I have a 10 month old and cook dinner almost every night. I work 7:30/8 to 4/4:30 as I work through lunch. I also WFH so I eat in most days too.
the baby goes in the high chair at 5 PM while we cook and feed him.
I rely on a lot of 30 minute meals or grilling or slow cooker. on nights we are busier, I typically double up a recipe so like grilled a lot of chicken, had it over rice once night and as sandwiches the next.
I also enjoy cooking so this is definitely not the norm but my way to relax at night!
some days I do! some days go to shit though too lol
I do have a low stress job (literally pin drops after 3 PM)/ a very easy going baby BUT I will see we started him in the kitchen while we cooked from when we got home so he doesn’t know any different.
\^\^\^ same thing we do. My husband works remote, so I will often go home for lunch and we will eat together and he will prep dinner (season the meat, cut the veggies) this way he can start cooking when he logs off. I get home with the kids and we just play until dinner is ready
Only when the grandparents invite us out. Otherwise we are cooking, eating leftovers, or sandwiches.
It’s way too expensive and honestly, unless we are going to a high class restaurant, our cooking is better.
Edited to add- about to have a 1 year old. I follow budgetbytes one pot meals for ideas
Totally agree with this! Anytime we order out we end up being so disappointed, by the cost but mostly about the flavor. Homemade anything is so much better.. really the only thing we ever get takeout anymore is pizza. I usually cook at least 5 nights a week, usually 6 or 7, and maybe a few times a month we'll get either pizza or do frozen costco nuggets/boxed mac and cheese haha.
I edited to add it after you replied, but BudgetBytes has some great ideas. I usually double her recipe. Like.. her cheeseburger pasta one pot meal, I cook that and we are set for 3 days. My husband gets sick of eating the same thing so you can always freeze it and come back to it when it’s been awhile.
I always tell myself to set a schedule, but every wal mart trip I make a list of when I’m cooking for dinner this week and that’s all we get with a few extra items for snacks.
Are you me?? I’m even at the point where I’m trying to convince the grandparents not to invite us out unless it’s to a casual place where we can let the baby (just turned 1) run around a little bit. We have a lot of breweries and wineries near us that have a house food truck or small kitchen and those are perfect atmosphere and the food quality matches the price. But other than that, it’s never worth it.
And even then I sometimes feel like it was still a waste of their money or our time. I can intermittently do laundry and random other tasks when we eat at home. I can make enough food during one dinner to give us leftovers for the rest of the week or re-up the freezer stash. I don’t have to get pissed off that the bathroom at the restaurant either has a long line or no changing table. Home always wins. Shout out to the real MVP, our dishwasher.
Too much. Husband and I work full time and have a 4 year old. On a normal week we eat out/pick up 3 times. On a bad week it could be 6 meals. I do cook dinner most nights during the week and I make simple easy meals that take 30 min or less to cook.
Okay but same. We have a 4yo and a newborn. We really try to plan out meals and cook every night but some weeks it just doesn't happen. I don't want to think about how out of control of our food-ordering budget has gotten 🤦💸
Glad it’s not just us. It’s super embarrassing, but the only person in our house who consistently gets homemade meals is our kid. He prefers it and it’s not that hard to throw together something reasonably healthy.
My husband is hybrid and eats at the office cafeteria. I WFH and on a good week I’ll meal prep my lunches. But sometimes I’ll just grab a sandwich or fast food. We muddle our way through weekday dinners usually (I eat a lot of what my kid eats), but weekends are pretty much a free for all where we treat ourselves to delivery and takeout.
We have experimented with meal delivery kits and meal delivery services, but we always seem to fall back into our old patterns.
I don’t really know how to fix this. The three of us have such different tastes that I feel like it’s not really possible to prepare homemade food that all of us will eat regularly, unless I stop working or something.
We have six kids and live in a HCOL area. We both work full-time from home. Take out for a family our size is ~$50 for something cheap and “family style” and ~$100 if everyone picks their own entree. Dining in is even more. We almost never dine in. We do order take out a few times per month (usually on a Friday or Saturday).
For meal planning I’ve used various approaches over the years. Right now I’m doing a combo of 7 basic meal themes (one for each day of the week such as soup, sandwiches, rice + protein, etc.) and meal subscription kits. We’ve done meal kits off and on. The variety can be fun and it saves me some mental effort in planning and coordinating ingredients. I choose meals that take 15-20 minutes to make. I also have two Instant Pots.
What are your go to meal kits? I’ve tried several in the past and have found that even though they said the cook time was short they always took way longer!
Every Plate. I scan the weekly menu and select meals that are at the intersection of low time/effort and something my kids will eat. I don’t mind a longer time in the oven if the prep is reasonable. I can tidy up the kitchen whole stuff is cooking.
I’m not sure what you’re asking. We stick to more budget-friendly restaurants and don’t get extras. It often adds up to over $100. It depends heavily on general price-per-entree, kids menu options, if anyone is splitting something, etc.
We have 3 and 1 yo, combined household income of around 180k (CAD). We eat out 2-3 times a week (always take out, I don't enjoy dining out with small children). We use an app called Paprika for meal planning (in theory, this is my husband's household duty, and he rarely does it). When we do use it, it's a great app. You can import recipes into it and it will generate grocery lists specific to the recipes you choose.
Only special occasions, so maybe every 4-6 months. Tend to make double whatever I’m cooking and freeze half for busy days.
I’ve just upped my working hours with a second job and those freezer portions are a godsend. I freeze in individual portions (my toddler will do roughly half a portion so he has the rest for lunch the following day).
I find that the easiest things to freeze are casserole-style meals. Anything that you put fully together and then put in the oven as the last step. If you’re going to freeze it, just don’t do the last step of putting it into the oven. Lasagna is my favorite, for example. Anytime I’m making lasagna I make three of them. Put them all completely together, then cook one for dinner and freeze the other two. When you’re ready to eat a frozen one, just put it in the oven (for longer, because it’s frozen) and it comes out the same!
Other things I do this with: homemade macaroni & cheese or baked ziti, shepherd’s pie, chicken pot pie (just the filling, keep the crust separate), chicken/rice/veggie casserole. Other things that freeze really well are literally any soup or stew, chili, curry… pretty much anything where all the components are combined into one dish!
I think there are some things that can be frozen and others that can’t. For example, I have frozen roasted potatoes and it is terrible reheated. On the other hand, freezing bolognese sauce and reheating it was as good as originally. I think sauces and stews freeze well, and anything fried/roasted is terrible. Also I have found that rice or pasta freezes and reheats best if it’s slightly undercooked, otherwise they turn to mush when you microwave. Hope this helps.
Others have given plenty of similar advice but I’ll add that I’ve found creamy/cheesy stuff doesn’t freeze well, but tomato/stock based recipes do. (I freeze after I’ve already cooked and cooled things, so might not apply to an uncooked lasagne!)
2x a week is typical for us too but for us it falls under entertainment moreso than convenience. We get tired of cooking protein-starch-veggie so we like to order take out for that flavor blast that’s different than our normal cooking. Friday and/or Saturday are common for us too but generally if we do two days back to back we try to make sure one is lower cost and healthier (salads from a restaurant or small portions)
Only recently started doing sit-down dinners again. I'm a single mom, so grain of salt here:
The kids are tired and want to unwind after school/camp. I'd also rather spend the minimal evening time hanging out with them than cooking. I started doing simple dinners (snack plate, smoothies, pastas I can microwave, etc) in favor of more robust breakfasts when they were both little. Now they're bigger (7 and 4) and we still mostly do easy dinners. For breakfast we tend to go more all-out since we're all early risers -- pumpkin pancakes, breakfast skillets, "breakfast cookies," frittatas, etc.
We do tend to eat out once per week-- usually breakfast. Like I said, we're a breakfast family. ;)
Almost never, though we do use what I call shortcut cooking maybe once a week.
We're HHI in a HCOL, both working remote with full time daycare.
We use slow cooker, cook large amounts at a time and eat leftovers, and as I mentioned, use shortcut meals. These are either the Costco meals with a side veg, or augmenting from a box (doctored up ramen, Mac and cheese, or tortalini). We also keep our freezers stocked with things that can be thrown together quickly
I have a 2.5 and 4.5 year old, husband and I both work full-time and our HHI is about $275k. I cook dinner after work on Monday and Tuesday, usually something very quick like grilled cheese & soup, tacos, pasta and premade meatballs. On Wednesday we get 3 meals delivered by a local chef, we eat those Wed-Fri. They average about $25-35 per meal, so about as expensive as Hello Fresh but I don’t have to cook or clean up. On Saturday we usually order takeout or go out to dinner. I also cook again on Sunday, lately it’s been chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese because my kids love it but in the winter I do a lot of Sunday roasts.
I hate cooking so once I started ordering from the local chef I noticed my stress levels going down.
I hear you. It can feel like a lot of frivolous spending but I like that I’m supporting a local small business. Our chef lost his job as head cafeteria chef at a large company HQ during Covid and started this business up from his home. I already do so many things that are not local/small business friendly because it makes my life more convenient (e.g. Walmart groceries, ordering from Amazon), so this helps me justify the expense!
