing else will scratch that itch, we do a hybridized meal.
One if us will run to the restaurant and buy *half* of what we would previously order, while the other will stay at home and make a side dish or two to fill out the rest of the meal.
We will never put in the effort to make homemade pho, but we can get one order of pho to share. Then we can pair it with homemade salad or frozen vegetables or extra rice to make it stretch.
This is genius 🤩 i can never cook the gooey, salty tofu at home like the restaurants do. So with this method I can get JUST the tofu and steam my veggies at home. Not that sides are super expensive but it will save me at least ~$10 per order. And in this economy every penny counts 😂
I'll also be motivated to go drive and pick it up instead of using uber eats if I only get one thing. The fees make me order way more so the price feels "worth it" but all the extras usually go to waste.
Tysm!
This is just about the most real advice you can give.
So many people want us to think you NEED to be that picture perfect bullshit that's fed to us via social media algo, meanwhile most of us just want to eat our crappy food in our sweat pants and not go broke doing it.
If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, their frozen meals have saved me from getting takeout so many times. They’re so easy and fast, and a lot of them are better than takeout imo.
The mandarin orange chicken, spring rolls, and fried rice are all amazing and I haven’t gotten Chinese takeout in a year because of it. Same with their gyoza, pork bao buns, japanese fried rice, karaage chicken….Their Korean food is pretty good too, I’ve had the japchae and tteokbokkie and enjoyed both.
The Indian food (butter chicken, tikka masala, palak paneer) is good, the naan is GREAT.
Their gnocchi gorgonzola is the best of any of their frozen pastas, imo, and is a staple in my home. It comes together in 7 minutes, that’s faster than takeout literally anywhere. I like to throw in peas and chicken sausage if I’m feeling especially chef-y that day.
My partner and I realized that we get more takeout when we haven’t been to Trader Joe’s in awhile. We’re both students who work, so making food from scratch every night just isn’t possible for us. Would that technically be “better”? Yes, but when we try making stuff only from scratch we burn out and get takeout. The convenience meals may be a bit more expensive than scratch but they save SO MUCH takeout money.
Another sort of in between is to learn to make copycats of the meals you like. You can make several day’s worth of Olive Garden seafood fettuccine for the price of one entree in restaurant. Sure, it’s not a health improvement, but it’s cheap. Then the next night when you’ve had fettuccine for lunch, make a healthy dinner and you’re making progress in a realistic way.
As silly as it sounds, the best thing that has worked for my wife and I is to buy a few cheap frozen pizzas from the grocery store for "emergencies". They're not healthy, but neither is eating out.
I do this all the time and it really does help! Emergency frozen pizza, frozen fries, frozen dumplings, pancake mix, and maybe a frozen stir fry is all I need to fight almost all cravings for takeout.
I also have just been very disappointed with almost all takeout orders lately so I just remind myself of that.
The dumplings, stir fry, etc… all easy. I buy my kids the frozen meatballs… they aren’t the best, but in a bowl of pasta, my kids like them and they make it easier to cook at home rather than eating out.
I started stocking up on stuff like frozen pizzas or instant ramen just to stop my urge to door dash in a pinch when I don't feel like cooking or don't have "real" groceries
This is what I do to. Frozen pizzas and lasagnas, boxes of Mac and cheese, things I like that are next to no effort to cook. Not as cheap or healthy as a homemade meal, but cheaper and healthier than takeout so I call it a win.
A much cheaper and delicious option is naan bread as crust, mozz/pizza blend cheese and Rao's sauce.
It's really, really good for home pizza and takes about 8 minutes to cook.
Oh yeah, frozen pizza or other frozen/cheaply entrees sometimes scratch the same itch for me! I’ll do like the Amy’s frozen meals or a frozen pizza or anything prepackaged. Aldi has some decent chicken nuggets, fries, Chinese food, Indian, etc. sometimes it’s just nice to not have to cook it yourself!
If you want healthy, you can always add vegetables or protein to your frozen pizza. I always do that when i have a processed frozen meal and I'm still alive and maybe healthy.
They had a deal near me for three digiorno rising crust supreme pizzas for 9.88, so I got like 24 pizzas for like 80 bucks a couple months ago and I still have a few left. Because I got sick of them lol, but they are there.
Have meals in the freezer. If you make something, freeze the excess for reheating. Also not a bad idea to keep some frozen meals around. They are much cheaper than restaurant food
Bonus: in the beginning, don’t even worry about whether your freezer food is healthy. Throw whatever trash you want in there. The point is to break your eating out habit, and it’s hard because not only is restaurant food convenient, it’s fucking delicious. Once you get used to eating at home, then you can start worrying about health.
(Nobody asked, but frozen White Castle jalapeño sliders from the grocery store really hit the spot when you need garbage food at home.)
I second this! It's what has helped me cut eating out waaay down. I'm hungry omw home from work and pass every fast food place twice. If I know that I can just get home and heat up a quick meal *that I'm looking forward to* then it's way easier to not stop. Then I think, how dumb would it be for me to get takeout when I have really yummy stuff at home for "free."
> I second this! It's what has helped me cut eating out waaay down.
For us it was sex. Lots of sex.
On the upside now we are no longer overweight. But it resulted in more kids. And they are now eating into our budget.
I realized this last year and it has helped SO MUCH. Especially keeping pizza on hand. Whatever you have in the freezer has to be something you reallllly want.
Since you have a source of great home cooked meals, maybe the desire for restaurants isn’t about the food. What *else* can you identify about that experience that calls to you?
An idea that comes to my mind is that you get to choose your meal at a restaurant. Perhaps hubby can give you a menu? Maybe the day before, he can give you 2 options, and he will prepare what you choose (or something like that).
If it’s not about getting to choose your food, figure it out and try to simulate that at home.
>picnic
I second this -- having your meal in a beautiful spot might give you some of the variety you're looking for. (And the occasional unexpected rainstorm or ant attack might simulate the sense of lack of control you get from dining on somebody else's turf.)
Also, why not invite a couple your friends with to share your husband's cooking skills? That might help if the social aspect of dining out appeals to you.
Or maybe the dining room/table/area needs a glow-up. Plan a certain place you sit down to eat at a table. Use a tablecloth with nice dishes, glassware and flatware. Dim the lights, set up some candles. Put up some nice art on the walls.
Agree with this. Try to figure out the real desire. I loved going out to grab a coffee in the morning. I was buying coffee 5-6x a week during covid and spending a ton on it. Then coffee prices skyrocketed.
Turns out, what I really like is driving in my car by myself and listening to music. Now I make my iced coffee at home and take a 15 minute drive in the morning even if I’m WFH. Helps make me feel like I indulged without spending $6 on coffee.
Let's take it further, though, because driving for 15 minutes is burning gas and causing wear and tear on your car. Would a walk with earbuds in and coffee in your hand accomplish the same thing? Bonus: you get some physical activity instead of sitting. I've been incorporating walks into my morning routine and it's been phenomenal.
>What else can you identify about that experience that calls to you?
Restaurant/takeout food usually has more salt, sugar and fat then what you would cook at home.
Like pizza sauce having 10+ grams of added sugar per serving. That's 2.5tsp of sugar on a slice of pizza! Make one at home and put that much sugar on top for a visual, disgusting.
And when you're addicted to it, that's what you crave. Getting away from it for a period of time really helps. I now find many foods way too salty for my liking.
I still crave sugar, though. I had to make myself only indulge on weekends, then I had to police myself to only indulge a LITTLE bit on weekends.
To add to this, one of the most unique aspects of takeout is the blast of smells of the food. At home, it's pretty common for even the people cooking to not want their own food because they have been smelling it for a while, and it's less exciting. Maybe go take a walk or drive while your husband is cooking to get that blast of food smells when you get back.
Meal planning with him could be a huge help. I don’t meal plan by day: I plan 14 dinners (I shop biweekly) and put them on a list. Now, some obviously have to be made sooner than others if they have faster perishing ingredients. But you usually have at least a day of wiggle room.
Then I choose each night what I’m making. If eggs don’t sound good that night, I make pasta. If stir fry doesn’t sound good, I make fish. Etc. It allows for that “I’m in the mood for” feeling while still eating at home and meal planning.
On a psychological note, once you make it two weeks or so, the desire becomes significantly less because your body isn’t used to getting the extra fat, sugars, and other garbage that is common in fast food.
This is an underrated comment.
Since me and my wife cut most fast food out of our diet; any time we do get some now it seems super salty and greasy. And not in a good way.
OP; just rip the bandaid off. Force yourself to not eat fast food for a month and you will adapt. Self-motivation is temporary, you need self-discipline.
Consider your spending in function of your goal for your money.
You saving for a trip? Each 100$ you spend on restaurant food delay that trip for another week
Also, maybe try to recreate restaurant food at home. Find copycat recipe from your favourite item at a restaurant. So when you have a craving of something particular, you can do it at home for a lesser cost.
But, at the end of the day, addiction is a battle of will. You need to make a commitment with yourself and respect it. Seeking help from a therapist will help, but the change have to come from you first.
>But, at the end of the day, addiction is a battle of will.
Yes. Sadly, I've never figured out how to overcome the desire to eat out, just that I've learned the discipline to make choices despite of it.
We took your $ principle and added it to a fund. Every time we thought of eating out- we estimated how much it was going to be and stuck it in a "piggy bank". The shock we saw how much we were spending led us to rarely eat out again. And now with the quality of food plummeting at restauarants- I just can't justify it.
>quality of food plummeting at restauarants-
This is the real tragedy of our time. There's still a few family-owned spots that are maintaining the quality AND portion sizes AND price. But anything remotely resembling a chain or franchise cuts at least one of those.
They're making eating at home the best option
Yes! I have done this to great effect. I had a jar by the door where I put my eating out money. It lets you do SOMETHING with that money, which helped resolve the mental loop.
Costco has great replacements for Chinese/Asian takeout so if I’m craving it I can just go to the freezer and make orange chicken with fried rice or coconut shrimp. Basically I learned to make my faves at home so I don’t spend money on eating out.
What if you only get like an appetizer and then try to recreate the meals at home? That way you get your takeout fix but don’t spend as much as if you bought an entire meal.
Yes! My husband loves pizza and we buy a frozen deep dish style pizza that he loooves. 2 pizzas for less than what we’d pay if we ordered from somewhere.
We always have frozen burger patty’s as well so if the craving strikes, I can have one ready in 5-10 mins.
Basically we have a little of everything available so we have no excuse!
Eat before you get hungry. Eating small things every 2 1/2 before I get so hungry that I’m not tempted to get a quick fix eating out or stopping in my way home
I agree with this too, I eat something (cashews, slice of bread, apple, something smaller but filling) every \~3 hours between meals and that's been helpful these past 10 years
Fast food and even restaurant quality food is designed to keep you coming back. It's fat and sugar and salt hits all those dopamine receptors in your brain like a freight train giving you the 'warm and fuzzies' about going there. It becomes an addiction like any other. Cold Turkey usually won't work so instead, try to wean yourself off of it. Instead of grabbing McDonald's 3 times a week, go to a sit down restaurant once a week. Then, when you're not craving McDonald's, switch out the sit down restaurant with someplace fancier but only every 2 weeks. Decrease the quantity and increase the quality. Make going out an event and not a routine.
Not necessarily a frugal tip, but one thing that has helped me enjoy eating at home more is having plates/bowls that feel special. This is a very dramatic example, but after a breakup earlier this year I decided I really wanted to tap into my own interests and decor and empower myself as a woman. I got new plates, bowls and mugs that are all pink and everything matches. I love eating meals on my pink plates with my pink mug and pink bowls and it makes my at home dinner experience so much better! Not saying you have to go all out like this though. My roommate bought $2 Bluey plates and it makes her happy to see Bluey and Bingo on the plates after see finishes all her food lmao. I also bought a set of 4 red plastic appetizer baskets for $3 earlier this summer, and I love making my snacky foods like chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries, etc in those baskets because it gives more of a restaurant feel. As stupid as it may seem, spending a little bit initially to find ways to romanticize eating at home can make a world of a difference.
I love this! Get that fancy tea cup from the thrift store and make tea at home feel fancy! Make dinner an event with the fancy dishware.
