Not eating out and saving money.

This is my area of expertise!!

Every February (the shortest month and a great time to recoup financially and health-wise from Christmas indulgence), our family does a no eating out challenge. Nothing, nada, zilch - like I'm talking not even a soda from a vending machine. Back when the kids were little, we had an incentive for them like a new toy at the end of the month if there was no complaining. :-) They are older now, and there's no reward, but they can also spend their own savings/allowance to "break" the challenge. They generally choose not too.

This past February, I also tried to "spring clean" the pantry and get really creative with meals. We saved $725 in one month using both methods. WOW!

I have since decided that the February challenge kind of kicks my ass a bit - especially during a gloomy time of year. SO, the new plan is we do the challenge one week per month Friday to Friday. We will actually be saving more money over the long term, but it won't be so hard on me.

Is there a way to IM through the board - I don't want to share it here because it links to my full name, but I have a board on pinterest of all the recipes I've made and my family loves. I have 231 currently, and they are all tried and true winners. Would love to share with you!

As for us, our long-term goal is building a log home on a nice piece of property. We plan to buy the land in 5 years and go from there.

Good luck!!

We mostly eat at home but we've always been more likely to eat at home than go out. When we want to cut expenses we do cut down on eating out. Lately it's a crapshoot whether I'll feel like eating anything at all so the family has a lot of 'fend for yourself' nights where they make omelets, sandwiches, quesadillas, or something else easy and cheap. Eggs are a big staple here because we have seven laying hens and we always have an excess of eggs. I think there are eight dozen eggs in my fridge right now. And when the garden gets going, there will be a lot we can eat out of there. We're already drowning in asparagus and later this summer I have a feeling there will be a lot of eggs+veg meals which will be homegrown and (nearly) free.

We were saving up to remodel the kitchen which is dated but has a pretty good layout. We wouldn't need to rip the whole thing out and start over but we do want to reface the cabinets, get new countertops and backsplash, move the dishwasher, and update some appliances, and get new flooring. But then I got sick and our kitchen fund paid for cancer instead. We are stuck with our 1980's Olive Garden-looking kitchen for the foreseeable future but there are worse things. We did manage to save up enough to cover our upcoming trip to NYC (a bucket list item for me) and at the moment it feels much more important to make good memories with the family that it does to fix up my house or buy something or eat out. Should I croak, my kids are not going to remember that we had awesome flooring in the kitchen but they will remember seeing Hamilton on Broadway with their mother. So.