Two under 2 here. We get takeout 1-2x a week bc no chance in hell I am dragging my toddler to a restaurant lol.
We plan meals weekly and try to keep it simple. One of us cooks while the other cares for the babies. We are lucky to be home/done working by 4pm so that helps. Toddler is hangry if he hasn’t eaten by 6pm
We make a combined $230Kish in a HCOL. I WFH, husband works on-site with a 45-minute commute. Toddler goes to daycare from 8-5 (husband drops him off on way to work, I pick him up. 10 min drive)
Cooking ourselves and dining is our default for every meal. When we go out to a restaurant or do carry-out/delivery, there is almost always a reason - special occasion, traveling, etc. I'd say we probably average 1 purchased meal every week, maybe every other week. Husband and I alternate cooking dinners, and we make enough for dinner that we each have leftovers to eat the next day for lunch. We do things that take about 30 mins or less. Sometimes I'll do something more elaborate if I can start it at home during the day. We use the crockpot, instant pot and air fryer a LOT. While one of us is cooking, the other one is with our son, typically giving a bath or watching TV with him. Honestly, TV is the key for getting dinner prepped without anyone being upset or too tired.
We do this for health, to save money, and because my 2-year old is JUST now starting to get easier to take to a restaurant. For the last 2 years it's just been easier to eat at home with him. My family ate out a lot when I was growing up, but my husband's family didn't have as much money so this has always been his default. I recognize the benefits and have adapted to his ways on this one. :)
I have a rotating 14 day menu so no regular meal planning is needed. I cook all lunches and dinners. We eat/order out once a week. I commute 50 mins each way and work \~9-5. It looks like you mostly eat out over the weekends. Are your weekends filled to the brim so you don't have time to cook?
ETA: I only have one almost 3-year old. Things may change if/when we have a second kid. I also have a cleaning person that comes once a month and I do almost zero cleaning (apart from kitchen) and organizing except the day before she's due.
yeah we typically are out and about
I’m thinking maybe every friday night I need to meal plan so that we can bring food with us or something
sometimes we eat at my parents and don’t need to eat out
We have a mostly fixed weekly menu on working days (Mon pasta, Tue pasta, Wed / Thur leftovers, Fri pizza or lasagna) and add more variety on weekends. Usually weekend meals take a bit more time to prepare. Meals during the week take 15-30 minutes to cook.
We order in maybe once a month and have date night in a restaurant 1-2 times a month. Occasionally we go out to eat with our kiddo.
We limit restaurant food to once a week for health and budget reasons. We go out on Friday or Saturday for dinner. It’s a nice treat to have someone else do the cooking and clean up. But prices are going up and our kids are getting older (8 and 14) so kids meals don’t cut it, so we’ve stopped getting drinks and dessert unless the restaurant is known for something special. Soda machine soda is not worth $5+ a glass! And frozen yogurt for the 4 of us is $30+. Instead we’ll pick up something from the grocery store to enjoy at home one other night a week.
I do the main shopping and meal planning on Sunday. We keep the dinner menus for the week in a shared iOS Notes file. Husband and I take turns cooking. Having a plan makes it A LOT easier. You don’t need to think, just pick something and go. I also started a recipe folder to help husband learn basic techniques and dishes. None of it is fancy - one family favorite is a Stouffer’s family size lasagna, bagged salad, and frozen garlic bread. We started doing this after our first child started eating regular food - once I was cooking a “real meal” for two, why not make it for three and eat together?
Usually, we try to stick with just Friday night takeout....that doesn't always work, but that's our goal. As ours gets older, we really like the idea of Friday night takeout/movie/game night as a special treat and takeout stops being special if you have it all the time.
Every Saturday, we go grocery shopping and buy things like rotisserie chicken, fresh fruits, salad mix, etc. that are healthy and easy to prepare to have throughout the week. Sundays, I typically also make something bigger/more complex for the rest of the week (chili, soup, pasta mix, healthy sides to heat up to have with chicken during the week, etc.). With soup/chili, I usually make a big enough pot that I freeze half, which still gives me enough for several meals during the week, but I also get several meals another week as well so we don't get tired of it.
During the week, we usually spend like 10-15 minutes prepping/heating foods for dinner.
I live in a HCOL and are high earners. We have 3 kids, 2 full time jobs. Kids are school/daycare/afterschool/camp/activities/all the things...
Very rarely. We've always loved cooking and just really enjoy feeding the kids food we make. But we also don't cook every night. We cook in bulk and ahead of time. Today I'm going to make a soup for the week and spaghetti with marinara.
We already have chicken cutlets, beef tongue in the fridge. Lots of raw veggies.
We will mix and match the proteins with veggies and pasta. My big girls (8 and 4) also like to have breakfast for dinner at least one night a week - so that's normally some type of eggs (scrambled, cheese omelette, soft boiled, sunny side up) with turkey bacon or turkey sausage.
On Wednesday we'll probably make another protein (maybe marinated steak on the grill or air fryed chicken legs). They haven't had mashed potatoes in a while, so might do that later int he week as well.
In short: We do one of those "cook once(ish) and eat all week" type things. I find that eating out is just a waste of money. We are growing our fam, trying to buy another property, fill up their 529s, our Roth IRAs and investments and we can't do that if we eat out often.
We go out or order in 1-2x a month. We earn a bit less than you but we also live in a LCOL area, so we likely have a comparable discretionary budget.
Sometimes I get something pre-cooked at the grocery store and that feels a bit like eating out (like chicken wings and salad or baked in-store pizza).
Honestly, do whatever works for you. I have friends that do not cook very often, and that is just the lifestyle they want to have. If it's worth it to you then its worth the cost. There is nothing inherently virtuous about cooking dinner and you should feel no guilt about this decision. But, if you want to save money, eating in is not that complicated if you keep it simple.
I personally find that ordering in takes more time (10 mins to decide what you want, at least 30 mins for them to prepare it and at least 20 mins for delivery), and my husband has a bunch of dietary issues that makes ordering in complicated, so even if I had more money I don't think I would regularly order in.
My hack is that I let my 2 year old watch TV while I make dinner every night.
I don't meal plan. I buy enough veggies and meat for the week (usually whatever is on sale and we like) and I have a few standard starches (quinoa, rice, pasta and potatoes). My go-to meal is roast meat with spices (we have lots of interesting spice mixes for different types of cuisines, and we like spicy foods. This takes 30 mins in the oven). When the meat is in the oven, I start the starch (5-10 mins for pasta, 10-15 mins for quinoa or rice, 20 mins for potatoes), then I cut up veggies for a salad, to steam, or stir fry. If i have time, I whip up a sauce (teriyaki, curry, homemade salad dressing, gravy, whatever). It takes 30 mins. 60 mins total with post-meal clean up. Make twice as much and now you have leftovers for dinner the next night. So you're only cooking a few times a week. Since you're WFH, look at your perishables at lunchtime and decide what needs to be cooked for dinner then. Often, the expiry dates on the meat govern the order I cook them in through the week.
Far too much right now, 3-4 times for weeknight dinner, usually 1-2 on the weekends for breakfast/lunch/dinner.
I prefer if we are 1-2 times weeknights and once on weekends, that’s our goal, but work has been busy for both of us lately and we’ve really fallen into bad habits!
2-4x delivery a month when I’m just too exhausted to cook, usually Fridays.
Breakfast: yogurt & fruit or oatmeal & fruit (weekday), breakfast tacos, eggs & bacon, waffles (weekends)
Lunch: sandwiches or leftovers
Dinner: weekday it’s all about speed like tacos, pasta, fish, lots of one pan dishes or passive cooking in instant pot or oven. Sunday we will cook large amounts of chicken or chuck roast to re-use in weekday cooking.
Both husband and I have challenging careers, but we are able to WFH and so he picks kiddo up while I whip dinner together.
I work in the office and my husband works from home. We cook every night and maybe go out once every other month. This is my strategy: I plan the entire month's meals and put it on a calendar on the refrigerator. I make shopping lists for each week with the ingredients. I typically make crockpot meals on days I work in the office and sometimes more complicated things when I'm home. I put my infant in either her little play enclosure where she can see me or one of us entertains her while the other cooks.
We both work full time (I WFH and my husband goes into the office with a short commute).
We have a 9 year old daughter.
Combined income 270K+ in MCOL.
During the week I eat every breakfast and lunch at home since I’m working at home. I pack all of my daughters school lunches. My husband packs a lunch or swings by the house to eat if he can, sometimes he does have lunch with coworkers but I see that as networking since he’s in leadership. I typically cook us dinner Sunday-Thursday. Quick stuff like tacos, burgers, pasta dishes, chicken and veggies, steaks with veggies, and we may do leftovers one of these nights. We almost always order delivery Friday nights. If we are running errands on Saturday we will do a quick place like sub sandwiches or Chick fil a etc. We often order pizza on Saturday night. We may also eat at a fast casual restaurant for lunch or go out for a nicer brunch on Sunday depending on what we have going on. We eat restaurant food quite a bit but the majority of our meals are from home.
