Project Update

Our project seems to be getting easier as time passes. The convenience of eating out has been replaced by the convenience of frozen food, which at first seemed a little like cheating. However, the goal of the Eat at Home Project was not to cook something every night (although that would be wonderful), but to save the money we used to spend on eating out.

Even the small amount we allowed ourselves ($20 a week – which you may recall is about one third of the amount we averaged last year) is running well under budget. We could have spent $160 so far, but we’ve only spent $87.29 - just over half. In addition, our grocery bill has not gone up as I anticipated it would. In reality, we are even spending less at the grocery store. (I attribute this to eating meat which is a good deal cheaper than vegetarian products.) Of course we’ve been shopping sale items and clipping coupons for several years.

As we progress into eating at home more and more it becomes a little painful to spend any money at restaurants. For example, when we arrived at the mall last weekend, my son announced that he had not eaten breakfast and was hungry. (This ploy was often used in the past to gain lunch at a nice restaurant.) But our solution on this occasion was to fork over only $2 for two of the value menu cheeseburgers from McDonald’s. This was enough to appease the boy, but not enough to damage the budget, and Jeff and I are growing more protective of that $20 weekly cushion. (I must admit here, however, that our son has repeatedly pointed out that we are allotted that amount and should, therefore, spend it. He has even suggested that we would be helping the economy by doing so.) Of course I’m more interested in helping our personal economy right now.

Even if the general economy rebounded tomorrow, I don’t think we’d be eager to go back to our old habits. After all, we didn’t eat fast food because we particularly liked it. Frozen popcorn shrimp in the oven is just as good (and much less expensive) than Long John Silver’s. Tacos at home are better than either Taco Bell or Del Taco because we can build the “grande” kind with plenty of cheese, tomatoes, black olives, smoky chipotle salsa, and sour cream. (And variations like sweet potato tacos are even better!) In addition, the higher ticket restaurants often disappointed us in their bland sameness, not to mention the noise levels.

The only restaurant I actually miss is my perennial favorite – Pei Wei. The food there is never disappointing with sauces ranging from sweet to savory to fiery. I love that any sauce – spicy orange, sweet honey, tangy lemon, and more – can go with any meat (shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, even tofu) and any style (seared, stir fried, breaded). Sometimes pan-seared tofu with spicy orange sauce and vegetable fried rice dances through my dreams. Other nights honey chicken is the entrée of choice complemented perfectly by crab rangoons. When the alarm sounds at 5:30 a.m. I awake to the faint aroma of sesame oil and stir fried onions, which quickly fades from my brain but leaves me yearning for just a bite of deliciousness. (Sigh.) Perhaps Jade is right after all.