Money Saving Tips...series

 This weeks money saving idea is Spend Your Money At The Grocery Store NOT Restaurant! You can have the same meals at a fraction of the cost by fixing it yourself. 

I have to be honest - we are not always good about following this one, but I think we are getting better with this one. The truth is ever so often we like to go out. One thing has happened recently that will make it easier for us to say no about going to our favorite mexican restaurant. They used to make their own ranch dressing and it was SO delicious! Yummy!! But then they were short handed and not able to make it so had to go to a less delicious ranch dressing. Then prices began to climb and then climb again. So quality slowly went down hill and prices up hill. I totally understand with the economy the way it is. But I am glad that we recognized these issues because it makes it where it is not so hard not to go. 

Thankfully we have some reward points that we get when we use our credit card- and we can use them for gift cards - so we can use those to go out sometimes. And this is nice because we can go out without money out of our pockets. 

But like I said in at the beginning when you spend your money at a grocery store on food - you can make great meals at a fraction of the cost of eating out. My husband loves bbq - so we bought a brisket and he will cook it up in the smoker today. We will then divide it into several meals. One of which is a baked potato with bbq brisket on top. And my husband makes us tanglers- just like Dickie's BBQ used to do before they shut down. So we can have that same meal at much less cost to us. We will use some of it and then we will put some in freezer for individual meals for later. 

I used to hate to spend very much on meat - probably because i am not a big meat eater, but when I realized that my husband really wants his meat and if it is not served at home - then he is more tempted to eat out. So I am willing to spend more money on meat now. It really is a good investment. It helps the money stretch further. Buying groceries to make some good meals at home it well worth the investment in the over all picture. 

I will be honest when money wasn't so tight we went out to eat maybe once a week. Sometimes we might stop for something quick every now and then as well. But now we know that we need to be more watchful of how we spend out money. And I hope that I can keep in mind that we will do much better if we will spend our money on keeping the pantry stocked with ingredients to make good meals. :O) 

For those of you in the USA - Happy 4th of July!!