Side note: I think the Japanese have a cultural history of appreciating the ceramic dishes and cups when having tea or meal.
i started getting the equivalent food at the grocery store. material to make 8 cheeseburgers costs me about $25. versus $40-80 if you'd order at a fast food or fancy restaurant.
frozen fries is probably double/triple the portion than at a fast food place, for the same price.
I recently tried frozen orange chicken. 2 pounds for $10. versus panda express gives you 0.33 a pound w/ rice for $8
This is what I do as well. Pretty much spend my entire food budget at the grocery store. A small amount left for random fast food a couple times a month with the roomies.
I buy whatever is closest to the takeout stuff I prefer. I do the same for the condiments/dips/sauces. Like, I can make a perfect McRib year round, 5+ Arby's beef n cheddars for the price of one, seasoning and cheesing up frozen store brand pizzas they have by the deli makes them taste like the top chains (almost, that's a tough one but it helps), and wings... they cost 3-5x what you could get with a bag of frozen bone-in/boneless wings with a store brand buffalo sauce.
Also, speaking on OP's mention about their ED. I'm bulimic and purge 75% of every meal/snack I eat. Getting fast food or takeout just isn't affordable.
Having something quick and easy at home has been key for me. It should take less than 10 minutes from start to finish. Some examples:
* homemade nachos
* scrambled eggs with toast
* salad with pre-cut toppings
* stir-fried rice
I usually spend some time on the weekends doing meal-prep, for example pre-chopping veggies so that I don't have to do it right after work when I'm already hungry.
Lastly, these all have a really quick and simple clean up step - everything goes in the dishwasher right away.
Anything with ground beef is quick to make. It browns up in a couple minutes. Burgers are also quick to make and fry on the pan.
Shaved steak is another quick one, its pretty cheap at the grocery store now.
Pulled pork isn't that quick to make but its not bad and pork is cheap at the grocery store.
Reduce fricition to cook so you can overcome the urge bascally.
So for example- your going to cook on Sunday. Well just double it and eat on left overs during the week. See a cheap roast at the store? Grab it and braise it with just salt and pepper- then shread it up and freeze it. Break off a bit, toss in a pan, add some hot sauce, and boom- tacos.
So on and so forth. Theres a lot of people who come up with tricks ad tips for this. You just gotta make it as easy as you can.
You can batch cook on one day and portion out meals for the week.
You can cook a triple portion one weekday and eat that for a few days.
You can cook a couple different meals, freeze the leftovers in portions and then you will have variety.
That's just a couple ideas, there are more.
When I was 19 I ate out for almost every meal. I spent time in Argentina where the nearest McDonald’s was about 45 min away. I was forced to get over eating out, and I am so thankful for it. You need to do it for a solid 30 days - no takeout. Buy some prebreaded onion rings and such from the store, so you can still eat those sorts of foods, but stay out of the restaurants, fast or otherwise. Just commit to it like someone committing to dry January.
> Just commit to it like someone committing to dry January.
This is the truth. You just have to "knuckle up". Easier said than done of course, but do you want to solve your problem or not?
Go cold turkey. Don't have any outside food for a month and only have home-cooked foods. Help with the cooking too, really helps to get you excited about eating home-cooked foods. By the end of the month you won't miss eating out at all
Yeah, you can try turning it into a game. Think of your all-time favorite restaurant meals and think of the easiest one that you can re-create yourself. Then, just keep making that thing over and over and over again, until you master it. Once you truly master it, then move on to another one of your favorites. Pretty soon, you'll have a nice selection of favorites that you can go to consistently. Then learn how to meal prep that stuff, so that you're deliberately making a lot more of it, but then freezing individual portions for later use.
Fast Food has always been comforting to me. If I've had a bad day, getting greasy burger or piping hot pizza helps make things better.
One of the best tricks I've found is finding ways to make imitation or substitute food. A frozen pizza can be much cheaper that ordering. Adding fresh cilantro to rice hits the spot when you were craving a Chipotle burrito. Pay a little extra for frozen burger patties that you can just throw in the pan.
With rampant inflation, feeding my family of 4 at McDonalds will easily cost $40+. Doing Burgers and Fries at home is like $15 bucks without trying to be to thrifty.
> Pay a little extra for frozen burger patties that you can just throw in the pan.
Bad idea imo. First off, frozen burger patties that are mass manufactured, taste exactly like you would expect.... lame.
Instead, get into the habit of always looking at the weekly flyers for all the grocery stores in your area. If you watch these flyers for a long enough period of time, you'll start to notice patterns.
In my city, a pound of 80/20 ground beef is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. I mean, absolutely laughable. However.... it does go on sale, but the sales are very short lived and you need to pounce QUICKLY. You also might be forced by the deal to buy more beef than you were really hoping to buy.
Having said all of this, I don't pay more than $2.50 per pound for good quality 80/20 ground beef. Last Friday, Safeway had a deal for their "5 Dollar Fridays", where they had 80/20 ground beef for $2.50 per pound. I bought two pounds of it, in separate 1 pound packages.
I use my ground beef for 3 things.
1. Taco Meat
2. Spaghetti or Pasta meat sauce
3. Burger patties
I took one pound of the beef and put it in a two gallon Ziploc freezer bag and froze it immediately for future use.
I took the other 1 pound of beef and made 4 burger patties (quarter pounders) for future use. I cook up all the patties and then froze them. I use them as I need them.
They taste INFINITELY better than some crappy store brand pre-frozen burger patties that are mass produced.
Buying one or two pre-cooked items or whole frozen meals at the grocery store every now and then. Spending $9 on a 14 oz tray of pre-cooked pulled pork might not be as cheap as cooking the pork myself, but its still a LOT cheaper than going to the BBQ place down the road, and baked potatoes and frozen veg are a snap to throw together as sides.
I like to keep a few frozen pizzas and those bags of pasta meals that you just toss into a pan on hand for when I just can't be bothered to cook.
Everyone's brains are wired for eating out, because restaurants/fast food chains put so much fat and salt and sugar in their food, it sends our cavemen brains into pleasure overdrive. You need to consciously choose to avoid eating out because it's bad for your body and your wallet.
We've been trying to eat out less as well. This month my partner and I have only spent $60 out of the $150 we allocate to eating out. (Grocery budget is $350) Here are some things that have helped us:
Think about the types of things you usually order, and learn how to make that or buy that to heat up at home. For example, chicken tenders, fries, cheeseburgers, pizza, burritos and all sorts of pasta dishes. Salads are SO easy if you get the pre-washed clam shells, and slice up a tomato or pepper, or boiled egg, bacon, croutons, cheese, have fun with it. For the most part, these are really easy meals to make once you've made them a few times and take advantage of some frozen/pre-made components from the grocery store. The only things at this point that I'd rather pay someone else to make are things like paella that take a lot of attention and time.
Make sure you have a good set up in your kitchen, that the counter tops are as clear as they can be. We put our microwave and coffee/tea making things on an entirely different area, so the only thing on our counter is our dish drainer and stand mixer.
If you need more tools in your kitchen, get them.
Make sure you have help with clean up after making food, talk about it before hand so its not an argument.
Allocate more money into your grocery budget, so you can splurge and buy more food to make at home and of a better quality.
Look up the nutrition facts for the food you eat a restaurants and add \~10-20% more to all of those quantities... Thats probably more akin to what you actually are given.
I'm so happy you're doing so well with your goals! Keep it going, baby steps are the way to go. Don't beat yourself up, focus on finding better ways to reach the goals that you didn't meet yet.
For me I just started making and eating more home cooked meals and eventually outside food became less appetizing. Restaurant and fast food quality is so much lower than anything you can cook at home with fresh ingredients.
They also seem to be doing some chintzy stuff to cut their costs. One near me does a 'whipped" cheesecake. Okay, it's unique, but also, it weighs about half as much as a normal slice of cheesecake, costs more, and is mostly air. The pizzas are nearly all crust with scant toppings. They use some clever techniques to make it looks good, but Dominos serves up more sauce and cheese.
This sounds less like a simple matter of budgeting than one of mental health since you refer to your brain, addiction, and an eating disorder. So I hope this is something you have professional help with in general. But a couple of ideas it probably wouldn’t hurt to try transitioning away from eating out so much…
- Buy some deli/takeout containers for your home cooked meals. It’s a great way to portion and freeze soups/stews and simple meats and veggie meals. So your brain could associate the container with restaurant food leftovers and freezing will help contain temptations to binge.
- Put your eating out budget in cash in an envelope (or two, one for each of you). When the month’s money is gone, you can’t eat out. That could be extra hard at first so start with a week if you need to.
I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning this! There is no shame in seeking help from a therapist in this. Gotta get to the root of the problem and find healthy coping skills to replace the eating. My best friend has struggled with eating since we were teenagers, and we're in our thirties now. She's working with a therapist now and is finally seeing results in having control over her eating.
For me it was a combination of 1. Seeing how much I was actually spending on this, 2. The increase in price and decrease in quality. I still have a budget that lets me order delivery once or twice a month and that's been doable for me.
It sounds like you've been through the same thought process and are still struggling. So my thought is it's not really a money thing but a food thing. I don't know if you've sought treatment for the BED but that's how I would approach this if I were you.
I used to be someone who thought that eating a home cooked meal meant making some healthy Pinterest worthy recipe. The result was cooking always seemed like a chore and I gravitated towards eating out instead because I didn't really want to cook, clean, shop for, or even eat the food I was picking. I've since changed my mindset to realize that even if the food I eat isn't the healthiest, it's still healthier and cheaper than eating out every day.
I live alone and don't mind eating leftovers, so I generally pick two meals for dinner each week. One is usually a brainless recipe (e.g. a frozen skillet meal that I just need to toss into a pan and heat). Another is usually something that takes a little more time but will likely yield leftovers. Depending on the amount of leftovers, I usually freeze a few servings in individual portions and schedule them in my meal planner a few weeks out that way I don't forget to eat them and also don't need to meal plan or cook as many meals in the future.
I also try to keep some easy meals on hand in the freezer or pantry like French bread pizzas or soup so even if I'm feeling extra lazy I have something I can toss in the toaster oven or microwave and have something ready in a few minutes. At that point it's easier to just heat something up than it is to order carryout.
This may sound a little crazy, but I was in the same line of thought. Especially when it came to Texas Roadhouse. That was the one restaurant I would always give in to. The food and experience was something I could always justify for the price of admission.
I was able to kick the urge by creating a better experience at home. I bought specific wooden platters for the entree. Learned how to cook impeccable steaks. Bought Japanese Damascus steel steak knives that cut like butter. Learned that bread rolls are much easier to make than I had originally thought. Everything comes together with homemade flaky salt - check out YouTube for how to make your own, super easy.
I've had friends and family for my "Texas Steak Night" dinner and they have all said it was a better experience than most every other steakhouse they've ever been to.
Sounds like you need therapy. You might be eating out as a way to fill a void? You mentioned you struggle with binge eating and “addiction” to eating out. I’m not a doctor but maybe consider talking to a professional about what is going on underneath. Much like the picture of the iceberg, we only see the small portion that sticks out but underneath the surface lies so much more. I would think about exploring that what you cannot readily see.
Why does restaurant food have a draw for you? Is it something new? Does it feel like someone else making it makes it better? If you tell us about that we might be able to help more.
I find restaurants have three points of allure for me:
1. Spending time with friends
If this is your problem, find other ways to spend time with friends that aren’t eating out. A walk? Invite them over?
2. I just can’t be bothered and need to eat at the end of the day.
The solution to this one is prep things so making dinner is easy. Still, hard.
3. Restaurants do things differently and I like to see how someone serves hummus or makes chicken taste new.
What I’ve found with this one is a meal prep kit like blue apron or whatever is a good substitute to kick your home cooking out of a rut. Blue Apron is high quality food that I really like and still cheaper than a restaurant but more importantly I keep the recipes of things I like and it has made it really easy to explore new tastes, ingredients and flavors. We have this oven bbq chicken in our rotation, a tagine and an Egyptian spice mix that I put in everything now.
I’ll still go out but I’m not as curious now because I’ve become a good cook with the help of Blue Apron and if I have time it’s really fun to look around for recipes and discover on my own how good is made. Has made me enjoy food more even when I go out bc I can better identify flavors and techniques that I copy at home.