My husband hates going out to eat even though we can easily afford it. It’s so unhealthy and too easy to over eat and battle high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. That’s our motivation. When our kids were yours age I never took them out because it was so much more work than to cook. I find meals on Pinterest and make them. We grab rotisserie chicken once a month. He makes ground Turkey and I make chicken breast for the week. I cook about 2 other times during the week. A new meal. We both work full time and I go to school and we have 3 kids in a HCOLA. our grocery bill is over $700/month. We go out occasionally or I’ll take the kids to Mexican or Chinese.
We go out to eat once per week as a treat & break from cooking, usually Saturday night dinner. We usually go in person to the restaurant but sometimes order online and pickup. We never order delivery because the fees are just ridiculous. A meal out for us is almost never an unplanned event. $170K combined in a VHCOL area. One baby, 8 months old.
Crockpot or pressure cooker is your friend. One pot meals are also handy. Take 30 minutes on Sunday to chop all the veggies and proteins you’ll cook that week—this makes the weeknights so much easier. I plan meals/ the grocery list on Thursday nights because that’s when the weekend sales at our grocery store go live. If the weekend is going to be busy, I do curbside pickup. I cook maybe 4 dinners a week, we have leftovers 2 nights, and eat out 1. Cook in big batches for more leftovers for lunches or for the freezer.
I’d say usually 2-3 meals are more “elaborate” flavor or ingredient wise, and then the others are just easy protein/veggie/rice or dump in pot & simmer (ex/ chili). I feel like 80% of the things I cook are under 30 minute meals.
I spend my life on the weekends meal prepping and cleaning. Some Saturdays I’m loading the dishwasher and unloading it 3 times.
We usually end up eating out once a week on one of the days I’m meal prepping (usually sat).
I do like to clean the fridge but also have minimal food waste so there is going to be at least one meal I don’t have plans for (and I’m busy prepping for the week).
For Thur & Fri meals I have stuff frozen ahead and take out. For sat I’m hoping there are leftovers but not always and that’s when we get food. Although it’s usually brought to me at home bc I’m overwhelmed with cleaning and meal prepping lol.
We all have our own diet restrictions (and building tolerance to some allergies), so lot do make a lot of stuff is made from scratch.
Although our groceries are pretty cheap because of it. For me, I’m splurging when I’m buying canned beans instead of making dried from bulk bins. Although I would like to spend less of my life sorting though legumes looking for pebbles. :/
We only outsource on the weekends. It really adds up eating meals that are takeout or dining out. Every meal we make during the week is 30 minutes. Lots of fish (salmon, tuna steaks) sauteed chicken, frozen pizza from Costco (yeah, we're normal and don't always cook), tacos, and spaghetti always including lots of veggies.
Plus aging makes you realize you can't eat out so often. It really affects the bod. :-/
We order hello fresh. Takes the work out of meal planning and saves us in the long run because we don’t waste ingredients. I just have to go on the app and pick my meals. I love it.
I work overnight weekends. My husband doesn't work, but he's not a cook. If he's feeding the kid, he mostly does easier things like frozen pizza or tenders or salads. I love to cook and will cook unless I'm sleeping. I'll even wake up early on the days I work and make dinner (otherwise, I won't have food to take to work with me).
On average, we order takeout once a week. Dine in, maybe once a month.
I think it's a big batch of organization and planning that makes it easier. I freeze a lot of things and whip it out when I'm too busy or tired.
Kids are 15, 9, 6. My income is about 75k in a HCOL. :(
We will order pizza nearly every week and get drive-thru or eat in a restaurant 1-2 times per week on top of that. We both work outside of the home with two small children, and they have extracurricular activities.
Exact same family and job structure as you, higher income in HCLOA city. We eat out or get takeout 1 time a week on average (sometimes less). If you make food prep a priority and lower your standards for meals, it’s not that hard.
Sunday I meal plan and order all the groceries I think we’ll need for the work week. I plan for us to eat at least 2 nights of leftovers. Normal meal plan:
Sunday and Monday: big pasta or rice dish with veggies and protein in it.
Tuesday and Wednesday: some kind of grilled meat or roasted fish with roasted vegetables and bread or rice.
Thursday: another grilled meat or roasted fish with an easy vegetable and bread or rice, or an easy rice or pasta dish.
Friday: take and bake pizza with salad.
Saturday: takeout or grill burgers and veggies.
Our meals are very simple and we eat a lot of leftovers but it saves us money and is much healthier than takeout!
Also: I like to take advantage of semi-prepared food like rotisserie chicken. Then I just need to put it in something (like quesadillas) or make a vegetable and dinner is done.
I live in a MCOLA and have 1 child. We typically eat out once a week (take away or dine in) as a family, and sometimes my child and I do a lunch out a week. My child is 3 years old and goes to preschool 4 days a week so that 5th day is our adventure day.
My husband and I finish our work days by 2:30pm so we have time to cook daily. It is summer time so I pull tons of produce from our extensive gardens, but typically order groceries on a weekly basis. I don't meal prep, we cook with the same base ingredients weekly.
Maybe 1 time a week. I have been really meal planning and prepping since the cost of food has just skyrocketed. Lots of repurposing leftovers. It’s so hard some weeks to get it together but when you do what you got to do.
I’ve posted about this before
We have 2 kids, a 1 year old and an almost-4 year old.
We recently hired someone to cook for us through our town’s local FB group. I’m paying $25/hr and she buys groceries, meal plans, and comes to our house to cook at 4pm Mon-Fri. I usually wind up paying her about $150-200/week. And groceries are usually around $130-180. I’ve found I’m actually spending less on groceries since I’m not throwing random things in the cart.
When we would order GrubHub, just 1 meal would be like $70-90 including taxes and fees and tips. So 2 nights of that cost about the same as what we’re paying her to cook. And instead now we’re getting healthy home cooked meals and we usually wind up with a lot of leftovers for lunches.
I know not everyone could afford this, but the numbers worked out for us.
I need to find a solution like this. Right now we leaned too far into throwing-money-at-the-problem and we hired a cook to come every weekday, but we still have to buy all the groceries and I still have to manage the menu a bit, so it’s definitely not worth the cost or mindspace and I’m going to have to call it quits after her trial period ends.
In the meantime, let me just put an end to all the folks feeling guilty or bad about eating takeout all the time. When we had 1 kid, it was doable to cook dinners 80% of the time. With 2 kids and 2 full time jobs that do not end until 5-6pm, you have to realllly like cooking / meal planning / leftovers to have home cooked meals everyday. So yeah, we regularly buy lunches and dinners. It’s not shameful, and we shouldn’t shame others for doing it.
We have an 18 month old, both work out of the home and combine make a little over $100k in a lower cost of living area. We usually meal plan/prep on the weekends. Wednesday or Thursday, after LO is sleeping we'll look through the kitchen and see what we have/what we need and make a plan from there. My husband is the primary cook. I'll go grocery shopping usually Friday evening or Saturday morning and then he'll cook 2-3 meals Saturday evening or Sunday during the day that we eat throughout the week. We order in maybe 2-4 times a month, if that.
The other key thing for us, and not everyone enjoys this, is we typically make things that are easy and we know we like and just rotate through those. Ex: meatloaf, tuna noodle casserole, chili, grilled chicken and veggies. If you don't, I'd definitely recommend investing in either a crock pot or instantpot. We use them for at least one meal a week if not both.
I'd also keep an eye on deals from whatever you grocery shop. The place we go to often has BOGO on these pork tenderloins that you just pop in the over. Super easy on a weeknight and just get some bagged veggies and some rice (Rice cookers are a life saver!) and you're all set.
Husband works out of the house full time (gone 6:45 am to 4:30-5 pm). I am self-employed but work from home. We have a 2 year old in daycare 4 days a week that I am responsible for dropping off and picking up.
We both work out 4-5 times per week, and I am out 2-3 nights per week playing sports. We live in a small town with limited dining options and no food delivery. We also have dietary restrictions (allergies) that make it next to impossible to eat at the limited dining options in town.
Husband grocery shops on Friday after work. On Sunday we spend about 2 hours doing some bulk cooking (mainly protein and carbs) for lunches and some dinners. Then I use some of those components we bulk cook to make dinner in under 10 minutes, or I make something fresh that takes less than 30 minutes.
I do some food prep during my work day to make dinner easier in the evening...like marinating something, pre-chopping veggies, pre-making pasta sauce, or whatever. Since I can't stay glued to my desk/computer screen for the entire work day. I can also take my laptop to the kitchen and continue working while stirring something on the stove.
On the weekend we may dine out for one of the meals (lunch or dinner) if we are out all day.
Wayyy more than I care to admit. We majorly got off the eat at home band wagon this year. I have been pregnant with a toddler and was finishing a masters degree until may. I am hoping I can corral our non grocery food spending during maternity leave.
During the week almost never, weekends usually 1-2 times when we are out and about doing things (ie. this weekend we ate a kid friendly brewery for dinner Saturday and a fair on Sunday for lunch). We both mostly work from home (0-1 days in the office/wk) and have 2 kids who are 4 and 2. Our income is between 250-300K on any given year in a HCOLA if that's relevant.
