Little Change 5

Well, here we are. Week 5 already. And I have made very little progress on the weight loss and money saving fronts. In fact, I probably weigh more and have less money than at the start. This little change is meant to counter-act both of those facts with one fell swoop.

I will plan, prepare and eat supper at home every evening.

(Unless it is a special occasion.)

I decided to put that qualifier there because I know that there will be occasions like my birthday and anniversary that I will want to go out for a meal. And there is no reason that I shouldn't. I can afford to dine out, and I believe in all things in moderation. Plus, the point of these changes is to make my life better and healthier, and I don't think that it is "better" or "healthier" to deny yourself all the things you enjoy all of the time.

As I said, this change is important in reaching both my weight loss and money saving goals.

When you plan your meals and prepare and eat them at home you have greater control over what you eat and how much of it you eat. Restaurants tend to give you far too much food because it is cheap for them, but allows them to charge more without you feeling cheated. Also, restaurant meals can have enormous amounts of salt and fat that you probably wouldn't eat at home. Example, at restaurants I eat a lot of French fries; at home, I don't make French fries; but I don't miss them.

Further, I can feed my husband and myself on about $100 worth of groceries every week, but if we were to eat out every night (as we have been doing lately) it would cost FAR more than that. I predict the savings will be substantial.

Most of the laziness to be conquered is in the planning stage. I enjoy cooking and clearly enjoy eating. The major difficulty here will be planning the meals and grocery shopping once a week to buy all my necessary ingredients. A secondary difficulty will be that my husband is in charge of dishes and he has made no such pact to stop being lazy. I hate cooking in a dirty kitchen and he does frustrate me by washing only the EXACT dishes that we need to prepare and consume a meal.

However, that is a little change for another week. Let this week being with its evening meals full of promise. Tonight is a rush night, so we are having turkey sandwiches. Yum!