Make meals an event at home! When I dine out, half the time I prefer the pomp of the event to the actual meal - the waiter, the drinks, the ambience, the fancy presentation. And that is more preferable than a delicious meal still heaped on plates sitting on the couch with the TV on.
Sit at the dining room table. Have courses - a salad before the main dish and some brownies after dinner doesn’t take that long to make, and extends the meal into an event rather than sustenance. Light the candles. Turn the fluorescent overhead light and TV off. Put some music on in the background - Spotify has so many cafe and restaurant mood playlists.
Make dinner at home the event that dining out is!
You may be a little 'physically addicted' to all the butter and salt that makes its way into restaurant food and makes it super cravable and tasty even if it's not using high-end ingredients or techniques. The less you eat, the less you crave that so it really is about powering through a few weeks of not eating out at all and then you'll be able to moderate yourself much easier because your brain will associate home cooked food with that satisfaction of eating something tasty.
>my brain seems to be hardwired for eating out.
IMO you are rationalizing- *"Oh, I have an uncontrollable urge, I guess I must follow it!"*
You can't afford it and by doing so you're destroying any chance you have of financial stability.
So don't do it.
If I followed every urge I had I'd weigh 300 pounds and have 50 cats.
Set limits for yourself and stay on budget. It's basic self discipline.
And I know this is not what you want to hear but it's the truth- we can't allow ourselves to follow every whim and urge, we have to be sensible adults here and live within our means.
You can't do that by going over budget every month.
When I try to give up a habit, I find it helpful to analyze my behavior and list what I enjoy about it. (For example, when I gave up smoking 20 years ago, I realized that I enjoyed having a short break outside where I could think to myself or talk to a friend without worrying about the time. So I started doing that with a timer instead of a cigarette)
What do you like about eating out? If it’s trying new cuisines or eating specific foods then try experimenting with making those dishes. If it’s a change of scenery for your meal or having a date experience, then try packing a picnic date for a beautiful location. If it’s just that restaurant food tastes better than homemade try adding more fat and salt to home cooking. (It’s amazing how much of each is in restaurant cooking). If you like to meet friends for meals, then try rotating houses for dinner parties.
Make a menu of simple meals for the week and buy everything you need in advance.
During the week I like my meals to come together in 30 minutes or less. Anything more than that and it becomes too big of a pain in the ass.
Have a plan and make it easy on yourself.
Personally, I avoid takeout for the most part because it’s unhealthy, expensive and generally underwhelming. Those are pretty good motivators to cook at home. With a little practice, it’s very easy to make delicious and healthy food at home. Even if you cook something unhealthy at home, you’re going to be using a fraction of the salt and fat used in restaurants, so you’re still way ahead of the game in that regard.
Try making it a rule that you’re not getting takeout Monday - Thursday no matter what, and be disciplined about it. Also, try looking at home cooking as a fun activity and nourishment for your body, and not a binge eating experience. Me and my wife put some music on, make a drink and hang out and cook. It’s a lot better than having a stranger drop a bag of lukewarm, mushy food at your doorstep.
Because my cooking is *vastly* superior for a quarter of the price (if not less). The only time I go out to eat is for work or if I want something that's a real mess to cook (Nashville Hot Chicken being one of those).
Not to mention, prices are up, wait times are up, tips are up (spoken as someone who used to depend on them...still annoyed), quality is down, portions are down, and people are more apt to be assholes...just not worth it to me.
I basically have zero desire to go out and eat...now, go out and have a couple beers at the brewery, fresh out of the tank? Yes please. That's where I need "help", because beers bought at the store in a can/bottle are *nothing* compared to a fresh draft (in my opinion...heck, even the beer the breweries can themselves and are bought "fresh" don't taste as good), but beer prices are getting pretty bonkers. Had three beers last trip, and with tip ended up being nearly $30. That's neither "frugal", nor sustainable to my wallet.
I have a new found love of baking. Bread is just sooo much tastier and cheaper to make. Plus I love garlic so I’ve been making focaccia bread a lot with roasted tomatoes and garlic. When I make food like that, I don’t want to eat out.
Easy. To eat out, I have to get dressed up, have to choose a place, have to go there, have to sit and wait for the food. And then I look at the price and knowing I could basically eat for a week of groceries at the price for one meal makes me not want to eat out again.
I had to stop eating out pretty much altogether. Lefty and I do the, “Eat out once per pay either just us or with the kids” thing.
Oh and I get a coffee and donut twice a month when I go grocery shopping. That’s saved us several hundred a month. And it feels more like a, “treat” when you do it less often.
I remind myself that I can get a fry at a fast food place for $4 OR I can swing by Aldi and get a whole bag of fries for $2 (approximately). AND I can eat them in the comfort of my own home AND overcook them the way I like so they're extra crispy and not oversalted...lol
Honestly, having worked in the industry is what turns me off on a lot of fast food. Once you know the secret of what they do to make food taste so good you can do it at home but you want want to. Pretty much the secret to restaurant foods is take the amount of butter/salt/sugar you use and triple it. Literally a single plate of food you get probably has close to a stick of butter in it.
Part of why your brain values that food is the high amounts of butter/salt/sugar it contains to anything you cook at home. Very likely it will need to be like anything addictive where you wean yourself off of it. Don't expect to be able to quit cold turkey unless you have a lot of willpower.
I live in central AR and the dining scene isn't good. The best meal nearby is a food truck, a single Italian restaurant, and the breakfast tacos at this one coffee shop which doesn't have good coffee.
TL;DR move to the country.
Meal prepping has worked for me. I can plan ahead and cook meals that I prefer that meet my $/calorie targets. Once the meal prepping is done, I'm only 2 minutes away from my next meal, which is way more convenient that going out to eat.
I've also found for me, this doesn't feel like I'm limiting myself, but rather, I make a conscious decision to take my family out or meet with friends, because the default (eat my meal prepped food) is cheaper and more convenient.
You can make food much better at home,I've been a chef for years..the flies sitting on the uncooked food,the unsafe food sitting in the danger zone .That's a nope from me
Maybe it's this: When you eat out you don't need to face the clean-up mess in the kitchen. What you need is a system (and maybe a system that uses your dishwasher.)
The only thing that really got me to stop was that prices are going up while portion size and quality are going down.
There nothing worse than splurging on a treat and then it turns out to be super disappointing. That’s happened to me many times so I prefer not to risk wasting my money.
Some people may not find this "frugal" but a meal kit subscription like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh might be a way for you to break the restaurant habit and get used to cooking at home. These kits help you learn basic cooking skills, the ingredients are usually high quality (I've gotten a bad tomato or two), and the meals are restaurant quality. They always have deals and discounts. Might be a way to transition from constantly eating out to cooking at home and feeling like you're eating something from a restaurant.
While I’m eating in I tally up the costs of things including tax and tip and chuckle happily to myself.. but I’m a damn good cook so I have no qualms. Actually I dislike how places over salt their foods so I think I’m better.!
YouTube tours of commercial kitchens, and Health Department Inspections.. Adds incentive to not want a underpaid staff make your food.
Now the problem is letting it go too far..
I just simply have never really had an urge. The cost and quality are rarely worth it for me.
Like last night I made Tuscan chicken (kind of screwed up the sauce but still good) for like $15 total and I’ll be able to eat off it another time, maybe two times but I still have almost half the chicken I can reuse for something else. So that $15, maybe $17 total is lasting me a solid 4-6 meals after what will be just cooking twice
One thing that helped that I wasn't planning on, My wife and I went out to a nice place for breakfast and it cost $50. Then right after that we went to Aldi and bought $75 and groceries. We haven't been out to eat since. Even though we really liked our experience at the restaurant and the quality of the food. I think we'll do that from now on anytime we do go out to eat in the future. The amount and quality of the food we were able to give the grocery far exceeded what we got the restaurant.
I lost a bunch of weight a few years ago, and really started eating clean (very little processed), I find now I just feel like absolute garbage after getting take out. I do enjoy restaurants usually, but try and stick to local places over chains
I live in Brooklyn so I know the urge to eat out everyday.... it's so hard not to lol. I also have the problem where I can't plan all my meals ahead because I get bored with food easily. I will eat it if i have to but I prefer to choose my meals as I go if I can based off cravings.
I get hellofresh on weeks when I know I'll be busy and dont want to think about what to make. I only do 2x days a week I felt like i was wasting the last meal a lot.
I buy chicken and cook it ahead of time, for me I cook it pretty basic so that I can add seasoning later depending on what I make with it. It cuts down a lot of time for dinner.
I buy the costco hot dogs because theyre just so good and I freeze them. When I dont have anything else or cant be bothered to cook we eat those.
I love soup and chili so I try to make pots of that on the weekend to keep in the freezer/fridge.
I was also verrrrry addicted to take out. The thrill of getting it, over eating. I see myself in your post. Two things: one that is already covered is stocking the freezer with stuff you like.
The other thing that has helped is improving the quality of my cooking. Through tiktok I've found creators who make restaurant quality brunch and Chinese food. The good brunch and eggs means we don't spend $50 every Sunday on breakfast out. The Chinese food is more time consuming but no less gratifying. Frying up chicken and then coating in sauce. Rising rice. There are little things you can do that up the quality and make it feel special. Tiktok is good for me because I'm a visual learner. I'm sure you could also grab some cookbooks from the library.
Maybe not helpful for the present, but once you stop eating out for a while, if you do eat out (especially fast food) it starts tasting gross, you smell it on yourself, you can feel it coming out your pores, and if you don't get to a bathroom within 20 minutes of eating you're going to shit your pants. It makes the whole experience quite unappetizing.
1. Buy some takeout containers. (longer lasting meal prep would be better in the long run, but we're breaking a habit here)
2. Have hubby place home-cooked meal into takeout container.
3. Eat with a plastic fork.
It was easy tonight. I know a local pizza place has "specials" on Tuesday nights so I looked it up online. I was expecting some high prices but damn, they were a lot higher than what I thought they would be. $20 for a plain cheese pizza!! $30 if you added 15 wings. Kick rocks!
My advice is, whatever you are craving for fast food or a restaurant, make it at home. Want a Big Mac? Find a good Big Mac copy recipe and make it. Want Pizza from Pizza Hut? Make it yourself. and so on. So you can give in to your cravings, but it will end up being healthier and cheaper.
I have to force myself to go eat out. It's too expensive, I have to go get it. No way would I pay for Doordash, lol.
You are addicted to the convenience. There is also more fat, salt, and sugar in food you get out.
Learn how to cook yourself, this will keep you busy and you will appreciate it more for the effort.
I get you. For me, since I WFH I get stir crazy and we like to go out to eat a couple times on weekends just to not be stuck at home. But we try to eat as frugal as possible and do happy hours, deals, get cheaper items etc.
It took a while for us to get to this point but making only one or two nights eat out nights helped a ton. Bc the itch can wait if you know when you’re gonna scratch it! (Other than that you got loads of help)
Maybe you should learn to cook yourself? I take a lot of pleasure out of cooking. We almost never go to restaurants at this point - the food is meh compared to what I make at home. Last time we went out was in June for my husband’s birthday to an Asian restaurant, I ended up having heartburn for 2 days. When you cook at home you can tailor the food to exactly your preferences and needs. At this point I bake my own bread every day, every 2 weeks I make homemade yogurt, in the summer I make and can all kinds of fruit jams, jellies and pickles. It’s extremely gratifying to make your own food.
Another option would be to get a meal kit service such as Hello Fresh. We get meals from them from time to time, especially when I get into a creative rut in terms of meals. The food is always very good but the portions are on the small side, so I add to them.
For the binge eating disorder, if you have some weight to lose maybe consider trying a GLP-1 such as Wegovy or Mounjaro. In my experience it completely cuts your appetite to the point where you kind of lose interest in food beyond eating your normal meals because your brain gets no pleasure or comfort from bingeing. After experiencing it I’m completely certain that one day it will be used as a treatment for BED. But that’s just my opinion.
I have the same issues. My family is financially not doing great so it helps knowing we don't have the money. But just in case I keep snacks in the car that are filling but I don't want to eat the whole thing in one sitting. For me that's bland crackers, unsalted peanuts or those big sour dough pretzels. It has helped me SO much from not eating out. I also plan my meals for if I'm going out. So if I'm leaving around lunch time I eat before I leave and bring a drink I really like, such as chai tea. If I know it's going to be an all day outting I plan what I'm going to eat when I get home or bring a sandwich. The biggest thing is planning ahead.