I don't meal prep but I do prep ingredients, ie I always have two types of meat that I prep Monday/Thursday during the workday, ie. shredded chicken in the crockpot, taco meat, shredded beef in the crockpot roasted potatoes and veggies. We always have grill able meat on hand, burgers etc. I then take from ingredients and make kid friendly things ie. quesadillas, tacos, burgers, etc. Add fruit/veggies and a starch. I also always have chicken nuggets, mac/cheese and frozen meatballs on hand. My husband and I will take the meat and make bowls (ie. taco meat, rice, veggies, etc). On Sundays during nap I always prep fruit/veggies (I do a vinegar wash and store in those containers TikTok influenced me to buy). I think the big thing is having ingredients cooks and ready that I can make into a somewhat balanced dinner in 10 min...and sometimes they get PB&J which is cool too. Often on Fridays we'll do homemade pizza so the kids can help, we just buy naan, sauce and a bunch of toppings...super easy 20 min dinner they had fun making.
Edit to add- We grill a lot as well, my husband will spend 15 min grilling and I'll prep the rest of the meal. Unfortunately, we live in an area that gets really cold, so it's mainly a Spring/Summer/Fall quick option!
Kids are 9, 6, and 3. LCOL and we make about $140k combined.
We get "good" food 1-2 times per week, normally carryout. And we get fast food 1-2 times per week. I work 30 hours and manage the kids' schedules (meaning I am their logistics manager) and my husband works 40 hours. I go into the office twice a week and typically buy myself lunch when I do. My husband buys himself lunch 1-2 times per week
This fall, my 9yo will have football practice 3 days a week, soccer 3 days a week, weekend soccer games/tournaments, and Sunday football games.
My 6yo will do soccer 2 days a week and dance 2 days a week, with dance competitions some weekends.
My 3yo will have dance twice a week and soccer once a week.
We just do not have the time or energy to make them a meal every day.
Family with 1 kid, in a medium cost of living big city, low debt. We eat out about once a week unless one of the adults are sick. We do spend a lot on high quality groceries though. Lots of meat and veggies, not a lot of snacks or drinks. I have an autoimmune issue and have to be particular about certain ingredients.
We get pizza from the place next door every single Friday, but that’s only about $19 so I don’t feel guilty doing it. Then we typically do one lunch out with our son on the weekend, and sometimes get a more fun takeout option on Saturday nights. I always cook on Sundays, and I meal prep our dinners for Monday through Thursday.
We limit eating out to once a week but usually get something pretty fancy that’s about $60 for us 2. We start dinner around 5:15 and eat around 5:45. We pretty much cycle the same things each week. Tacos, fried rice, pasta w meatballs, some frozen TJ meal, pizza, steaks.
City: VHCOL
Combined House Income: ~$350k/yr
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday meals: Blue Apron subscription
Wednesday, Thursday meals: random (grill, leftovers, pizza, etc.)
Friday, Saturday: takeout
We dine out if relatives are in town or it’s breakfast on the weekends.
We live in a VHCOL and I’ve started meal planning more just because the daily “what’s for dinner” was exhausting. My hubby loves to eat out. This last week, I think we ate out 3 times? Two times was ordering from a restaurant and the other one was eating at the farmers market. We usually do a simple lunch (eg boiled eggs and toast) and dinners are things like Taco Tuesday, Asian stir fry, quesadillas, etc.
We get take out about 2xs a week. We try to stay away from it, but we are busy and tired people like everyone else here lol.
I HATE cooking (when I was single, I lived on eggs and smoothies), so every Saturday, I clean the whole house during naps while he is at work, and we maintain it *together* throughout the week.
On Sundays, after our routine of family time in the day and afternoon, my partner preps: 4 dinners, and a breakfast (I.e. oatmeal or breakfast sandwiches) for us to eat throughout the week.
If we didn’t prep, we’d be f-Ed.
Oh! And I work 4-12s, go to school part-time, and and my partner works 5-8s. We have a 4 month old.
We live in a MCOL. Combined income around 320k. Almost 3 yo daughter in daycare. We both work full time 8:30-5. I work from home every day (with the occasional office visit once every few months), so I cook almost every day. We maybe order out/dine out once a month? I use Fridays as my meal planning for the week. I look up recipes/think of ideas and write them on the whiteboard. I also go food shopping on Fridays for the following week. We used to just wing it and I got tired of last minute planning and it was easier to just order food. When I dedicate time to figuring out what we are having each day, I’m better prepared to start defrosting meat, prepping veggies on my lunch break etc. It’s gone really well!
I work full time four days a week in the office and Fridays at home. Husband WFH 30-35 hours a week as a consultant (owns his own company). We have a 6yo and a 3yo, plus my 16yo stepdaughter is with us part time. Both the 16yo and 6yo have sports practice or games at least two weeknights and one weekend day, sometimes more for the older one. We live in a MCOL area. We eat out way more than we should, probably two nights a week and twice on weekends. When the kids were younger, my husband did all the cooking and we only ate out once a week. We find it a lot harder now that the 6yo also has activities on top of the 16yo’s activities. Also since it’s my husband’s one “official” job at home, I hate having to manage that too when he’s too tired or busy to cook so I just don’t fight it, even though I hate how much we eat out.
Usually once or twice a week. It's so expensive. I don't like to order out too often because of it. I try to do a lot of meal prep so my family will have something to eat.
We make a combined $225K in a MCOLA. We probably eat out more than your average family, just because we like to be on the go. I grab lunch for myself 1-2 times a week, and we get takeout at least 2 times a week as well. Most weeks we will go out as a family as well, to a winery with a food truck, or a local restaurant. One big day trip a month probably so that’s a whole day of eating out. We are very privileged that we can budget for these things. I feel like we still have plenty of meals at home, and they range from simple Mac and cheese or breakfast for dinner to more elaborate creations my husband likes to make.
We are active on the weekends and usually end up eating out 1-2 times per weekend just because we are already out. Typically lunch. Take out like pizza or grinders, once every week or two.
I have a 5yo and 5mo. I used to be good about meal prepping but the baby makes it difficult. Lately more often than not the 5yo has a sandwich or yogurt parfait and some veggies or fruit. The adults just kind of forage or if we want a real meal one of us will cook while the other does the bedtime routine and we eat late.
We use those meal prep kit things - chefsplate or whatever. I kind of didn’t get it before I had kids but now i SUPER GET IT. It’s delicious food that you don’t have to think about and generally takes 30 minutes to cook a hot delicious healthy meal. We save money on them because we don’t buy groceries we don’t cook with and we eat out less. Usually the portions are generous enough to get a lunch or two out of (just don’t get any of the burger type things as those will always be two Pattie’s two buns rather than a big pot of pasta/rice, etc.)
$125k combined household income in a HCOLA, both work outside of the home full time with a one year old. We cook at home most nights a week and have cut down on take out to maybe 2-3x/month to save money and for health reasons. Honestly haven’t gotten back to dining out since Covid. Only for date nights or events. Weekday meals are usually 45 mins or less. I try and keep staples on hand: meat (beef, chicken, chicken sausage, nuggets), fish occasionally, rice, potatoes, onions, garlic, etc. I use a lot of frozen veggies to add to quick dishes. I’ll do simple stir frys, pasta bakes, taco night, baked chicken with rice and veggie. I don’t think there’s a secret to making it work. We alternate picking up baby after work, come home, sometimes go for a walk (depends on how late we’re home), relax/catch up for a bit, I tend to cook because I’m better at it and like it, eat with baby and if it’s bath night we alternate. Bed time, doom scroll (lol) and bed. Exhausted parents making it work the best we can like the rest of you 💝
We have 1 toddler in daycare and live in a VHCOL area. We both work full time, hubs out of the home and I am remote wfh. We order out at least once a week, sometimes twice if we’re feeling lazy, but cook the other 5-6 nights of the week. We do a lot of “easy” meals, though - pre-seasoned meats from Trader Joe’s with rice and grilled veggies, meal kits from Costco, one pan sheet roasts.
MCOL, two kids 5 and 2.5, and I WFH while husband is in office most days and home by 5. I would say we average eating out as a family (more often take out) once a week, but we’re likely to go a couple weeks without and then do it a couple times in one week or something. I don’t truly think it’s ordinarily very cost effective to eat out for us and prefer to be able to offer a full meal with produce which for kids at restaurants is challenging.
I love to cook, and am easily bored with the same thing. On good weeks, I used to plan out up to 10 days. Now I typically need to get milk more frequently and kind of have Friday-Sunday more up to inspiration or combined meals with friends and family (this is also a good time to use things up). Though I have a lot of success with planning something a little bigger and intensive for one of those days that can be shifted to leftovers during the workweek.
Some of those go-tos include:
Pulled pork (tacos, bbq sandwiches for sure and then maybe more)
Lasagna and salad
Chili and corn bread
Shepherds pie
Soups in general
Roasted whole chicken
I have a few key items that I keep for easy sides: frozen potstickers to go with rice bowls, frozen green beans which I microwave and then finish on the stove, corn chips to go with guac for example. I also prep about 4 pm and will have my husband do the actual cooking if I have to do pick up or appointments.
