Preparing Your Own Meals
Even a generation or two ago, eating at restaurants used to be reserved for special occasions, and eating prepared foods was practically unheard of except among a few lifelong bachelors.
Today, it's actually less common to make a meal from scratch than it is to eat at a restaurant, get take-out or fast food, or prepare a meal by mixing together ingredients from a box. Do people actually make meals from scratch?
Doing a Little Cooking
Yes, they do. one way to save hundreds of dollars every month is by making your own food. You don't even have to be very good at it: Even the least-seasoned chef can boil pasta and mix it with tomato sauce or broil a piece of chicken or beef. If you can make toast, you can cook. And the more you cook — even the easy stuff — the better you'll get at it; then you can progress to more difficult meals.
The trick, of course, is that you have to take time out of your life to shop and cook, and most people don't have time these days. But if you're trying to meet your financial goals and don't have the opportunity to make more money, you can save a great deal of money by taking the time to cook. Keep in mind that because you pay income taxes, you can gain more ground by saving money than by earning more money.
A great way to learn how to cook is to watch a cooking show and try to follow along in your own kitchen. If you watch a cooking show regularly (and in addition to Martha and Rachael, there are several cooking shows on cable and PBS), you can often go online to find a shopping list for the next episode.
Seeing How Much Eating Out Really Costs
To find out how much you can save, think about a plate of Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken from a local restaurant. Visualize what's in a plateful, even if you don't know much about cooking. Offhand, you might guess that there's about a quarter pound of fettuccine, half a cup of cream, two tablespoons of butter, a quarter pound of chicken, and maybe a few other ingredients, but that's close enough.
List the ingredients in your favorite dish on WORKSHEET 6-1, and the next time you're at the store, price it out. You can make a big portion of Fettuccine Alfredo for about $2.90 — it will cost at least $12.95, plus a tip, at your local Italian restaurant.
Of course, you won't get your meal prepared and served, but you also won't have to drive to the restaurant, wait in line, or pay a tip. Want to save money? Prepare your own food!
Ingredient |
Price to Buy at Store |
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
$ |
|
TOTAL |
$ |