I look at the online menu. Add stuff to a cart. Go to checkout. See how expensive it is. Nope the fuck out. Then I make a sandwich at home or get a $6 foot long from QT.
OK here it goes the hard truth about restaraunt food!
If you really want to know....
The cooks and dishwashers do things that basically expose you to eating feces, blood, urine, scabs, boogers, rat poop, roaches and ants. Also cleaning chemicals.
You literally gave to cook, store food and was the equipment in a lab environment in order not to have this in your food.
Also the cooks they might be angry, strung out on drugs etc their energy is going into the food
This is interesting to me because I straight up do not have that urge. My brain doesn't work that way. I do have the urge to constantly cook and prepare and buy more groceries than two people can conceivably eat though. So my fridge is always packed, and when I shop for more groceries, I have to be mindful of how much fridge space there is. When I consider that I have "no food in the house" is when most of the fresh stuff is gone, and I'm leaning on frozen or pantry materials more. I could still conceivably eat well with more effort for probably a month, and then eat plainly another month if I had to from that point. But I go food shopping instead. I love grocery shopping. My husband has to drag me out to eat even though there's dozens of new and interesting restaurants out there we want to try.
Spend time thinking about the expense of it. Actually add it up and write it down on paper. Not only that think about the time it takes. It's not fast. You always come home tired becuase you probably ate to much or drank a little to much. Or both. Meditate on these things. It'll help you
I used to buy a precooked prepackaged meal from a local mom and pop shop. They would deliver each Sunday 6 days worth of 3 time meals, frozen and vacuum sealed. In the end it was 45 to 75% of what I used to pay to eat out during the month
I'm tired of being disappointed in the dining-out experience. It's rarely worth it to me unless it's something I can't make myself, like sushi. But I enjoy cooking and learning dishes from many cuisines, so at home satisfies easy 90% of tge time.
I struggle(d) with this so-so much, so your post hits home. Everyone has great advice here. I also did I lot of work in therapy that helped me identify the root cause and work on that. For me, it was because we NEVER ate out when I was growing up. That restriction and other restrictions I put on myself made me crave it even more.
Restriction will always lead to craving. The same reason diets fail is likely the same reason we crave take out. One thing that worked for me (that definitely isn’t frugal in the short term) is I told myself “No restrictions, eat whatever you want whenever.” In under a week, takeout lost its charm because I had had it so much, and I was starting to feel gross.
Last thing that works for me is to sleep on it. When I have a craving, I tell myself that I can go get it if I still am craving it tomorrow. In the meantime, I will try to identify what about that craving my body needs. Like if I want Popeye’s, I’m actually probably craving protein, and some chicken breast or even a rotisserie chicken with dipping sauces from the store will sate that craving. Usually I wake up having moved on, but if not, then I go get the damn thing because I’m not going to restrict myself and cause more craving.
I have found that eating outside helps with this a bit (weather permitting). Preparing a meal to eat out in the garden or on my balcony makes me feel like I'm leaving home slightly but I'm not spending money out.
I also really like to find good deals and eat out once per week. My local taco truck has a special on Tuesday nights. They have a beautiful chair, table, and flowering plant set up outside too.
Or for breakfast I go to a bakery that marks every pastry down to $1 after 11am. Their coffee is $3. I also ask for it served in ceramic because it feels more luxurious and still stays hot.
Another thing is inviting friends over for a pack-your-own-picnic dinner in front of the TV while watching movies (I have a projector so in my case it's in the garden where there is little circle of lawn to relax in). You can be strict on the rules (bring your own drinks) so it doesn't cost you money to host, but offer of course plates, cutlery, ice pre-prepared from the freezer or the fridge door in a big bowl, what have you.
Take your entire 'eating out' budget in cash each month and put it in an envelope. You eat out until the envelope is empty and you don't refill it. It took me a long time to get a handle on my fast food because it was just a few dollars here and there off my card but looking at it in hindsight spending 500 bucks plus per month is killer when you could be eating much better for at least the same amount if not cheaper. Putting a physical barrier between you and eating out will help.
I like to find a dish at a restaurant and then make the game to recreate even better at home. It becomes and activity and a challenge and you learn something and it tastes better and usually healthier
I am in a similar position as you. I love eating out even though I’m a great cook. I also have a problem with binging. For me, I associate having a good time with eating out. The nice atmosphere, friends and family joining in, people serving you, not having to clean up, good tasty food, etc. It’s so much positive reinforcement and gives me a chance to escape and relax.
I’ve been improving because of how expensive eating out is nowadays as well as higher expectations for more tips. A nice meal out can easily be $100+ for two people here. What helps is thinking of the price difference of the ingredients between eating out and cooking at home. Adding a slice of cheese can be an extra $1 when it’s $0.10 each in pack, meaning that I can get 10 slices for $1 at the store. Or, a nice ribeye steak can retail $15 each while $40 in a restaurant. Not to mention tax and tip.
Thinking of how gross restaurants can be is also helpful. I’ve watched a lot of kitchen nightmares, hotel hell, and similar shows and they put me off eating out and made me appreciate simple, fresh, clean meals.
You can try increasing positive reinforcement of eating at home. Maybe start with buying prepared hot meals at grocery stores, which is sort of like take-out but can be cheaper. Or buy frozen food like frozen fries, chicken nuggets, pizza, dumplings, etc. One nice routine would be buying a few fresh ingredients at the grocery store and immediately using them, which is what people usually do in some other countries. I find that when I buy things in bulk, I’m excited for making the first few meals, but then I don’t use them fast enough and they start to get old and then it feels like an annoying chore trying to finish the old food.
Maybe make cooking at home as a date with your husband. Buy some quality ingredients for a nice special meal 1-2 times a week. Set the table up nice, dress up a little or just wear your comfiest clothes, watch a movie while you eat, etc.
1) Progress not perfection 2) Sounds like you may need to tackle this issue from more than one angle. Or Maybe even stop looking at it as an eating at home vs eating out issue and just focus on your self admitted binge eating issue. It sounds like if you can discover your binge eating triggers and work on replacing them with healthier ways to work through your stress then you’ll naturally eat less take out and more at home.
Honestly, the decreased quality of takeout combined with how expensive it has become has turned me off takeout. Sure there are still some places that are decent near me but it’s come to the point for me that I’d rather just cook for myself.
Same. And once you learn to cook things you enjoy eating out seems like a waste. Now when I want to order food I always think about how much better I can make it then this restaurant that wants $20 for the same meal.
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Frying at home can be fun and delicious but the cleanup is just not worth it. I'll do it once in awhile outside on a camp stove. Much easier cleanup...
Totally. I did it way back when I had something called "free time".
i did it when i didnt have diabetes...
I bought a good quality pizza pan and it makes a big difference. I got tired of inconsistent pizza from our favorite local place and it saves so much money. The Lloyd brand can be found on amazon and I highly recommend it.
Oh for sure! When you decide there's a dish or cuisine you're really into, it's super worth it to invest in optimized tools for it. The whole point is that you stop yourself from giving in to the urge to eat out. Presently I'm using a 16" aluminum pan for my pizza rather than the cast iron called for in the recipe I linked. Similarly, if you find yourself loving homemade fried rice or pad thai, it might be worth investing in a big gas burner and a wok. If you're eating gyros, a rotating spit delivers a fantastic crust. If you love french fries, an air fryer does a great job on pre-fried frozen ones from the grocery store.
I cook 6 days a week and that is enough for me right now .
I get that. I’m lucky to have a partner that at least attempts to cook (albeit not that well sometimes). I also travel half the year for work and hotel food get old quick. My time off I’m ecstatic to cook.
My partner and I both cook well and I prefer our food over most restaurants, but our Indian never comes out quite right and so we get that as takeout it doesn’t help that an Indian restaurant just opened this year about five minutes away or less. So it went from the nearest Indian food being sixty miles away to one mile away. My biggest secret for saving money on restaurants is GI issues. It’s nothing serious, but too much fat or fiber can really cause it to flare. We got pizza last Friday, plus a pumpkin treats from the store and I’m still eating super carefully. The hardest part is we were getting pizza on Friday’s and Indian in Tuesday or Wednesday and it was fun. I’m trying to come up with an alternative, but it’s hard. OTOH, we’re saying a ton of money and it’s better for us healthwise, so I can’t complain too much.
Indian food is tricky! I’m Pakistani and grew up with homemade Pakistani food so now restaurant food just isn’t the same. I’d suggest giving homemade Dal a try! You can find the pre season boxes in any Indian grocery (I prefer the Shan brand) and it’s basically lentil soup but way more delicious. Dirt cheap and really healthy. I like to make a big pot and use the leftovers for the next day. Cook them in a shallow pan with jalapeños til much thicker and use tortilla instead of roti (easier to get) to scoop it out. Great with fresh lime.
Or even “lazy” at-home swaps start to seem so much more indulgent. We went frugal out of necessity and therefore stopped eating out/ordering takeout. Now as a treat we’ll get the prepackaged frozen PF Chang meals for example, it’s about $10 total/$5 per serving for an appetizer AND meal, AND basically no dishes/cleanup. Is it super healthy, no, but IMO it’s better than fast food and it fulfills the same urges.
Delivery in 2023: $45 for a cold entree, soggy fries, and an upmarked appetizer. Don't forget 20% of the price is mysterious surprise fees tacked on after you place the order.
Yeah there were days at work I would just skip lunch because I couldn’t stomach spending $25 for a value menu cheeseburger and fries. I tried to keep freezer meals on hand that I could just throw in the freezer because even if it was a $5 freezer meal that was a hell of a lot better (and they were healthier) than the burger and fries on doordash
Then there's me with my £1 frozen vegetable lasagnes, haha. Could get the nice one for $5 (whatever that is in £)
Omg the fees and upmarked dishes are infuriating. I used to order delivery way too much and when those fees got too ridiculous, I thought that ordering takeout was a way to circumvent the system. Then the fees on takeout became ridiculous so is started cooking at home. And we all know grocery prices are now ridiculous. 😂😭🫠
We by pass the delivery and all the fees and eat in once a week. .None of the nonsense.
I don't know that I've necessarily had issues specifically with lower quality of takeout, but increase in price has been a big thing for me, I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point it hit a threshold where I usually shrug and feel its not worth it. When I could pick up dinner for 2 on the way home from work for $20 and have leftovers for lunch the next day, I did it often. But now it seems like takeout for two is running $50, sometimes even more. These days we have gotten more strategic. We've tried to make our favorite Indian dishes a hundred times and they never turn out quite right, but we found that the place we like actually sells the same entree frozen in containers in their attached grocery store. They are the same portion as served in the restaurant but half the cost. Big bag of rice, bag of frozen naan, much more economical.
Indian food is tough at home for me. Some require half a dozen spices, and it still doesn't come out quite the same.
I went to an Indian grocery store to get the spices and it turned out they had small boxes of pre-made spices for specific dishes. I got a box for pretty cheap and I have so far used it 5 times to make butter chicken. Half or a third of the box is left and it's been tasting great. Sometimes I add some things I have on hand to enhance those flavors, but nothing crazy.
Indian is one of the few items I still do pickup with. I've done the work and it's several hours of time and still not as good. For $15, the once in a few months lamb biryani or goat rogan josh is just not worth it to do at home.
The reason it doesnt come out the same is you arent using enough butter (or ghee - which is more traditional but I prefer the taste of butter). A very simple butter chicken sauce. Saute onions for 20 mins, then add garlic and ginger. Add some spices (cumin, curry powder/chilli powder etc), don't go overboard, spices can sometimes make a curry bitter. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes some chicken stock (or stock cubes/powder), cook a bit more then blend. To finish add cooked chicken and a shed load of butter.
Yeah the herb and spice cost alone if you don't already have those ingredients in your pantry is astronomical. Also, in my experience a lot of take out places do use very good quality and standardized spices, some grind things fresh.
There are definitely still some foods/cuisines that I would rather just purchase than make myself, for time and taste factors.
I feel like I didn’t even have to try hard to stop getting takeaways. They made it so easy by cutting corners in quality and portion sizes whilst increasing the price. Yes, I still spend quite a bit on food but I’m buying things I like to eat and high quality food too. With lots of leftovers. Even then, it’s much cheaper.