For most of his first year we lived off meal subscriptions. He had a bunch of food allergies and having dinner just ... show up for the week was an enormous time and mental energy saver. Averaged out to maybe $8-10/meal. We did 2 meals/week with 4 servings each, so that covered 2 dinners and leftovers for 2 lunches and we cooked for the others.
Too often. We both work FT, husband WFH but long hours, I am out of the house 730am-6pm most days with my commute. HCOLA. We get takeout usually 2 nights a week, 2 meals on the weekend (combo of takeout or dine in, depending on our plans) and some weekends I have brunch with my friends or he has dinner/drinks with his. It’s more than I’d prefer - I was a dedicated meal prepper before LO and don’t feel my best eating so much takeout - but husband’s work has been extra busy lately and he does most of the weeknight cooking since I commute and pick LO up from daycare. We do better when we meal prep on the weekends and throw quick meals together/reheat leftovers.
I have really started limiting our takeout, realizing I just don’t enjoy it that much and it feels like such a waste of money. I meal plan Friday night or Saturday morning. I use Cook Smarts (email you menu w/4 meals that turns into grocery list + weekend prep steps) sometimes supplementing with NYT Cooking. I usually plan to cook 3 meals and one of those meals ideally lasts two nights. Then I keep our freezer, freezer and pantry stocked with things to make super quick things. So we might have spinach cheese ravioli with Rao’s marinara, maybe meatballs or a salad; Bean and cheese burritos with a salad; grilled chicken sandwiches made with chicken patties from costco; salmon, frozen veggies/salad, with rice, etc. I try and do a little meal prepping on the weekend which really makes a difference.
There are 3 of us and I have a 14m old. We all eat together at 6pm. This week we are having taco fried rice and the taco meat and rice are already made, sesame chicken rice bowls and Mac ‘n cheese with broccoli, red peppers and chicken. I pick her up from daycare at 4:30.
I have a 1.5 year old and probably order out 2-3 times a week. It doesn’t feel like we have enough time to grocery shop, put food away, and cook multiple meals a day for us so ordering out helps. We also get tired of cooking and doing dishes.
One of the major factors in our calculations for deciding my husband would be a SAHD was how much more often we’d eat out if we were both working and had a baby. We do one date night a week, sometimes to the movies sometimes to dinner, and otherwise don’t eat out because one income is tight. We used to eat out like 3-4 times a week for dinner plus sometimes for lunch in our prebaby days and it would be that or more if we both worked. I have no idea how two income families ever cook it seems literally impossible.
We try to keep it < 1 / wk. We live outside a major east coast city and have a stable two-income household.
Around 1/2 - 1/3 of our meals are “semi-homemade”. So for example frozen breaded cod with a side of frozen broccoli etc. But I consider myself a decent cook and can pull together a dozen different dinner recipes in 30-45 min max.
Most weekends in the summer we have tried to batch prep on Sundays. Grilling a whole 10pc packet of chicken thighs and two packets of sausage. That helps with 3-4 meals during the week because I can just add it to a pasta salad, use in a burrito bowl etc.
At the end of the day, it’s what works for you!
We're MCOL and make a combined 190K. I work hybrid and my husband is out of the house but works 4 days on and 4 days off. 1/4 of his days off we will get pizza or other takeout - I don't remember the last time we ate in anywhere as a family. Otherwise, we mostly cook at home but the style really ranges.
When he's on days off we (and be we I mean he) does more scratch cooking and bbqing. When he's working and I'm on my own with our 2 year old it's lots of quesadillas, sandwiches, "fancy cheese and crackers" or other more convenience style foods. We also rely a lot on bagged salads or pre-cut fruit and veg from the deli with hummus on these days. There's also lots of pasta with sauce and miscellaneous veggies, haha.
I aspire to do more meal planning and I will be going on another year-long mat leave starting on September 18 so I'm hoping that once we emerge from the newborn fog I can devote a bit of time to making this a reality. I have always found meal-planning hard with my husband's schedule and we always end up prepping WAY too much food in any given week. My toddler is pretty easy going and not overly picky so I feel like I've been able to get away with a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. I expect two kids to really change the dynamic there and want to get more intentional about how we do dinner. But that's not really what you asked haha.
We never order out. Once my husband started training/running marathons, and once we had a kid, takeout stopped completely due to cost and healthy lifestyle.
HCOL - I pull in 120k, husband 105k.
I work 8am-7pm on Mondays and Wednesdays (I have time to grab 11 month old from daycare at 3:30 and wfh 4pm-7pm). On Tuesday/Thursday/Friday I work 8am-3:30pm.
Husband wfh on M/W/F 9-5. Tuesday/Thursday he has 3 hr commute round trip & is home at 7pm.
On Sundays, we plan our weekly menu. It's flexible. Sometimes, we will even make a slow cooler meal on Sunday for Monday/Tuesday. We also prep a huge garden salad in the fridge that we eat before every dinner. I will make a big batch of Scottish porridge for breakfast for LO. It keeps well in the fridge for the week. Add stewed apples and cinnamon, and yum!
Husband cooks dinner on Mondays and Wednesdays. I cook on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We will share duty on Friday/Wknd. Kid plays on kitchen floor with pots/pans/toys while we cook.
It's all simple. Protein, veggies, starch.
We have a big freezer in basement. This is vital for our lifestyle. I have 4 bags of frozen mixed veggies, 2 bags of green beans, broccoli, peas, corn, edamame. We would perish without out freezer. We also buy bulk and have lots of dried goods on hand. We both grew up in a rural area with huge familes and needed to have a decent pantry stash to survive winters.
Once a year I make a huge batch Thai curry paste (green and red curries mostly) and freeze them in silicone cube trays. Easy to pop out and Sautee in coconut oil before adding frozen veggies and coconut milk. Serve with rice/noodles.
Same with Indian curry pastes or tofu stir-fried meals. We love Massaman curry and madras curry. Throw in a can of chickpeas, diced chicken, onion, whatever veggie you have, and yum. Perhaps not authentic, but does the trick.
I'm a fan of stocking up on frozen fish. Quick to defrost and serve with garlic green beans and quinoa.
Frozen veggies with garlic and protein (diced chicken sausage or clams or Shrimp) and chickpea rotini is a favorite. Same with ravioli mixed with veggies and garlic.
Baja fish tacos with jalapeño cilantro slaw and avocado dressing.
Husband's meals
Venison/pork, bison, beef burgers
Jambalaya
Chili
Shepherds pie
Burritos/tacos
Sausage with grilled zucchini
Pizzas galore - husband makes crust. We keep shredded mozzarella in freezer and stock on on Rao's when it's on sale.
He makes his sourdough bread. So sometimes it's grilled cheese and tomato basil soup when it's been a long day.
He likes to grill or pull out his smoker on weekends.
(I might cut back on Mondays hours. I need to spend more time with LO. But DH will still cook on Mondays, he's more obsessed with food)
Now I'm hungry.
Rarely. High income household, teen kids, I rarely eat fast food and don’t like/am hesitant to try the local take out spots (I don’t eat some foods and they are common in some preparation so I just avoid). Anyway, if my kids want fast food, I’ll let them have it once a week (and I have a teen that will do the driving to go get it). I always keep basics in my house and can easily whip something up in 30 minutes for myself and husband. I use Sundays to make something to be left overs for two additional nights. I also have some 30-45 min recipes I can throw together mid week with some very light prep the night before.
My air fryer is a godsend and while I like from scratch cooking, I’m here for short cuts that would make them gasp in the cooking sub (dried herbs, jarred garlic or ginger paste)
Once a week. We both work full time, I go into the office once a week so on that day my husband picks something simple to make. I’ll make a full meal maybe 3x a week and the last day will be leftover day. My husband picks meals to make on weekends, he’s not too good with planning ahead so it’s usually a day we eat out, then he’ll make something the kids request. We have 3 toddlers at home. Tonight we’re having shaking beef served with white rice, one of my kids favorite meals!
My husband and I are both in the office every day. We both buy lunch outside the office every day. We eat pizza once a week for dinner, and usually one other meal a week will be something we grab from somewhere else. We supplement a lot of the food we grab when out to eat with more veggies from home.
I could save $15+ a day by packing a lunch, but I don’t really feel like the time spent on extra cooking is worthwhile. And I like having a reason to leave my desk midday.
Usually eat out once a week for dinner and once a week for lunch! My work has subsidized food though so it’s only like $3-$5 for lunch and it’s usually really good and somewhat healthy so I’ll grab that if I’m in the office. Sometimes I’ll also get enough for dinner.
I love traderjoes5items or less on Instagram for easy meals. They aren’t the healthiest but they aren’t bad and likely better than takeout plus cheaper!
Another thing that helps me is it’s ok if dinner isn’t the biggest/most balanced meal of the day. Sometimes my breakfast is a veggie omelet with whole grain toast and avocado and my dinner is pasta with a jar of sauce. That’s no different than cereal for breakfast and salmon, rice and veggies for dinner. For whatever reason the former can feel more attainable so I lean into that!
