The N.E.O. (No Eating Out) Experiment
We live a very fast-paced, cram-packed life, as a family. At any given time, we may have 4 different places to take the kids, and rehearsals or work, or appointments or meetings to race to, and eating out often is just a regular part of our lives.
But now, we’ve got a new Thomas Family Challenge.
Due to the massive amounts of eating out we do, and the multitude of hundreds that go every month to restaurants, fast food joints, Starbucks, ice cream shops, etc….we decided to take the challenge, and declare April “No Eating Out Month”. No burgers, no coffees, no ordering pizza, no going out to eat on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, no walking to our favorite breakfast place and getting bagels and smoothies on Saturday morning.
Nothing. For a whole month!
It has made a big difference so far. We are eating at home all the time. I’m forcing myself to take the time to make dinner. The kids are taking their lunches to school. We are packing snacks for Hannah when we go out.
Ok, I should add, we’ve agreed on a few exceptions. Wayne had a Men’s Ministry get together last week at Starbucks, and he bought a plain coffee. Last night, he was leaving for work (to work 12 hours, graveyard) and had to stop for something at Sonic because he was running too late to make something. At the end of the month, I’ll be leading worship for a weekend Women’s Retreat, and we will have to eat on the road. I might take my food if I’m feeling really ambitious. But other than that, we are Not Eating Out. We even took an ice chest of food to go pick up our son from LAX, and I made sandwiches in the passenger’s seat. Different.
We are expecting this to significantly increase our grocery bill each week, naturally. But we figure, it’s much cheaper to feed our family of 6 by buying ingredients to make dinner, rather than eating out so much. We’re doing the N.E.O. Experiment to see how much we save.
What will happen after April? Will we go back to our eating out all the time habits? Will we eat out much less? Will we be so convinced that we’ll continue the new lifestyle? Whatever we do, I’m hoping it’s worth it…I’m missing my White Chocolate Mochas…
Has your family ever done this, or any other team effort for the good of the whole family?
$1124.71
That is the amount we spent at restaurants during the month of March. Wow!
$520.21
That is the amount we spent at restaurants through the first 9 days of March. That included a trip out of town for us. But still, that’s astronomical!
$44.09
That is the amount we have spent at restaurants through the first 9 days of April. MUCH BETTER! Dang!
$44.09 is still much more than I thought. Maybe some things from the end of March didn’t hit the online banking til the first few days of April…!! (has to be that!)