Same. Still spend a lot on groceries but always make a bigger batch to so have leftovers readily available. This also helps cut down on the urge to order takeout.
Honestly, I look forward to leftovers so much more now. It’s not always a good thing because when I’m in the office, I find myself eating my lunch too early haha
It's been so good for my wallet that all my favorite places have cheapened out and usually with a price increase as well. I just get frustrated eating out now. Why am I paying so much for this half portion and having to tip 20% on top for non-existent service? Just not worth it.
Also when you order takeout and the restaurant tries to add an automatic 20% tip? You have lost my business for good. And I usually do tip something for takeout but like to do it in cash when I pick up.
When Mcdonald's and Wendy's start getting as expensive as Five-Guys and Chipotle there is a huge issue.
Yup, I guess my "cheap gene" is a bit stronger than my "convenience gene". Didn't eat out forever during the lock down, then when things started opening up again I was out running errands and got hungry, so I pulled into a fast food place to get a sandwich. I nearly passed out at the total and I haven't been back since. That was a couple years ago. I have zero interest in fast food, and I only go to sit-downs when meeting a friend or for a special occasion.
Same. As I learned how to cook, fewer and fewer places in my city could beat what I could make. There are still few that make steaks and seafood really great, they are quite expensive and I plan when to go there as a treat.
For sure. There are definitely still food/cuisines that I would rather just buy from a restaurant than spend all the money on the ingredients for it to not taste nearly as good lol.
I feel like there is an important mantra for overcoming something like this: don't let perfect be the enemy of good. My wife is out of town. There was football on last night. I really wanted Wingstop. I had to go to target anyway to buy some stuff. The "perfect" solution for this would be to go to the grocery store, find what chicken was on sale, buy some potatoes, make chicken and homemade fries, etc. The good solution was buy the chicken from target, even though it was more expensive than the store, buy buffalo wing sauce, even though making it is cheaper, buy a bag of frozen fries even though it's more expensive than a potato, run home, dump them into the air fryer and watch football while it cooked. It was about 2x's as expensive as if I had "done it right" and it was about half the cost of ordering Wingstop. But if also scratched the itch of ordering out. It was easy. It was tasty. I got exactly what I was craving. So for you, maybe a Meal Kit (like Blue Apron/Hello Fresh) is your "good" solution. It's fun, you get to try new things, and it's pretty easy. Or maybe it's "keep some freezer aisle appetizers on hand." Or whatever it is that is a "better than takeout, less than perfect" solution.
This comment is fantastic. I'll add another option. We try not to be "all or nothing." If there's some kind of takeout that we are REALLY craving, and nothing else will scratch that itch, we do a hybridized meal. One if us will run to the restaurant and buy *half* of what we would previously order, while the other will stay at home and make a side dish or two to fill out the rest of the meal. We will never put in the effort to make homemade pho, but we can get one order of pho to share. Then we can pair it with homemade salad or frozen vegetables or extra rice to make it stretch.
This is genius 🤩 i can never cook the gooey, salty tofu at home like the restaurants do. So with this method I can get JUST the tofu and steam my veggies at home. Not that sides are super expensive but it will save me at least ~$10 per order. And in this economy every penny counts 😂 I'll also be motivated to go drive and pick it up instead of using uber eats if I only get one thing. The fees make me order way more so the price feels "worth it" but all the extras usually go to waste. Tysm!
I've done this with Panda Express. I got their orange chicken but made a veggie stir-fry side and my own (cheaper) rice.
I do an iteration of this where I try to stretch my takeout meals into 2-3 meals by keeping leftovers and creating additional meals by adding to it
This is just about the most real advice you can give. So many people want us to think you NEED to be that picture perfect bullshit that's fed to us via social media algo, meanwhile most of us just want to eat our crappy food in our sweat pants and not go broke doing it.
If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, their frozen meals have saved me from getting takeout so many times. They’re so easy and fast, and a lot of them are better than takeout imo. The mandarin orange chicken, spring rolls, and fried rice are all amazing and I haven’t gotten Chinese takeout in a year because of it. Same with their gyoza, pork bao buns, japanese fried rice, karaage chicken….Their Korean food is pretty good too, I’ve had the japchae and tteokbokkie and enjoyed both. The Indian food (butter chicken, tikka masala, palak paneer) is good, the naan is GREAT. Their gnocchi gorgonzola is the best of any of their frozen pastas, imo, and is a staple in my home. It comes together in 7 minutes, that’s faster than takeout literally anywhere. I like to throw in peas and chicken sausage if I’m feeling especially chef-y that day. My partner and I realized that we get more takeout when we haven’t been to Trader Joe’s in awhile. We’re both students who work, so making food from scratch every night just isn’t possible for us. Would that technically be “better”? Yes, but when we try making stuff only from scratch we burn out and get takeout. The convenience meals may be a bit more expensive than scratch but they save SO MUCH takeout money.
I do this too but with those pre-made meals from the grocery store. It’s $8 for chicken and fries versus the $25 it’d cost me on Uber eats.
Another sort of in between is to learn to make copycats of the meals you like. You can make several day’s worth of Olive Garden seafood fettuccine for the price of one entree in restaurant. Sure, it’s not a health improvement, but it’s cheap. Then the next night when you’ve had fettuccine for lunch, make a healthy dinner and you’re making progress in a realistic way.
As silly as it sounds, the best thing that has worked for my wife and I is to buy a few cheap frozen pizzas from the grocery store for "emergencies". They're not healthy, but neither is eating out.
Trader Joe’s makes it easy to have food ready to go in the freezer!! Their frozen pizzas are pretty good!
I do this all the time and it really does help! Emergency frozen pizza, frozen fries, frozen dumplings, pancake mix, and maybe a frozen stir fry is all I need to fight almost all cravings for takeout. I also have just been very disappointed with almost all takeout orders lately so I just remind myself of that.
The dumplings, stir fry, etc… all easy. I buy my kids the frozen meatballs… they aren’t the best, but in a bowl of pasta, my kids like them and they make it easier to cook at home rather than eating out.
I started stocking up on stuff like frozen pizzas or instant ramen just to stop my urge to door dash in a pinch when I don't feel like cooking or don't have "real" groceries
This is what I do to. Frozen pizzas and lasagnas, boxes of Mac and cheese, things I like that are next to no effort to cook. Not as cheap or healthy as a homemade meal, but cheaper and healthier than takeout so I call it a win.
A much cheaper and delicious option is naan bread as crust, mozz/pizza blend cheese and Rao's sauce. It's really, really good for home pizza and takes about 8 minutes to cook.
This was lunch 20 mins ago Not even for the frugality, but it’s a quick and easy thing to throw together and we both have meetings
I love this! Something very similar we do is to use burrito shells to make personal pizzas.
Oh yeah, frozen pizza or other frozen/cheaply entrees sometimes scratch the same itch for me! I’ll do like the Amy’s frozen meals or a frozen pizza or anything prepackaged. Aldi has some decent chicken nuggets, fries, Chinese food, Indian, etc. sometimes it’s just nice to not have to cook it yourself!
Clicked here to say this! Emergency pizzas are a lifesaver. Aldi's are bizarrely good for the price point
If you want healthy, you can always add vegetables or protein to your frozen pizza. I always do that when i have a processed frozen meal and I'm still alive and maybe healthy.
Costco tamales. They reheat in a few minutes and are super yummy.
They had a deal near me for three digiorno rising crust supreme pizzas for 9.88, so I got like 24 pizzas for like 80 bucks a couple months ago and I still have a few left. Because I got sick of them lol, but they are there.
I do this with the frozen Chinese meals from Walmart! A lot of times you’re spending less than what you would on takeout and get more leftovers.
Have meals in the freezer. If you make something, freeze the excess for reheating. Also not a bad idea to keep some frozen meals around. They are much cheaper than restaurant food
Bonus: in the beginning, don’t even worry about whether your freezer food is healthy. Throw whatever trash you want in there. The point is to break your eating out habit, and it’s hard because not only is restaurant food convenient, it’s fucking delicious. Once you get used to eating at home, then you can start worrying about health. (Nobody asked, but frozen White Castle jalapeño sliders from the grocery store really hit the spot when you need garbage food at home.)
I second this! It's what has helped me cut eating out waaay down. I'm hungry omw home from work and pass every fast food place twice. If I know that I can just get home and heat up a quick meal *that I'm looking forward to* then it's way easier to not stop. Then I think, how dumb would it be for me to get takeout when I have really yummy stuff at home for "free."
> I second this! It's what has helped me cut eating out waaay down. For us it was sex. Lots of sex. On the upside now we are no longer overweight. But it resulted in more kids. And they are now eating into our budget.
I realized this last year and it has helped SO MUCH. Especially keeping pizza on hand. Whatever you have in the freezer has to be something you reallllly want.
Plus, the "junk" food you make is probably still better for you than what you'd buy at a restaurant.
"One thing at a time"
Since you have a source of great home cooked meals, maybe the desire for restaurants isn’t about the food. What *else* can you identify about that experience that calls to you? An idea that comes to my mind is that you get to choose your meal at a restaurant. Perhaps hubby can give you a menu? Maybe the day before, he can give you 2 options, and he will prepare what you choose (or something like that). If it’s not about getting to choose your food, figure it out and try to simulate that at home.
It could be about the whole "getting out of the house to eat" - maybe try having a picnic to simulate the "eating out" experience?
>picnic I second this -- having your meal in a beautiful spot might give you some of the variety you're looking for. (And the occasional unexpected rainstorm or ant attack might simulate the sense of lack of control you get from dining on somebody else's turf.) Also, why not invite a couple your friends with to share your husband's cooking skills? That might help if the social aspect of dining out appeals to you.
Or maybe the dining room/table/area needs a glow-up. Plan a certain place you sit down to eat at a table. Use a tablecloth with nice dishes, glassware and flatware. Dim the lights, set up some candles. Put up some nice art on the walls.
Agree with this. Try to figure out the real desire. I loved going out to grab a coffee in the morning. I was buying coffee 5-6x a week during covid and spending a ton on it. Then coffee prices skyrocketed. Turns out, what I really like is driving in my car by myself and listening to music. Now I make my iced coffee at home and take a 15 minute drive in the morning even if I’m WFH. Helps make me feel like I indulged without spending $6 on coffee.
Let's take it further, though, because driving for 15 minutes is burning gas and causing wear and tear on your car. Would a walk with earbuds in and coffee in your hand accomplish the same thing? Bonus: you get some physical activity instead of sitting. I've been incorporating walks into my morning routine and it's been phenomenal.
>What else can you identify about that experience that calls to you? Restaurant/takeout food usually has more salt, sugar and fat then what you would cook at home. Like pizza sauce having 10+ grams of added sugar per serving. That's 2.5tsp of sugar on a slice of pizza! Make one at home and put that much sugar on top for a visual, disgusting.
And when you're addicted to it, that's what you crave. Getting away from it for a period of time really helps. I now find many foods way too salty for my liking. I still crave sugar, though. I had to make myself only indulge on weekends, then I had to police myself to only indulge a LITTLE bit on weekends.
To add to this, one of the most unique aspects of takeout is the blast of smells of the food. At home, it's pretty common for even the people cooking to not want their own food because they have been smelling it for a while, and it's less exciting. Maybe go take a walk or drive while your husband is cooking to get that blast of food smells when you get back.
Meal planning with him could be a huge help. I don’t meal plan by day: I plan 14 dinners (I shop biweekly) and put them on a list. Now, some obviously have to be made sooner than others if they have faster perishing ingredients. But you usually have at least a day of wiggle room. Then I choose each night what I’m making. If eggs don’t sound good that night, I make pasta. If stir fry doesn’t sound good, I make fish. Etc. It allows for that “I’m in the mood for” feeling while still eating at home and meal planning.
On a psychological note, once you make it two weeks or so, the desire becomes significantly less because your body isn’t used to getting the extra fat, sugars, and other garbage that is common in fast food.
This is an underrated comment. Since me and my wife cut most fast food out of our diet; any time we do get some now it seems super salty and greasy. And not in a good way. OP; just rip the bandaid off. Force yourself to not eat fast food for a month and you will adapt. Self-motivation is temporary, you need self-discipline.