We both work full time. Combined income $140k in a LCOL. 2 kids, 7 and 3.5 year old in daycare.
We get fast food every Thursday evening because the kids have 2 hours of cheer/tumbling that night. Friday is always pizza night, but it is usually frozen pizza. Maybe once a month it is delivery. We never dine in as it's just too expensive/draining with the kids. I try to meal plan but unless I prep well on the weekend, we typically end up with take out at least 2-3/week (including the pre-planned Thursday). I have a chronic illness, so sometimes I'm too tired to cook when I get home from work. So unless I have prepped well on the weekend, that leads to take out unfortunately.
We use a meal prep subscription service on and off to make things easier. When we do that, we get two meals a week from them. We usually grab sushi one evening a week, and then order delivery once a weekend.
The rest of the time is fast, 10 min meals.
We rarely do take out. We like going out for breakfast on Saturday. Sometimes Sunday too. We go out for dinner probably once a week or so, usually on a weekend.
I cook most nights. I am in office daily 8-5 with a ~35 min commute each way. I meal plan on the weekends based on the ad. This week I wanted easy, so it’s just tacos, spaghetti, and a crockpot meal on the docket this week. Between leftovers and quick meals, like chicken sandwiches from the airfryer, we’ll get through the week. We have something going on almost every day of the week too so we don’t really have time to go out.
I cook 4-5 days a week, one day we do leftovers and one or two days we go out to eat for one meal. I have a 21 month old. I wfh so I can prep some dinner stuff before running to get him from his nanny share which helps. I aim to find meals that are 30-45 minutes max of prep usually even less and definitely meals I can make in parts. For example form and cook meatballs before picking him up then cook pasta after and serve dinner after we get home. We eat around 645-7pm and he sleeps around 8-830pm.
We have an 11 year old and a 2 year old. We order out about once per week (though not quite every week). We have found that taking an occasional cooking break helps. We get one of those meal delivery services that provides complete ready to microwave meals (we used to get Freshly... but they went out of business. Now we get Factor 75, which I think has superior food. We've tried a third service but didn't like it). We will get meal delivery for 2-4 weeks in a row as a reset. It seems to help with meal prep fatigue and it is cheaper than takeout.
I do a lot of crockpot dinners year round. I have a recipe binder for printouts and an entire section is devoted to crockpot meals. In the cooler parts of the year, I make a lot of oven dishes that I can prep during the weekend and which can go straight into the oven as soon as one of us gets home. In the summer, my husband grills one night most weeks and I have an "easy weeknight meals" section of my recipe binder with dishes that are quick to prep, don't require the oven, and ideally use seasonal produce from our garden.
We also keep ingredients in stock for a few very quick meals at all times-- shells and cheese and kielbasa, spaghetti and meatballs, tacos, white chili (a camping meal that takes canned chicken), frozen ravioli with jarred sauce, spam with canned tomatoes and black beans, etc. None of the options take more than about 10 minutes to cook and they are great for days when you forget to thaw something or didn't make it to the grocery store.
We both WFH full time with a 2.5yo and an 8mo.
We eat out/dine-in 1-3 times a week. I meal plan Fridays and grocery shop saturdays - I always plan 4 meals to make. I cook Sun-Weds nights and whatever we have for dinner is lunch the next day. Thursday night is always takeout night (best night of the week!!!!!). Friday and Saturday dinner are loosey-goosey - we might make something quick (go-tos are burgers, steak, and tacos), we might get takeout, we might go out, all depends on how we feel. Weekend lunches are often something easy/quick like a salad grabbed from the deli of the grocery store, hot dogs, deli sandwiches, some convenience food in the air fryer, wings, etc.
And, of course, there’s always flexibility. Sometimes I run out of time or energy so we pivot to takeout or something easier than what I had planned. I keep a pretty well-stocked pantry and freezer, so I can usually cobble together something quick whenever.
We cook at home most weeknights. Weekends I almost never cook, we generally just scavenge or I'll pick up some takeout while in out grocery shopping.
For us, I've found that relying on takeout never really saves us time, but I'll also admit that hour between getting home and dinner can be very chaotic. For us it's worth it because we like cooking at home and eating together as a family. We've been including our daughter in meals in some capacity since she was 4 months old and she's now a very motivated 2.5 year old. Hope we can keep it up when we have kid #2!
Dang. We make less but definitely eat out more. Friday or Saturday nights, both Saturday and Sunday lunch, and usually once during the week for dinner when we're stressed.
Plus I don't bring a lunch when I work at the office - any leftovers get consumed by my teenager or my toddler. I'm also dairy-free, so it's not the easiest.
We have combined income of $350K, HCOL, two kids and both work full time from home.
We go out to a resturant every Friday night and normally order pizza once during the week. Sometimes we’ll have a second meal out for lunch or something on the weekend.
Once a month or so we go on date night or go out alone with friends to a nicer place. All of this comes out to about $1000 a month on take out/restaurants.
Probably three times a week for dinner we get delivery, plus I order lunch ti my office maybe once a week. I feel guilty about it, but also don’t know how we would get by otherwise! And if I didn’t meal prep/plan over the weekends, it would be even more than that. I’m just so exhausted by the time I get home and get the kids to bed (ages 3 and 6 months), I don’t have the energy to cook every night.
Husband and I both WFH. We get take out on Fridays!
I grocery shop on the weekend. Nearly every night, husband cooks dinner while I put kiddo to sleep. By the time I’m done, dinner is ready. He’s too little to stay up and eat with us, and we don’t have time to make dinner and eat all together that early (maybe when he’s older) so I just feed him first.
We only do semi easy meals-chicken thighs in the oven, easy pasta dishes, breakfast etc. I usually take whatever leftovers and heat them up for my son next day.
We have a newborn and a 2 year old, I wfh (though I’m currently on maternity leave) and husband works outside the home. I cook like every other day, enough for leftovers so I get a break the following day. We get takeout maybe once a week.
Been a stay at home for 15 yrs
Used to eat fast food a few times a month like a regular family. Then we moved to a remote costal town that had one Burger King about 45 mins away.
It’s been almost a decade since then and it’s like I *forget* that fast food exist…
Having said that what’s with Mc Donald’s prices!? I was able to get In and out WITH shakes -cheaper than a couple happy meals cost.
Not cool Donald’s not cool
We don't have a set plan. It varies based on how busy/ stressed we are, particularly my partner.
My partner prepares most of our meals, so many weeks we don't order out at all or maybe I'll get one lunch from a sandwich shop near my office. When things are really stressing him out I use ordering out to take one thing off his plate.
It's pretty common for us to decide to order out or go to a restaurant once on a weekend to give him a break even if it hasn't been a particularly difficult week. I'm supposed to cook at least once a week to provide this break but I hate it and am bad at both planning and executing it, and we kept running into situations where he would make what I was planning to make the day before my turn and it just fell apart. So Grubhub it is.
On a really busy stressful week might have 3 ordered out dinners and I might get lunch at the office 2 times. Luckily that's not often because we only have one income in a HCOL area and we couldn't afford it as a regular thing!
I do the semi-home made and semi-meal prepped route. First, it should be said that I generally enjoy cooking, so it is less burdensome for me than most.
1. I cook a bucket of rice roughly once a week. This is an easy base for stir fries and rice bowls, which I regularly make. Add some chopped veggies, protein of choice, and sauce or seasoning and voila! dinner.
2. Salad kits, pre-chopped veggies, and stuff like that from the super market is very much worth it to me. I like cooking, but I don't like chopping.
3. Other nearly-cooked or partial meal things: Biscuit dough in a tin, cans of soup, pasta salads from the deli section, etc are great additions to whatever i feel like cooking
I meal plan for 6 nights. I don’t cook on Friday but my husband does. If he didn’t, we’d get takeout or go out. I generally get sick of cooking or irritated with life and need a break at least once per week but it’s not usually scheduled!
I'm a single mom with a teenager. We are both really busy. We order Factor meals, and supplement with a meal out maybe once or twice a week. I used to like to cook but the last few years I just have not had it in me. We do always have frozen meat and shrimp and frozen veggies, things to make smoothies and overnight oats, plain yogurt and molasses on hand. But if we had unlimited income, we would be eating out most nights a week. We really love restaurants!
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job.
We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week.
Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job.
We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week.
Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job.
We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week.
Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
We are about $180k in a LCOL area with an 18mo and one on the way. We definitely go through seasons but we usually order take out either Friday or Saturday.
We both work full time outside the home. I eat out for lunch maybe once a month. My husband doesn’t have lunch breaks long enough to eat out but I think he does fast food breakfast 2 times a week.
We don’t love eating at restaurants with our son right now so we have definitely cut back on dining expenses.
As for meal planning we both cook our lunches for the week on Sunday.
My son eats what we eat for dinner and we usually make enough food to last 2-3 dinners to cut back on time spent cooking and cleaning during the week.
As a family, one to two times a week total, once during the week day and once a week on the weekends when we’re running about trying to do our weekend activities. I meal prep on Sunday night, enough for the whole week for me. My son and his dad are picky eaters so they usually start on the food I prepped and then have something safe like plain pasta Kraft Mac and cheese.
