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Do you want to eat at home more often so you can save money? In this post, I’m sharing tips to eat at home more, so you can stop spending so much money eating out.
How can I start eating at home more? There are several things you can do to make eating at home more enjoyable, simpler, and budget friendly.
It’s not hard or complicated, but it may take a couple of weeks to get into the routine and habit of eating at home on a regular basis.
In this post, I’m sharing ways to eat at home more often, without causing you extra stress or overwhelm.
15 Tips to Eat at Home More and Save Money
If you want to eat at home more often, you probably want to save money and eat healthier. But did you know eating at home can also be pretty quick and easy, too?
You can enjoy more relaxing time at home with your family, instead of waiting in a drive thru line or driving to get take out. It’s easier than you think.
Here are some tips to help you get started eating at home more often, without adding extra stress or time commitments to your already full schedule.
15 Tips to Eat at Home More:
Use these tips to find ways to eat at home more often, so you can save money, eat better, and enjoy more time at home.
1. Make a list of quick, easy, and cheap meals you know your family loves.
Write down as many meals that your family loves as you can think of. You can organize them by type of meat to make it easier to find a meal to make based on what meat you have on hand.
This list will be extremely helpful to guide you in making a super quick meal plan for the week.
Ask your family to contribute to the list, so everyone is on board and a part of the plan to eat at home more.
2. Pick a day of the week to make a meal plan.
I like to make my meal plan on Sunday for the week ahead. Find a day and time that works for you to take a few minutes to look through the food you have on hand and make a quick meal plan for the week ahead.
Get into the habit of making your meal plan on the same day each week, and it will become second nature before long.
3. Pick a day of the week to grocery shop.
You can grocery shop right after you make your meal plan, or the next day so you make sure to get everything you need for your meals for the week.
If you don’t have much time, schedule a grocery pickup order and save yourself a lot of time!
4. Make a simple meal plan for the week.
Look through the food you have on hand and use your list of meal ideas to quickly make a simple meal plan for the week.
Make sure to include only meals you can make quickly and easily. Save the complicated recipes and new recipes you want to try for nights when you have more free time. There’s no need to overcomplicate this!
If you know which nights your family will be super busy, plan the quickest meal for that night.
Use this free weekly meal planner printable to make your menu for the week.
5. Keep your meal plan in plain sight for everyone.
Hang your meal plan on a corkboard in the kitchen, write it on a magnetic notepad on the fridge, or on a chalkboard in the kitchen.
You need to keep the menu in plain sight so everyone can see what’s for dinner and not ask you, and so you can quickly see your meal plan and get things ready to cook.
6. Write your meal plan in your planner, too.
Once you make your meal plan for the week, quickly jot it down in your planner, too.
If you are away from home, you can look at it and get your mind prepared of what you are going to cook for dinner.
7. Get into the habit of always pulling the meat for tomorrow’s dinner from the freezer to thaw in the fridge overnight, while you make tonight’s dinner.
While you make dinner for tonight, look at your meal plan (that is in plain sight in your kitchen) to see what you have planned for tomorrow. If you have anything that needs to be pulled from the freezer to thaw, do that now.
There’s nothing worse than getting ready to make dinner and realizing you forgot to thaw the meat. If that does happen, be sure to check out these pantry meal ideas for back up meal ideas.
8. Keep your kitchen clean and organized.
It’s so much easier to cook dinner in a kitchen that is clean and organized. If you don’t have any clean dishes, it’s going to be much harder and take a lot longer to cook dinner. You’ll be tempted to go out to eat instead.
If you keep your food organized, it’s easy to clearly see what ingredients you have and what you need to complete your menu.
9. Make appropriate portions.
Try to make appropriate portions for your family size to avoid wasting food. It can be very disheartening to spend time making dinner, only to have a lot of extra that goes to waste.
10. Freeze leftovers.
If you do have leftovers, freeze them or use them for lunches to avoid food waste.
11. Take 1 hour a month to make freezer meals.
Take one hour at the beginning of each month to prepare as many meals for the freezer as you can. These are life savers on busy nights when you don’t have time to cook.
Freezer meals don’t have to be complicated or take a lot of time. You can make a large batch at once, or make a double batch of dinner when you can, and freeze one for later.
Check out my 19 favorite quick and easy freezer meals here.
12. Try using theme nights to make your meal plan.
Theme nights can be a fun way to make your meal plan, and can take a lot of the stress out of meal planning.
Decide on a different theme for each night of the week, like Crockpot Sunday, Meat and Three Monday, Taco Tuesday, Pasta Wednesday, Instant Pot Thursday, Pizza Friday, Sheet Pan Saturday.
Having themes for each night will help you quickly think of different meals to make, and not feel like you are making the same thing over and over.
Read more about theme nights meal planning here and get a sample meal plan to follow.
13. Do dishes right after dinner.
Doing the dishes right after dinner is a great habit to start. Dishes are a lot easier to clean when they haven’t set in the sink for hours, and you’ll get your kitchen clean and ready for tomorrow.
This doesn’t have to be your job, either! Get your family involved and helping in the kitchen to take some of the work off your plate.
14. Get your family to help out.
Meal planning and cooking meals doesn’t have to be a one person job. Get your family to help out making the meal plan, making the grocery shopping list, pulling food out to thaw, keeping the kitchen clean and organized, doing the dishes, and helping cook dinner.
15. Keep the dinner table clear.
Don’t let your dinner table become a drop zone. Keep it cleared off, so you can get dinner on the table quickly. You may need to set up a command center or drop zone for your family to use instead.
There are the 15 tips to eat at home more, so you can save time and money.
Eating at home doesn’t have to be stressful, or complicated. In fact, once you get into the habit of eating at home, I think you’ll be less stressed knowing you are saving money, eating better, and enjoying more time at home with your family.
Grab your free weekly meal planner printable and make your simple meal plan for the week.
Want ready to go meal plans done for you?
If you can’t find the time to make a meal plan each week, but still want to eat at home, I have a solution for you. The Eat at Home meal planning service does all the work for you by sending you 4 ready to go weekly meal plans.
All you have to do is use the grocery shopping list provided to get the groceries, and follow the meal plan. It makes it so easy to eat great meals at home, and still save money. Check out the Eat at Home meal plans here.
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