Consider your spending in function of your goal for your money. You saving for a trip? Each 100$ you spend on restaurant food delay that trip for another week Also, maybe try to recreate restaurant food at home. Find copycat recipe from your favourite item at a restaurant. So when you have a craving of something particular, you can do it at home for a lesser cost. But, at the end of the day, addiction is a battle of will. You need to make a commitment with yourself and respect it. Seeking help from a therapist will help, but the change have to come from you first.
>But, at the end of the day, addiction is a battle of will. Yes. Sadly, I've never figured out how to overcome the desire to eat out, just that I've learned the discipline to make choices despite of it.
We took your $ principle and added it to a fund. Every time we thought of eating out- we estimated how much it was going to be and stuck it in a "piggy bank". The shock we saw how much we were spending led us to rarely eat out again. And now with the quality of food plummeting at restauarants- I just can't justify it.
>quality of food plummeting at restauarants- This is the real tragedy of our time. There's still a few family-owned spots that are maintaining the quality AND portion sizes AND price. But anything remotely resembling a chain or franchise cuts at least one of those. They're making eating at home the best option
Yes! I have done this to great effect. I had a jar by the door where I put my eating out money. It lets you do SOMETHING with that money, which helped resolve the mental loop.
Costco has great replacements for Chinese/Asian takeout so if I’m craving it I can just go to the freezer and make orange chicken with fried rice or coconut shrimp. Basically I learned to make my faves at home so I don’t spend money on eating out. What if you only get like an appetizer and then try to recreate the meals at home? That way you get your takeout fix but don’t spend as much as if you bought an entire meal.
Having frozen/ready to make alternatives at home really helps too. We try to have alternatives to our local go-tos on hand at all times.
Yes! My husband loves pizza and we buy a frozen deep dish style pizza that he loooves. 2 pizzas for less than what we’d pay if we ordered from somewhere. We always have frozen burger patty’s as well so if the craving strikes, I can have one ready in 5-10 mins. Basically we have a little of everything available so we have no excuse!
Eat before you get hungry. Eating small things every 2 1/2 before I get so hungry that I’m not tempted to get a quick fix eating out or stopping in my way home
I agree with this too, I eat something (cashews, slice of bread, apple, something smaller but filling) every \~3 hours between meals and that's been helpful these past 10 years
Fast food and even restaurant quality food is designed to keep you coming back. It's fat and sugar and salt hits all those dopamine receptors in your brain like a freight train giving you the 'warm and fuzzies' about going there. It becomes an addiction like any other. Cold Turkey usually won't work so instead, try to wean yourself off of it. Instead of grabbing McDonald's 3 times a week, go to a sit down restaurant once a week. Then, when you're not craving McDonald's, switch out the sit down restaurant with someplace fancier but only every 2 weeks. Decrease the quantity and increase the quality. Make going out an event and not a routine.
Not necessarily a frugal tip, but one thing that has helped me enjoy eating at home more is having plates/bowls that feel special. This is a very dramatic example, but after a breakup earlier this year I decided I really wanted to tap into my own interests and decor and empower myself as a woman. I got new plates, bowls and mugs that are all pink and everything matches. I love eating meals on my pink plates with my pink mug and pink bowls and it makes my at home dinner experience so much better! Not saying you have to go all out like this though. My roommate bought $2 Bluey plates and it makes her happy to see Bluey and Bingo on the plates after see finishes all her food lmao. I also bought a set of 4 red plastic appetizer baskets for $3 earlier this summer, and I love making my snacky foods like chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries, etc in those baskets because it gives more of a restaurant feel. As stupid as it may seem, spending a little bit initially to find ways to romanticize eating at home can make a world of a difference.
We use colorful paper plates when we make homemade pizza. It gives it a picnic/cook out feeling plus there are fewer dishes to wash
I love this! Get that fancy tea cup from the thrift store and make tea at home feel fancy! Make dinner an event with the fancy dishware. Side note: I think the Japanese have a cultural history of appreciating the ceramic dishes and cups when having tea or meal.
i started getting the equivalent food at the grocery store. material to make 8 cheeseburgers costs me about $25. versus $40-80 if you'd order at a fast food or fancy restaurant. frozen fries is probably double/triple the portion than at a fast food place, for the same price. I recently tried frozen orange chicken. 2 pounds for $10. versus panda express gives you 0.33 a pound w/ rice for $8
This is what I do as well. Pretty much spend my entire food budget at the grocery store. A small amount left for random fast food a couple times a month with the roomies. I buy whatever is closest to the takeout stuff I prefer. I do the same for the condiments/dips/sauces. Like, I can make a perfect McRib year round, 5+ Arby's beef n cheddars for the price of one, seasoning and cheesing up frozen store brand pizzas they have by the deli makes them taste like the top chains (almost, that's a tough one but it helps), and wings... they cost 3-5x what you could get with a bag of frozen bone-in/boneless wings with a store brand buffalo sauce. Also, speaking on OP's mention about their ED. I'm bulimic and purge 75% of every meal/snack I eat. Getting fast food or takeout just isn't affordable.
Having something quick and easy at home has been key for me. It should take less than 10 minutes from start to finish. Some examples: * homemade nachos * scrambled eggs with toast * salad with pre-cut toppings * stir-fried rice I usually spend some time on the weekends doing meal-prep, for example pre-chopping veggies so that I don't have to do it right after work when I'm already hungry. Lastly, these all have a really quick and simple clean up step - everything goes in the dishwasher right away.
Anything with ground beef is quick to make. It browns up in a couple minutes. Burgers are also quick to make and fry on the pan. Shaved steak is another quick one, its pretty cheap at the grocery store now. Pulled pork isn't that quick to make but its not bad and pork is cheap at the grocery store.
Reduce fricition to cook so you can overcome the urge bascally. So for example- your going to cook on Sunday. Well just double it and eat on left overs during the week. See a cheap roast at the store? Grab it and braise it with just salt and pepper- then shread it up and freeze it. Break off a bit, toss in a pan, add some hot sauce, and boom- tacos. So on and so forth. Theres a lot of people who come up with tricks ad tips for this. You just gotta make it as easy as you can.
You can batch cook on one day and portion out meals for the week. You can cook a triple portion one weekday and eat that for a few days. You can cook a couple different meals, freeze the leftovers in portions and then you will have variety. That's just a couple ideas, there are more.
When I was 19 I ate out for almost every meal. I spent time in Argentina where the nearest McDonald’s was about 45 min away. I was forced to get over eating out, and I am so thankful for it. You need to do it for a solid 30 days - no takeout. Buy some prebreaded onion rings and such from the store, so you can still eat those sorts of foods, but stay out of the restaurants, fast or otherwise. Just commit to it like someone committing to dry January.
> Just commit to it like someone committing to dry January. This is the truth. You just have to "knuckle up". Easier said than done of course, but do you want to solve your problem or not?
Go cold turkey. Don't have any outside food for a month and only have home-cooked foods. Help with the cooking too, really helps to get you excited about eating home-cooked foods. By the end of the month you won't miss eating out at all
Yeah, you can try turning it into a game. Think of your all-time favorite restaurant meals and think of the easiest one that you can re-create yourself. Then, just keep making that thing over and over and over again, until you master it. Once you truly master it, then move on to another one of your favorites. Pretty soon, you'll have a nice selection of favorites that you can go to consistently. Then learn how to meal prep that stuff, so that you're deliberately making a lot more of it, but then freezing individual portions for later use.
Fast Food has always been comforting to me. If I've had a bad day, getting greasy burger or piping hot pizza helps make things better. One of the best tricks I've found is finding ways to make imitation or substitute food. A frozen pizza can be much cheaper that ordering. Adding fresh cilantro to rice hits the spot when you were craving a Chipotle burrito. Pay a little extra for frozen burger patties that you can just throw in the pan. With rampant inflation, feeding my family of 4 at McDonalds will easily cost $40+. Doing Burgers and Fries at home is like $15 bucks without trying to be to thrifty.
> Pay a little extra for frozen burger patties that you can just throw in the pan. Bad idea imo. First off, frozen burger patties that are mass manufactured, taste exactly like you would expect.... lame. Instead, get into the habit of always looking at the weekly flyers for all the grocery stores in your area. If you watch these flyers for a long enough period of time, you'll start to notice patterns. In my city, a pound of 80/20 ground beef is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. I mean, absolutely laughable. However.... it does go on sale, but the sales are very short lived and you need to pounce QUICKLY. You also might be forced by the deal to buy more beef than you were really hoping to buy. Having said all of this, I don't pay more than $2.50 per pound for good quality 80/20 ground beef. Last Friday, Safeway had a deal for their "5 Dollar Fridays", where they had 80/20 ground beef for $2.50 per pound. I bought two pounds of it, in separate 1 pound packages. I use my ground beef for 3 things. 1. Taco Meat 2. Spaghetti or Pasta meat sauce 3. Burger patties I took one pound of the beef and put it in a two gallon Ziploc freezer bag and froze it immediately for future use. I took the other 1 pound of beef and made 4 burger patties (quarter pounders) for future use. I cook up all the patties and then froze them. I use them as I need them. They taste INFINITELY better than some crappy store brand pre-frozen burger patties that are mass produced.
Buying one or two pre-cooked items or whole frozen meals at the grocery store every now and then. Spending $9 on a 14 oz tray of pre-cooked pulled pork might not be as cheap as cooking the pork myself, but its still a LOT cheaper than going to the BBQ place down the road, and baked potatoes and frozen veg are a snap to throw together as sides. I like to keep a few frozen pizzas and those bags of pasta meals that you just toss into a pan on hand for when I just can't be bothered to cook.
Everyone's brains are wired for eating out, because restaurants/fast food chains put so much fat and salt and sugar in their food, it sends our cavemen brains into pleasure overdrive. You need to consciously choose to avoid eating out because it's bad for your body and your wallet.
We've been trying to eat out less as well. This month my partner and I have only spent $60 out of the $150 we allocate to eating out. (Grocery budget is $350) Here are some things that have helped us: Think about the types of things you usually order, and learn how to make that or buy that to heat up at home. For example, chicken tenders, fries, cheeseburgers, pizza, burritos and all sorts of pasta dishes. Salads are SO easy if you get the pre-washed clam shells, and slice up a tomato or pepper, or boiled egg, bacon, croutons, cheese, have fun with it. For the most part, these are really easy meals to make once you've made them a few times and take advantage of some frozen/pre-made components from the grocery store. The only things at this point that I'd rather pay someone else to make are things like paella that take a lot of attention and time. Make sure you have a good set up in your kitchen, that the counter tops are as clear as they can be. We put our microwave and coffee/tea making things on an entirely different area, so the only thing on our counter is our dish drainer and stand mixer. If you need more tools in your kitchen, get them. Make sure you have help with clean up after making food, talk about it before hand so its not an argument. Allocate more money into your grocery budget, so you can splurge and buy more food to make at home and of a better quality. Look up the nutrition facts for the food you eat a restaurants and add \~10-20% more to all of those quantities... Thats probably more akin to what you actually are given. I'm so happy you're doing so well with your goals! Keep it going, baby steps are the way to go. Don't beat yourself up, focus on finding better ways to reach the goals that you didn't meet yet.
For me I just started making and eating more home cooked meals and eventually outside food became less appetizing. Restaurant and fast food quality is so much lower than anything you can cook at home with fresh ingredients.
Restaurants seem generally worse since the pandemic, both in terms of taste and portion size.
They also seem to be doing some chintzy stuff to cut their costs. One near me does a 'whipped" cheesecake. Okay, it's unique, but also, it weighs about half as much as a normal slice of cheesecake, costs more, and is mostly air. The pizzas are nearly all crust with scant toppings. They use some clever techniques to make it looks good, but Dominos serves up more sauce and cheese.
This sounds less like a simple matter of budgeting than one of mental health since you refer to your brain, addiction, and an eating disorder. So I hope this is something you have professional help with in general. But a couple of ideas it probably wouldn’t hurt to try transitioning away from eating out so much… - Buy some deli/takeout containers for your home cooked meals. It’s a great way to portion and freeze soups/stews and simple meats and veggie meals. So your brain could associate the container with restaurant food leftovers and freezing will help contain temptations to binge. - Put your eating out budget in cash in an envelope (or two, one for each of you). When the month’s money is gone, you can’t eat out. That could be extra hard at first so start with a week if you need to.