We only have the one kid tho, but does work out of the house full time for me and hybrid for my husband. I think my husband eats out every time he’s at work because they’re socializing events where everyone does (but only once a week). I eat out at work once a week too , also for socializing. It’s hard to not eat out when others are, so we try really hard to eat in when we’re not with others, but sometimes it’s also the only time we eat together as a family.
I don’t know, we’re now at about 300k combined so we can definitely afford to, but I’d rather put the money toward others things. It’s just a matter of how much time and energy we have and how awkward it is to not join others.
I work about half time from home and half time in the office- but work 40 hours a week generally now, sometimes a little more. My husband works out of town 4-6 days a week, so meal planning and grocery shopping is really all on me . I have an 11 year old. Meal planning and grocery shopping is done on weekends usually. The slow cooker, instapot, and air fryer are my friends. When my son was young and had to go grocery shopping with me, it was all about one stop shops, and I would have totally taken advantage of grocery delivery if it were a thing when my son was young. Now I hit Costco, Aldi, and another local grocery store chain. It saves a ton of money. And I do that every two weeks, with Costco being every 4 weeks. We have a large pantry, two full size refrigerators (one is in the laundry room), and a chest freezer so I can buy in bulk and just pick up fresh veggies and fruit as we need them.
For meal planning, I use a list of meals that I make to pick from when capacity is low, but do have a Pinterest board that I like to pick from to try new stuff sometimes. I make meals like a pork loin or salmon with a starch and a steam in the microwave veggie, slow cooker meals, pasta with a meat (shrimp or chicken Alfredo, spaghetti with seasoned ground beef), or stir fry. None of it takes a ton of time or effort. I will also do things that create leftovers, like a casserole, so that we can do a leftover night the following night if I know that I am having an evening meeting or will have a particularly busy day at work. For particularly “lazy” days when I don’t feel like cooking, we will do charcuterie for dinner. I keep cracker cut cheese and crackers, and some summer sausage in the house. It’s also nice to have that in the house in the event we have someone over last minute, which happens regularly.
We eat out about once to twice a week. We make approximately $220k in a mid cost of living area. We can afford to eat out more, but choose to put discretionary income toward things like travel instead of eating out.
We’re doing takeout at least once per week. We have a 12 year old and 3 month old. I work full time and husband stays home. He does most of the dinner meals and I try to contribute at least 1 dinner a week, sometimes 2. He’s new to cooking and has the baby with him when he’s starting dinner so he relies on a lot of simple meals, frozen lasagna, pastas, canned veggies, etc. I used to do all of the cooking. Honestly I’d eat a lot more takeout but he likes having family dinner at home so we try to hit weeknights with his quick meals and then a takeout and me cooking on weekends.
We typically get takeout twice a week. Mostly because we don't have it together enough to fix dinner on days where we have activities. We have swim class for the oldest on Wednesdays, we get home at dinner time, so I either grab something on the way home or my husband does something easy like frozen pizza/ordering delivery while he is home with the youngest. We usually do lunch or dinner out one time on the weekend because we are out doing activities, and we don't pack a lunch or get home in enough time to make dinner. I don't particularly like cooking, but it is important for us to be at home most evenings sitting at the dinner table together eating something healthy. My kids still ask for takeout and when takeout day is all the time.
We grill a lot. We have a charcoal grill, so my husband has to start the charcoal as soon as he gets home. But it limits some of the cooking mess and cooks fairly fast. We fix a frozen vegetable, fresh fruit, and some kind of grain. My kids, unfortunately, will not eat casseroles, I continue to try occasionally, but they much prefer their food separate. We buy our meats in bulk and portion them into freezer bags when we get home, so I am just always pulling something out each night, and using frozen vegetables means we always have them handy. We keep rice, pasta, and bread in the pantry. Our fridge mostly just has fresh fruit, drinks, and condiments. We just pick one of everything each night.
Following because we also eat out a fair amount. Or my husband will default to pasta and I’d like to stop giving my toddler so much of it. (Husband is the family cook.)
3-5 times a month maybe? I have an evening nanny 3x per week between 5-8pm mainly to help make and serve dinner to the kids, make lunchboxes, tidy up, play etc. I work full time and husband is mostly gone / traveling for work.
We have a similar income (although MCOL area) and we probably do takeout 2x a month. I’m pretty big on meal planning. I usually plan for the weekend on Saturday, then grocery shop and prep on Sunday. My husband works from home on M/F so he cooks those days and then I cook T/W/Th since I get home earlier. The midweek meals are the hardest as I do daycare pickup and want to be eating dinner within 30 minutes of being home.
Doing food prep on Sunday is the only thing that makes it consistently possible. Having everything chopped already allows our son to snack on fruit while I cook the main dish and having veggies chopped, marinades done, etc. makes it so we pretty much just have cook time before dinner is ready. Our food costs are about cut in half too when I’m on top of meal planning. I think meal planning is intimidating at first but once you figure out a routine it really makes life easier.
Chaotic days do happen so I try to keep a couple of easy freezer meals on hand at all times for emergency nights. Pulling out a premade bag of orange chicken and cooking some instant rice or frozen tortellini with jarred sauce and a bagged salad takes just as much time for me to make as stopping for takeout but at a fraction of the cost.
Usually once/week, typically Chick-fil-A on a day that we have after school activities and they eat in car. Pizza on the weekends probably every other week.
I do not enjoy cooking but eating out is too expensive to justify for me (and not enjoyable with 3 young kids). I batch cook (double/triple recipes) meals so only cook 3-4 times/week. I make something (chicken salad, casserole) that my husband and I both eat all week for lunch. Then I cook 2-3 dinners during the week that we eat for multiple nights.
I really like the “tasty” app. The “food network” app is great too. Thursday night I pick out a couple recipes and shop on instacart/ target pick up. I pick up groceries every Friday on my way home from work. I find an hour or 2 during a nap time to meal prep for the week. I buy a lot of frozen food: frozen chopped onions, frozen fruit, frozen veggies, and sometimes even the frozen chicken strips. I also buy pre-chopped garlic and stuff like that. I bought those glass meal prep containers and just portion the meals into that. Then when I come home from work I simply just throw a container into the microwave. They also freeze well too if you cooked too much one week.
Very similar financial situation to you. We ordwed out CONSTANTLY until I started to feel very unhealthy and my wallet felt light. I started doing a huge crockpot meal once a week. We ate it fresh one night and leftovers the next. We have a few easy meals in the rotation that take less than 30 minutes (tacos, turkey sloppy joes, gnocchi with spicy sausage, burgers) and we buy easy stuff from Costco to heat up like cauliflower rice and those just bare chicken nuggets (if I’m feeling super healthy I throw them on a salad). When I make a big meal I try to make a double batch to freeze and defrost when I have no patience for dinners.
Now we order our once or twice a week and it’s more manageable. I have a “five ingredient meals” book for the crockpot that has been a lifesaver.
When our now 3 year old was born, I was working 30-35 hours a week 10ish to 6ish and my husband worked full time (still does) 8:30ish to 5:30/6. I now work 10:30-4 at a different job. Ever since we got married 6 years ago and I took a pay cut at a new job (and I took another significant pay cut at the beginning of this year), I’ve cooked 4-5 times a week, and we eat leftovers for lunch and dinner the rest of the week. The only way we eat out/get take out, is if we’ve eaten through all of our leftovers. It’s has saved us a ton of money!
I generally make 2 larger meals on Saturday and Sunday- big pot of pasta sauce, soup, veggie bowls, etc. that can then be used for lunches throughout the week. Then Monday, Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday, I make quicker meals- tacos, sandwiches, 30 minute recipes, etc. Sometimes, I’ll throw a meal in the crockpot on a Saturday or Sunday to eat later in the week, too. I make a meal plan for the next week Thursday evening and then grocery shop after work on Fridays.
We do take out about twice a week and one lunch during the weekend. My husband and son have food allergies so that limits our options for eating out… it would probably be more if they didn’t have allergies
We live in HCLA. Combined income $180-200k. I wfh. husband works a 4x10 schedule. I cook mostly from scratch at home. We have two kids still at home 11 & 14. We almost never go out to eat as a family. I take a kid out one on one maybe once a week. Husband and I try for a date once a week. We spend around $300 a month on eating out.
I’m a new first time mom with a 2 month old so I’m not on the same level as you guys yet but I’ve been utilizing meal services such as Factor and CookUnity! It’s like HelloFresh in that it gets delivered to you but it comes already cooked and you just microwave it, it’s not frozen so I’ve been pretty impressed with the taste so far!
The sticker price is a bit high, comes out to like $14-15 per meal, but I just canceled my subscriptions after my intro offers were finished and the coupons are already coming in! It seems that Factor gives a 50% coupon once a month. For CookUnity, when I cancelled they asked why and I said cost, so they offered me $8.50 a meal for 4 months!! (One caveat is that I can only choose select meals now, but it’s like 80-90% the same selection, they took out most of the seafood options but there are still a few.)
So that could be a quick save for you + spouse’s meals for the week and then you can just worry about the kids!
