Food For Thought

I’ve got food on my mind this week. Our $50 dining out budget was blown by the fourth of July, and it’s been hard trying not to give in to temptation since then.

I never realized how many fast food commercials are out there until we were trying to eat at home instead of dining out so often. Suddenly, I find myself salivating at mention of a five-dollar foot long, cheesy bacon beef and potato burrito, or bacon cheddar angus burger. With all those TV commercials, billboards, and radio ads, it’s easy to see why we find ourselves wanting to eat out so often. And with trying to limit ourselves, it’s been kind of like dieting. When you know you’re not supposed to have that piece of chocolate cake, you want it even more. And if you’re not careful, you might just go crazy and eat the whole darn cake.

To help Willie and I stay on track with our plans to eat at home, I’ve made a list of reasons why people eat out and possible solutions/alternatives for each situation:

1. Wanting to try a new menu item. Blame this on all those commercials you see. My advice on this is just to wait on it— give it a couple days or even weeks and see if you’re still thinking about the new menu item. If you are, go ahead and get it. Just make sure you account for it in your budget.

2. To celebrate a special occasion, like a birthday, promotion, or anniversary.  What kind of celebration is complete without food? Sometimes you have to just go along if friends or family invite you out to celebrate. But if taking your friend out for her birthday is your gift to her (because you can never think of what else to buy, like me) try taking her out to do something else, like going to a museum, concert, or festival. As far as anniversaries go, what’s better than having a romantic dinner at home? (Hint hint, Willie). :)

3. To socialize with friends or family. It seems like whenever people get together, food is always involved in some way. I suppose that makes sense given that we all typically eat three times a day (plus snacks). Maybe instead of going out to a restaurant, you could have a cookout or potluck at home. My girl friends and I used to get together once a month for girls dinner in. We’d take turns hosting and each month was a different theme, like Mexican, fondue, or tapas. Each person would bring a different part of the meal and we got to try lots of tasty things without ever spending a whole lot.

4. Convenience/time crunch. It’s easy to justify going through a drive through when you’re busy rushing from work to pick up the kids to a softball game to home, sometimes with errands in between. I’ve never tried this myself, but maybe you could prepare a make-ahead grab n’ go meal the night before, like sandwiches or wraps. Stick them in the fridge or a cooler and pick them up if you stop home in between.

5. Craving something in particular. I’ve tried to manage cravings by trying to make my favorite fast food or restaurant items at home. You can find “copy cat” cookbooks or many websites with recipes for famous restaurant items, like Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits and Cinnabons. Other things are pretty easy to replicate if they have simple ingredients (like crispy chicken snack wraps).

6. Traveling or going out of town. Depending on where you’re going or how long you’re going to be away, you can try to bring food with you when you’re on the go. Pack a cooler of sandwiches, sodas, and snacks for on the road. If you’re going to be staying somewhere for several days and have a kitchen, you could pick up groceries when you get there to make meals in. Of course if you don’t have anywhere to store or prepare food, you’ll have to dine out, so just make sure you’re budgeting for it in advance.

7. Eating out just for something to do. Sometimes going out to a restaurant is an event in and of itself and it’s nice just to get away every once in a while. One alternative to this might be to take a picnic lunch or dinner to a park.

8. Date night. People have been doing the whole dinner and a movie thing for so long that they’re even offering discounts at certain restaurants if you show your movie ticket from the same day now. (I never did understand this, though— you should get the discount at the movies for showing your dinner bill since you normally eat first, right?) Suggestions for this might be to go on that picnic I mentioned above, or just eat at home and then go out and do other date night activities that don’t involve food.

9. Tradition as part of other activities. A lot of time food goes with other things, like pizza and beer after bowling, hot dogs at a baseball game, or brunch after church on Sundays. It’s hard to break tradition, but perhaps you could cut back to every other week so that it takes up less of the food budget.

Now that I’ve thought this through, hopefully the next time the urge to grab something out comes up, I’ll be able to refer to my list and come up with a better solution for us. And if we do end up eating out, we’ll try to savor each bite and do better next time.