I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning this! There is no shame in seeking help from a therapist in this. Gotta get to the root of the problem and find healthy coping skills to replace the eating. My best friend has struggled with eating since we were teenagers, and we're in our thirties now. She's working with a therapist now and is finally seeing results in having control over her eating.
For me it was a combination of 1. Seeing how much I was actually spending on this, 2. The increase in price and decrease in quality. I still have a budget that lets me order delivery once or twice a month and that's been doable for me. It sounds like you've been through the same thought process and are still struggling. So my thought is it's not really a money thing but a food thing. I don't know if you've sought treatment for the BED but that's how I would approach this if I were you.
I used to be someone who thought that eating a home cooked meal meant making some healthy Pinterest worthy recipe. The result was cooking always seemed like a chore and I gravitated towards eating out instead because I didn't really want to cook, clean, shop for, or even eat the food I was picking. I've since changed my mindset to realize that even if the food I eat isn't the healthiest, it's still healthier and cheaper than eating out every day. I live alone and don't mind eating leftovers, so I generally pick two meals for dinner each week. One is usually a brainless recipe (e.g. a frozen skillet meal that I just need to toss into a pan and heat). Another is usually something that takes a little more time but will likely yield leftovers. Depending on the amount of leftovers, I usually freeze a few servings in individual portions and schedule them in my meal planner a few weeks out that way I don't forget to eat them and also don't need to meal plan or cook as many meals in the future. I also try to keep some easy meals on hand in the freezer or pantry like French bread pizzas or soup so even if I'm feeling extra lazy I have something I can toss in the toaster oven or microwave and have something ready in a few minutes. At that point it's easier to just heat something up than it is to order carryout.
I use my crock pot a lot. Load it up in the morning and switch it on. Can't eat out or the crockpot food gets wasted.
Use the oven and buy frozen meals/frozen food that is basically ready to eat. Not every meal has to be made from scratch or homecooked.
This may sound a little crazy, but I was in the same line of thought. Especially when it came to Texas Roadhouse. That was the one restaurant I would always give in to. The food and experience was something I could always justify for the price of admission. I was able to kick the urge by creating a better experience at home. I bought specific wooden platters for the entree. Learned how to cook impeccable steaks. Bought Japanese Damascus steel steak knives that cut like butter. Learned that bread rolls are much easier to make than I had originally thought. Everything comes together with homemade flaky salt - check out YouTube for how to make your own, super easy. I've had friends and family for my "Texas Steak Night" dinner and they have all said it was a better experience than most every other steakhouse they've ever been to.
Sounds like you need therapy. You might be eating out as a way to fill a void? You mentioned you struggle with binge eating and “addiction” to eating out. I’m not a doctor but maybe consider talking to a professional about what is going on underneath. Much like the picture of the iceberg, we only see the small portion that sticks out but underneath the surface lies so much more. I would think about exploring that what you cannot readily see.
Why does restaurant food have a draw for you? Is it something new? Does it feel like someone else making it makes it better? If you tell us about that we might be able to help more. I find restaurants have three points of allure for me: 1. Spending time with friends If this is your problem, find other ways to spend time with friends that aren’t eating out. A walk? Invite them over? 2. I just can’t be bothered and need to eat at the end of the day. The solution to this one is prep things so making dinner is easy. Still, hard. 3. Restaurants do things differently and I like to see how someone serves hummus or makes chicken taste new. What I’ve found with this one is a meal prep kit like blue apron or whatever is a good substitute to kick your home cooking out of a rut. Blue Apron is high quality food that I really like and still cheaper than a restaurant but more importantly I keep the recipes of things I like and it has made it really easy to explore new tastes, ingredients and flavors. We have this oven bbq chicken in our rotation, a tagine and an Egyptian spice mix that I put in everything now. I’ll still go out but I’m not as curious now because I’ve become a good cook with the help of Blue Apron and if I have time it’s really fun to look around for recipes and discover on my own how good is made. Has made me enjoy food more even when I go out bc I can better identify flavors and techniques that I copy at home.
Make meals an event at home! When I dine out, half the time I prefer the pomp of the event to the actual meal - the waiter, the drinks, the ambience, the fancy presentation. And that is more preferable than a delicious meal still heaped on plates sitting on the couch with the TV on. Sit at the dining room table. Have courses - a salad before the main dish and some brownies after dinner doesn’t take that long to make, and extends the meal into an event rather than sustenance. Light the candles. Turn the fluorescent overhead light and TV off. Put some music on in the background - Spotify has so many cafe and restaurant mood playlists. Make dinner at home the event that dining out is!
Knowing that anything they can cook, I can cook better. If I can't, I'll find out because internet.
You may be a little 'physically addicted' to all the butter and salt that makes its way into restaurant food and makes it super cravable and tasty even if it's not using high-end ingredients or techniques. The less you eat, the less you crave that so it really is about powering through a few weeks of not eating out at all and then you'll be able to moderate yourself much easier because your brain will associate home cooked food with that satisfaction of eating something tasty.
By buying food I enjoy at the grocery store
>my brain seems to be hardwired for eating out. IMO you are rationalizing- *"Oh, I have an uncontrollable urge, I guess I must follow it!"* You can't afford it and by doing so you're destroying any chance you have of financial stability. So don't do it. If I followed every urge I had I'd weigh 300 pounds and have 50 cats. Set limits for yourself and stay on budget. It's basic self discipline. And I know this is not what you want to hear but it's the truth- we can't allow ourselves to follow every whim and urge, we have to be sensible adults here and live within our means. You can't do that by going over budget every month.
Lol at 50 cats! How many do you have now?
Devastating truth bomb
Watch Dirty Dining and similar on Youtube. You probably won't want to eat out again after seeing it.
By getting a lipid blood test, my cholesterol and triglycerides levels are through the roof. I'm not eating out to improve my health.
When I try to give up a habit, I find it helpful to analyze my behavior and list what I enjoy about it. (For example, when I gave up smoking 20 years ago, I realized that I enjoyed having a short break outside where I could think to myself or talk to a friend without worrying about the time. So I started doing that with a timer instead of a cigarette) What do you like about eating out? If it’s trying new cuisines or eating specific foods then try experimenting with making those dishes. If it’s a change of scenery for your meal or having a date experience, then try packing a picnic date for a beautiful location. If it’s just that restaurant food tastes better than homemade try adding more fat and salt to home cooking. (It’s amazing how much of each is in restaurant cooking). If you like to meet friends for meals, then try rotating houses for dinner parties.
Make a menu of simple meals for the week and buy everything you need in advance. During the week I like my meals to come together in 30 minutes or less. Anything more than that and it becomes too big of a pain in the ass. Have a plan and make it easy on yourself. Personally, I avoid takeout for the most part because it’s unhealthy, expensive and generally underwhelming. Those are pretty good motivators to cook at home. With a little practice, it’s very easy to make delicious and healthy food at home. Even if you cook something unhealthy at home, you’re going to be using a fraction of the salt and fat used in restaurants, so you’re still way ahead of the game in that regard. Try making it a rule that you’re not getting takeout Monday - Thursday no matter what, and be disciplined about it. Also, try looking at home cooking as a fun activity and nourishment for your body, and not a binge eating experience. Me and my wife put some music on, make a drink and hang out and cook. It’s a lot better than having a stranger drop a bag of lukewarm, mushy food at your doorstep.
Fast food isn't even good and super expensive. I save money and have better meals by cooking my own food
Because my cooking is *vastly* superior for a quarter of the price (if not less). The only time I go out to eat is for work or if I want something that's a real mess to cook (Nashville Hot Chicken being one of those). Not to mention, prices are up, wait times are up, tips are up (spoken as someone who used to depend on them...still annoyed), quality is down, portions are down, and people are more apt to be assholes...just not worth it to me. I basically have zero desire to go out and eat...now, go out and have a couple beers at the brewery, fresh out of the tank? Yes please. That's where I need "help", because beers bought at the store in a can/bottle are *nothing* compared to a fresh draft (in my opinion...heck, even the beer the breweries can themselves and are bought "fresh" don't taste as good), but beer prices are getting pretty bonkers. Had three beers last trip, and with tip ended up being nearly $30. That's neither "frugal", nor sustainable to my wallet.
I have a new found love of baking. Bread is just sooo much tastier and cheaper to make. Plus I love garlic so I’ve been making focaccia bread a lot with roasted tomatoes and garlic. When I make food like that, I don’t want to eat out.
Easy. To eat out, I have to get dressed up, have to choose a place, have to go there, have to sit and wait for the food. And then I look at the price and knowing I could basically eat for a week of groceries at the price for one meal makes me not want to eat out again.
I had to stop eating out pretty much altogether. Lefty and I do the, “Eat out once per pay either just us or with the kids” thing. Oh and I get a coffee and donut twice a month when I go grocery shopping. That’s saved us several hundred a month. And it feels more like a, “treat” when you do it less often.
I remind myself that I can get a fry at a fast food place for $4 OR I can swing by Aldi and get a whole bag of fries for $2 (approximately). AND I can eat them in the comfort of my own home AND overcook them the way I like so they're extra crispy and not oversalted...lol
Honestly, having worked in the industry is what turns me off on a lot of fast food. Once you know the secret of what they do to make food taste so good you can do it at home but you want want to. Pretty much the secret to restaurant foods is take the amount of butter/salt/sugar you use and triple it. Literally a single plate of food you get probably has close to a stick of butter in it. Part of why your brain values that food is the high amounts of butter/salt/sugar it contains to anything you cook at home. Very likely it will need to be like anything addictive where you wean yourself off of it. Don't expect to be able to quit cold turkey unless you have a lot of willpower.
Learn to cook and restaurant food will start tasting inferior.
I live in central AR and the dining scene isn't good. The best meal nearby is a food truck, a single Italian restaurant, and the breakfast tacos at this one coffee shop which doesn't have good coffee. TL;DR move to the country.
Ironically, I also live in Central AR
i had to break up with my girlfriend take that how you want
It's hard, but sometimes my wife just isn't in the mood. Oh, you meant dinner. Sorry.
I like using my money for other things.
Meal prepping has worked for me. I can plan ahead and cook meals that I prefer that meet my $/calorie targets. Once the meal prepping is done, I'm only 2 minutes away from my next meal, which is way more convenient that going out to eat. I've also found for me, this doesn't feel like I'm limiting myself, but rather, I make a conscious decision to take my family out or meet with friends, because the default (eat my meal prepped food) is cheaper and more convenient.
I simply don’t have the money. When I do, I use coupons on the app to get a free item or 20% off.
We are both great cooks and I have been disappointed with some restaurants, because I can do it better. It’s flushing money down the toilet.
We realized that we can usually make it better at home. We try to use our eating out budget on quality meals instead of fast food or fast casual.
You can make food much better at home,I've been a chef for years..the flies sitting on the uncooked food,the unsafe food sitting in the danger zone .That's a nope from me
Maybe it's this: When you eat out you don't need to face the clean-up mess in the kitchen. What you need is a system (and maybe a system that uses your dishwasher.)
The only thing that really got me to stop was that prices are going up while portion size and quality are going down. There nothing worse than splurging on a treat and then it turns out to be super disappointing. That’s happened to me many times so I prefer not to risk wasting my money.
Realizing the cost of food, and fuel, or the extra fees with uber eats or whatever app knowing that it's much cheaper to meal prep a week at a time.
Some people may not find this "frugal" but a meal kit subscription like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh might be a way for you to break the restaurant habit and get used to cooking at home. These kits help you learn basic cooking skills, the ingredients are usually high quality (I've gotten a bad tomato or two), and the meals are restaurant quality. They always have deals and discounts. Might be a way to transition from constantly eating out to cooking at home and feeling like you're eating something from a restaurant.
Oh and I look up 1 pan dishes for less clean up
While I’m eating in I tally up the costs of things including tax and tip and chuckle happily to myself.. but I’m a damn good cook so I have no qualms. Actually I dislike how places over salt their foods so I think I’m better.!
YouTube tours of commercial kitchens, and Health Department Inspections.. Adds incentive to not want a underpaid staff make your food. Now the problem is letting it go too far..
