Challenge the first: Cook dinner every night for a month

[jamethiel]

Take-away and eating out costs a lot more. We've all got busy lives and finding the time and energy to prepare every meal is really difficult.

For a month, I'm going to make an effort to cook every single night. I have flatmates and we share the cooking so it's easier for me than for some. Still, it's going to require some planning and preparation. Who's with me? Comment if you want to take the challenge!

Needless to say, your commitment to this can absolutely vary. I am giving myself a pass for nights I have gigs and can't eat dinner beforehand. I can't really take a boxed meal to a gig! Also, it doesn't apply when I'm out on a date. You may decide that there is one night a week where friends come over and you have takeaway. It's all good!

What this challenge is aiming to prevent are those times when it's been a day from hell and you come home and look at the ingredients you have and you go "... stuff it. I'm getting take-away."

It'll require a bit of prep. You'll need to do your shopping a week in advance, which means planning your menu. I'll do a post on that on Friday and we'll be starting the actual challenge on Monday.

Of course, if your pay cycle doesn't synch with the challenge, feel free to pick it up at a later date.

Comments

[landshark]

I really need to do this since I'm not working and my money is getting dangerously low.

Question: Why do we have to shop a week in advance?

[killing_rose]

I know for me, if I shop on say, Friday, for the week of cooking that starts on Sunday, it forces me to already have a menu for the next week planned. It keeps me from living on Indian food when I'm exhausted.

[jamethiel]

It's a YMMV thing. I've found that it's best for me and these are the reasons why.

There are all kinds of studies done about impulse buying. Essentially it boils down to "When we are tired and hungry, we buy more." What I'm aiming to do here, at least for staples is have your menu with the majority of ingredients already at your home. You may need to do a fruit and veg run midweek and of course there's milk and other perishables but I've done the figures on myself and my spending at the supermarket goes WAY down with a weekly shop. While I do still buy the extra bar of chocolate, I'm only in there once a week so I only buy one extra bar of chocolate. As opposed to the 4 or five I'd buy if it was a nightly shop. So that's $8 weekly saved right there.

The other reason is time. For me, the time taken to get to a supermarket is significant. It's ten minutes drive each way. Half an hour each way if I take public transport and I don't always have a car. The act of shopping, especially if I have a menu and a list planned in advance, actually takes less time. So while the shop itself may take half an hour as opposed to 10 minutes, but when you add the half hour each way travel time onto that, it becomes a huge timesaver to do the majority of my shopping in one hit.

If you're really disciplined and you can do your shopping after work very quickly for that night's dinner and it DOESN'T take you more time and you're not going to give into temptation and just go "You know what? I'm just going to have beer and cornchips for dinner" (... not that I've ever done that *is classy*) then feel free to do your shop nightly. Or if you just don't have the storage in your fridge. But for me, weekly shops are a huge money and time saver.

[landshark]

Ok yeah that all makes sense. When I read through the post the first time and saw cooking, my brain automatically filed this challenge under homeeconomics101 and it seemed unusual.

But thanks for explaining--those are some good points.

:D

[jumpuphigh]

I can answer this. Running out to shop every couple of days really increases your spending. You end up not just buying the ingredients you need but "oh, I want some ice cream" and "let me get some snacks" and before you know it, you've blown your budget.

I have two separate stores that I go to regularly and they carry different things. I hit each of them with a list once a month. Then, about halfway through the month, I hit someplace for another batch of fresh fruits and veggies. It has decreased my spending an incredible amount.