I read a statistic a couple of weeks ago, that Americans spend 130 million each year eating out. WOW!! That is a LOT of money. I think that eating out is why a lot of people go over budget. It is amazing how quickly that money can add up. We are traveling to Baltimore right now. (I am typing up this post in the van.)  We stopped this morning to eat breakfast on the way, and spent $18. That is as much as I spend on food for an entire week often for our family. Pretty crazy, huh??  So what can we do to avoid eating out quite as much and save money??

Here are a few things that I do. Typically when we travel, I pack our meals to bring with us. This doesn’t take much extra time at all, and can save a lot of money. Plus, your family can stop whenever they are hungry. You don’t have to wait to find a restaurant everyone agrees with. I usually just pack us sandwiches and fruit.

For everyday life, I usually keep a few snacks in a bag in the car. There are so many days that I think I will be home by lunchtime, but we end up being a few minutes late. I am able to give my kids snacks to tide them over until we get home for lunch. This way I don’t have to stop and buy lunch for everyone.

At home, I keep a bunch of quick meals on hand. I can beef stew, chicken and rice, chili, different soups, chicken topping for bread (chicken a la king) etc for quick hot meals. All that I have to do is open up the jars and we have a ready made, healthy, organic meal. I was actually really excited when I was packing yesterday because I was able to come up with 17 meals that I had canned for us to take with us on our trip. That is going to be so helpful to save money and time while we are up there. Plus, my kids will still be getting plenty of organic veggies and meat. Also, the food didn’t take up too much space since I wasn’t having to pack tons of ingredients, but instead was packing ready made meals.

Also, I keep ingredients for quick meals ready. Even if we don’t want an instant canned meal, there are several go to recipes that we use that are QUICK (15 minutes of less) to make. If I can make a meal that fast, it is quicker than going out to eat anyway.

Experiment in the kitchen, and find recipes that you like. Keep those ingredients on hand so you are always able to make those meals. I also always have the ingredients for pizza and hamburger meals since those are the fast food cravings that my hubby might get. I can easily whip up our own.

What quick, easy and cheap recipes are your go to recipes at your house??

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