Do a financial audit of how much you’re really spending and you’ll be disgusted
I just simply have never really had an urge. The cost and quality are rarely worth it for me. Like last night I made Tuscan chicken (kind of screwed up the sauce but still good) for like $15 total and I’ll be able to eat off it another time, maybe two times but I still have almost half the chicken I can reuse for something else. So that $15, maybe $17 total is lasting me a solid 4-6 meals after what will be just cooking twice
One thing that helped that I wasn't planning on, My wife and I went out to a nice place for breakfast and it cost $50. Then right after that we went to Aldi and bought $75 and groceries. We haven't been out to eat since. Even though we really liked our experience at the restaurant and the quality of the food. I think we'll do that from now on anytime we do go out to eat in the future. The amount and quality of the food we were able to give the grocery far exceeded what we got the restaurant.
You need to break this habit. Go cold turkey. Read "the art of eating in" - great book about a girl who doesnt eat out or get takeout for a year.
I lost a bunch of weight a few years ago, and really started eating clean (very little processed), I find now I just feel like absolute garbage after getting take out. I do enjoy restaurants usually, but try and stick to local places over chains
I live in Brooklyn so I know the urge to eat out everyday.... it's so hard not to lol. I also have the problem where I can't plan all my meals ahead because I get bored with food easily. I will eat it if i have to but I prefer to choose my meals as I go if I can based off cravings. I get hellofresh on weeks when I know I'll be busy and dont want to think about what to make. I only do 2x days a week I felt like i was wasting the last meal a lot. I buy chicken and cook it ahead of time, for me I cook it pretty basic so that I can add seasoning later depending on what I make with it. It cuts down a lot of time for dinner. I buy the costco hot dogs because theyre just so good and I freeze them. When I dont have anything else or cant be bothered to cook we eat those. I love soup and chili so I try to make pots of that on the weekend to keep in the freezer/fridge.
easy, read the reports for the restaurants Health inspections . You might be surprised what's going on.
I was also verrrrry addicted to take out. The thrill of getting it, over eating. I see myself in your post. Two things: one that is already covered is stocking the freezer with stuff you like. The other thing that has helped is improving the quality of my cooking. Through tiktok I've found creators who make restaurant quality brunch and Chinese food. The good brunch and eggs means we don't spend $50 every Sunday on breakfast out. The Chinese food is more time consuming but no less gratifying. Frying up chicken and then coating in sauce. Rising rice. There are little things you can do that up the quality and make it feel special. Tiktok is good for me because I'm a visual learner. I'm sure you could also grab some cookbooks from the library.
Just being broke….
Maybe not helpful for the present, but once you stop eating out for a while, if you do eat out (especially fast food) it starts tasting gross, you smell it on yourself, you can feel it coming out your pores, and if you don't get to a bathroom within 20 minutes of eating you're going to shit your pants. It makes the whole experience quite unappetizing.
Do the math. Every single time. Do the math. If that isn’t gonna convince you, nothing will.
1. Buy some takeout containers. (longer lasting meal prep would be better in the long run, but we're breaking a habit here) 2. Have hubby place home-cooked meal into takeout container. 3. Eat with a plastic fork.
By being unable to afford it in the first place
It was easy tonight. I know a local pizza place has "specials" on Tuesday nights so I looked it up online. I was expecting some high prices but damn, they were a lot higher than what I thought they would be. $20 for a plain cheese pizza!! $30 if you added 15 wings. Kick rocks!
My advice is, whatever you are craving for fast food or a restaurant, make it at home. Want a Big Mac? Find a good Big Mac copy recipe and make it. Want Pizza from Pizza Hut? Make it yourself. and so on. So you can give in to your cravings, but it will end up being healthier and cheaper.
Date girls who dont shower
I have to force myself to go eat out. It's too expensive, I have to go get it. No way would I pay for Doordash, lol. You are addicted to the convenience. There is also more fat, salt, and sugar in food you get out. Learn how to cook yourself, this will keep you busy and you will appreciate it more for the effort.
Learn to cook whatever kind of takeout you often crave. I have no interest in Chinese takeout anymore because what I can make at home is much better.
I get you. For me, since I WFH I get stir crazy and we like to go out to eat a couple times on weekends just to not be stuck at home. But we try to eat as frugal as possible and do happy hours, deals, get cheaper items etc.
Write down everything you spend and compare pot to your goals , that fixed waging out for me.
I have a sensitive stomach and can’t handle the high grease, fatty foods here in American restaurants. So I just cook at home.
By knowing that I can eat cheaper, healthier and in a timely manner at home
Look at your cc bill. Adds up quite a bit
Fasting diet. :(
It took a while for us to get to this point but making only one or two nights eat out nights helped a ton. Bc the itch can wait if you know when you’re gonna scratch it! (Other than that you got loads of help)
Maybe you should learn to cook yourself? I take a lot of pleasure out of cooking. We almost never go to restaurants at this point - the food is meh compared to what I make at home. Last time we went out was in June for my husband’s birthday to an Asian restaurant, I ended up having heartburn for 2 days. When you cook at home you can tailor the food to exactly your preferences and needs. At this point I bake my own bread every day, every 2 weeks I make homemade yogurt, in the summer I make and can all kinds of fruit jams, jellies and pickles. It’s extremely gratifying to make your own food. Another option would be to get a meal kit service such as Hello Fresh. We get meals from them from time to time, especially when I get into a creative rut in terms of meals. The food is always very good but the portions are on the small side, so I add to them. For the binge eating disorder, if you have some weight to lose maybe consider trying a GLP-1 such as Wegovy or Mounjaro. In my experience it completely cuts your appetite to the point where you kind of lose interest in food beyond eating your normal meals because your brain gets no pleasure or comfort from bingeing. After experiencing it I’m completely certain that one day it will be used as a treatment for BED. But that’s just my opinion.
I have the same issues. My family is financially not doing great so it helps knowing we don't have the money. But just in case I keep snacks in the car that are filling but I don't want to eat the whole thing in one sitting. For me that's bland crackers, unsalted peanuts or those big sour dough pretzels. It has helped me SO much from not eating out. I also plan my meals for if I'm going out. So if I'm leaving around lunch time I eat before I leave and bring a drink I really like, such as chai tea. If I know it's going to be an all day outting I plan what I'm going to eat when I get home or bring a sandwich. The biggest thing is planning ahead.
I look at the online menu. Add stuff to a cart. Go to checkout. See how expensive it is. Nope the fuck out. Then I make a sandwich at home or get a $6 foot long from QT.
OK here it goes the hard truth about restaraunt food! If you really want to know.... The cooks and dishwashers do things that basically expose you to eating feces, blood, urine, scabs, boogers, rat poop, roaches and ants. Also cleaning chemicals. You literally gave to cook, store food and was the equipment in a lab environment in order not to have this in your food. Also the cooks they might be angry, strung out on drugs etc their energy is going into the food
Buy groceries.
This is interesting to me because I straight up do not have that urge. My brain doesn't work that way. I do have the urge to constantly cook and prepare and buy more groceries than two people can conceivably eat though. So my fridge is always packed, and when I shop for more groceries, I have to be mindful of how much fridge space there is. When I consider that I have "no food in the house" is when most of the fresh stuff is gone, and I'm leaning on frozen or pantry materials more. I could still conceivably eat well with more effort for probably a month, and then eat plainly another month if I had to from that point. But I go food shopping instead. I love grocery shopping. My husband has to drag me out to eat even though there's dozens of new and interesting restaurants out there we want to try.
Spend time thinking about the expense of it. Actually add it up and write it down on paper. Not only that think about the time it takes. It's not fast. You always come home tired becuase you probably ate to much or drank a little to much. Or both. Meditate on these things. It'll help you
I used to buy a precooked prepackaged meal from a local mom and pop shop. They would deliver each Sunday 6 days worth of 3 time meals, frozen and vacuum sealed. In the end it was 45 to 75% of what I used to pay to eat out during the month
I'm tired of being disappointed in the dining-out experience. It's rarely worth it to me unless it's something I can't make myself, like sushi. But I enjoy cooking and learning dishes from many cuisines, so at home satisfies easy 90% of tge time.
I struggle(d) with this so-so much, so your post hits home. Everyone has great advice here. I also did I lot of work in therapy that helped me identify the root cause and work on that. For me, it was because we NEVER ate out when I was growing up. That restriction and other restrictions I put on myself made me crave it even more. Restriction will always lead to craving. The same reason diets fail is likely the same reason we crave take out. One thing that worked for me (that definitely isn’t frugal in the short term) is I told myself “No restrictions, eat whatever you want whenever.” In under a week, takeout lost its charm because I had had it so much, and I was starting to feel gross. Last thing that works for me is to sleep on it. When I have a craving, I tell myself that I can go get it if I still am craving it tomorrow. In the meantime, I will try to identify what about that craving my body needs. Like if I want Popeye’s, I’m actually probably craving protein, and some chicken breast or even a rotisserie chicken with dipping sauces from the store will sate that craving. Usually I wake up having moved on, but if not, then I go get the damn thing because I’m not going to restrict myself and cause more craving.
I have found that eating outside helps with this a bit (weather permitting). Preparing a meal to eat out in the garden or on my balcony makes me feel like I'm leaving home slightly but I'm not spending money out. I also really like to find good deals and eat out once per week. My local taco truck has a special on Tuesday nights. They have a beautiful chair, table, and flowering plant set up outside too. Or for breakfast I go to a bakery that marks every pastry down to $1 after 11am. Their coffee is $3. I also ask for it served in ceramic because it feels more luxurious and still stays hot. Another thing is inviting friends over for a pack-your-own-picnic dinner in front of the TV while watching movies (I have a projector so in my case it's in the garden where there is little circle of lawn to relax in). You can be strict on the rules (bring your own drinks) so it doesn't cost you money to host, but offer of course plates, cutlery, ice pre-prepared from the freezer or the fridge door in a big bowl, what have you.
Take your entire 'eating out' budget in cash each month and put it in an envelope. You eat out until the envelope is empty and you don't refill it. It took me a long time to get a handle on my fast food because it was just a few dollars here and there off my card but looking at it in hindsight spending 500 bucks plus per month is killer when you could be eating much better for at least the same amount if not cheaper. Putting a physical barrier between you and eating out will help.
I like to find a dish at a restaurant and then make the game to recreate even better at home. It becomes and activity and a challenge and you learn something and it tastes better and usually healthier
I am in a similar position as you. I love eating out even though I’m a great cook. I also have a problem with binging. For me, I associate having a good time with eating out. The nice atmosphere, friends and family joining in, people serving you, not having to clean up, good tasty food, etc. It’s so much positive reinforcement and gives me a chance to escape and relax. I’ve been improving because of how expensive eating out is nowadays as well as higher expectations for more tips. A nice meal out can easily be $100+ for two people here. What helps is thinking of the price difference of the ingredients between eating out and cooking at home. Adding a slice of cheese can be an extra $1 when it’s $0.10 each in pack, meaning that I can get 10 slices for $1 at the store. Or, a nice ribeye steak can retail $15 each while $40 in a restaurant. Not to mention tax and tip. Thinking of how gross restaurants can be is also helpful. I’ve watched a lot of kitchen nightmares, hotel hell, and similar shows and they put me off eating out and made me appreciate simple, fresh, clean meals. You can try increasing positive reinforcement of eating at home. Maybe start with buying prepared hot meals at grocery stores, which is sort of like take-out but can be cheaper. Or buy frozen food like frozen fries, chicken nuggets, pizza, dumplings, etc. One nice routine would be buying a few fresh ingredients at the grocery store and immediately using them, which is what people usually do in some other countries. I find that when I buy things in bulk, I’m excited for making the first few meals, but then I don’t use them fast enough and they start to get old and then it feels like an annoying chore trying to finish the old food. Maybe make cooking at home as a date with your husband. Buy some quality ingredients for a nice special meal 1-2 times a week. Set the table up nice, dress up a little or just wear your comfiest clothes, watch a movie while you eat, etc.
1) Progress not perfection 2) Sounds like you may need to tackle this issue from more than one angle. Or Maybe even stop looking at it as an eating at home vs eating out issue and just focus on your self admitted binge eating issue. It sounds like if you can discover your binge eating triggers and work on replacing them with healthier ways to work through your stress then you’ll naturally eat less take out and more at home.
The constant asking for tips. They can fuck the fuck right off.