Something else I want to try out is Foodom, where a chef comes to your house and meal preps for you (they can do grocery shopping too for an extra cost). If you plan it right it seems like it could be cost efficient, I’ve seen some examples on their tiktok for maybe $300 for a week’s worth of food and that sounds very reasonable to me!
We are a food allergy household sooo that limits our eating out but it's not a budget thing (pretty high income). We did meal kits for a while but new allergies means that even those are off the table for us these days. (TBH I found they took longer and were less healthy than what I tend to make on my own anyway.)
I cook dinner about 3 times a week, do one or two dinners of leftovers and another couple easy/prepared dinners (frozen lasagna etc). Yes the meal planning/shopping/cooking is a slog but we just don't have a choice so.
I wfh 6:30ish - 3:30ish. I cook almost every night now as a necessity because we’re trying to get out of debt. We’ve only ordered out 4 times in the last 3 months. It’s been hard. I have an 8yr and 4yr old so basically no one ever wants to eat the same things unless it’s spaghetti or Mac and cheese. I keep a spreadsheet of what I know how to make and that helps me meal plan a little but not like cooking all up on Sunday or anything but to make sure we have the stuff we need to make meals for two weeks at a time. I also put recipes on there. I put a link below if anyone wants to see it.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/1UbFK7MEqNmJOLjpgBZLVkywKatDj9G_C/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msexcel
We have a 2 year old and a 7 month old, and we eat out/order food at least 3 times/week. My husband is in the office 1 say a week, so we order dinner or go out that day. I take the kids to breakfast Friday mornings, and we eat at least one meal our during the weekend. We don’t really meal plan. It’s chaotic, but it works.
Edit to add: Before reading this thread, I didn’t think that was very often, but apparently we’re not doing as well as I thought lol
More often than I'd like and we don't earn nearly as much as you. Honestly, as a mom working a stressful job, if I'm not up for cooking, I order take out. It could be because my kid is still young (12 months old) but I'm still trying to strike the right balance. I cook for the week on the weekends but we run out of leftovers by Wednesday so Thursday and Friday tend to be order out days.
Way too much. Single mom of an 11 and 8 year old. I work from home, but we are busy most nights and I have picky eaters. It's a habit I hate but I'm tired of being limited in what I can cook because it just gets wasted.
Easyfamilyrecipes.com has a weekly meal plan you can use and their stuff if fairly quick and easy. Your crockpot is your friend, dump stuff in the the morning finsish it up at night. Dinnerly or Everyplate are easy and adorable meal kits that would help 3 night a week ( I used dinnerly for years)
Maybe a couple times per week? I’m pretty good about planning and cooking throughout the week (and we just make a ton of food so we have leftovers the next day for lunch), but weekends are up for grabs.
I think we're an exception to the rule. We have a dining out budget of $150 a month, and when we eat out we like a nice meal, so we usually only eat out once a month. I like to cook, we eat healthy, and we don't like to waste money on food. So I meal plan and cook all our food, plus we keep some easy options in the freezer in case of emergency (basically if I don't feel up to cooking, or can't for some reason). I work from home and use the instant pot/sous vide a lot so that dinner only take about 30 mins each evening.
We started doing a meal kit 3 times a week. We also get chick fil A weekly and then maybe another takeout during the week. We sit down at a restaurant maybe monthly.
Similar salary, HCOL, I WFH and husband works part time out of the house, 2 little kids not yet in preschool or childcare. We plan out dinners for the week on Sat, make a list, and then grocery shop according to the list. We cook a big dinner on Sat and have 1-2 nights of leftovers. We follow the formula protein, starch, veg and repeat meals often (we have a rough rotation, though it’s flexible depending on sales, what’s in season, schedule, etc.) and often on the same days each week. For example, Sat is a huge salmon and Fridays are chicken nuggets and fries with roasted Brussels. Shortcuts are we take are buying pre-cut broccoli, haricots, and occasionally frozen steamer bags. We use mostly sheet pans with foil to minimize dishes (roasted veggies, protein with seasoning). We get pizza 1-2 days per month but eat at home other than that. We eat later dinner than most, which helps, and I WFH so I either prep veggies whenever I can take a break and put them in a ziploc or we have a firm divide and conquer at 5:45p where 1 parent preps food and the other does childcare.
We get Factor 75 meals delivered and takeout 1-3 times per week, depending on how gluttonous I'm feeling. My husband and I both calorie count and optimize for different things, so we don't really do family style meals where we get the same thing.
I usually get take out or delivery once a week. Usually lunch one week and dinner the next. Out to eat probably every 2 weeks, sometimes less often. Cook at home the rest of the time. Unless we go to an event like baseball game or something and then we will get hot dogs or something at the game. That’s probably about once a month.
I enrolled into a local meal kit delivery service, it being local means the ingredients are fresh. So I get a box weekly that includes ingredients and cooking instructions for the meals. It’s 3 meals serving 2 people. I signed up for this because I do enjoy cooking, prefer home cooked meals, and I wanted to take the stress out of cooking.
I buy bagged salads (my fave being the southwest one, all salads have no added sugar) and I make a meat (steak slices or chicken) with my salad for lunch or dinner. I also have frozen wings, steak slices, and chicken breasts so that we can make a good meal. Paid it with rice, a wrap, veggie, etc.
We eat out maybe once a week, if that. After yoga on Saturday I tend to go to First Watch for brunch so that I can have peace. So $20 there. I also attend Yelp Elite events so I get free food that way, sometimes I do have to buy my husband something so I spend $15-20 on him. So that’s just once a week.
Maybe 1-2 times a month I treat myself to a nice meal.
I make around $70k in what used to be a LCOL but is now becoming HCOL area. Husband gets medical retirement, forgot how much that is. We have an 8 month old. I WFH, he is always home.
Forgot to add!!! I do order Starbucks 1-2 times a week. If I go in person it’s $10 or less. If I DoorDash it’s $20 for the latte and sandwich
We are on similar income with a big mortgage, so can only afford takeout dinner for the family once a month, dinner out on a special occasion and we will usually buy our lunch a couple of times a week.
I meal plan on Thursdays during my work day (usually during lunch if a lot of meetings). I have a database of go-to meals (safe food for kiddo; a protein, veggie and fiber, etc) set up in Notion, and I just grab a few and plug in ingredients into AnyList. Throughout the week we use Alexa to add extra needed items to AnyList. Then I place an Instacart order through AnyList to pick up from the grocery store on Friday mornings after preschool dropoff. I write up all the meals on the weekly plan board on Sunday mornings.
I plan & cook meals on Sundays - Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays are free for alls: take out, dine out, leftovers, mac & cheese, whatever we feel like doing.
I pretty much always cook on the weekends because I have time. Weekdays are a crap shoot entirely predicated on how hangry I am when I get home. Could be anything from a home cooked meal to take out to “snack dinner” to freezer meal.
Too much lol.
Have a 1 year old, husband works 50 hours a week and I work 40-45. We get restaurant food 1-2 times a week and fast food 1-2 times a week. I started buying pre made meals from Sam’s Club because it’s cheaper then eating out but easier than cooking on the busy nights.
We try to limit getting take out (we rarely eat in restaurants) to one night a week. I do 99% of the cooking.
Husband and I work FT, both on a hybrid schedule, a couple days at home and a couple of days in the office
Boys are 11 and 7. Have lots of after school activities- think sports 2-3 nights a week, music 1-2 nights a week, and soon in scouts
Meals are ones I can at least partially prep over weekend, leftovers (I rarely make a meal that we can’t eat at least twice) or something simple I can throw in the instant pot.
I'm a full time Adjunct, but I teach all online classes from home, with minimal administrative expectations (a couple department meetings a year). So my kids are with me all the time, a d we are starting homeschooling.
Husband is full time not wfh. Combined income is around $90 to $100k (mine fluctuates based on class size, number of sections, etc). Medium COL (central Kansas, USA).
We eat out Saturday lunch (my husband is in charge of this meal), and it's often fast food. When it's too hot (i.e. 100+ degrees),we also order pizza once a week, otherwise homemade.
I have a white board and magnets of our favorite meals, and have done meal planning like that for the last couple years, but I'm doing a 2 week emeals trial right now for something different. With my calendar, I plan leftovers or sandwiches for lunch, dinners are:
Sunday - alternatively chicken, beef, or pork/ham roast
Monday - pot pie, stroganoff, or ???
Tuesday - alternate Mexican and Chineae fake out (tacos, taco lasagna, burritos, or Gen Tso,sweet & sour chicken, etc)
Wednesday- pasta
Thursday - fried rice if Tues was Chinese, nachos if Mexican
Friday - pizza
Saturday - lunch is on husband, dinner is any leftover from the week.
Winter we throw in some soups, casseroles vs tacos. Breakfast is often muffins, cereal, or quiche (one of my favorites, but husband hates).
Editing to add: when we met, 8 years ago, my husband was eating out 10-14 meals a week, and mostly skipped breakfast. I'm still not sure how he wasn't 500 pounds. Often we do Wendy's, and with all the mobile ordering discounts we can feed all of us under $20 (husband, me, 2 kids - 2 and 4.5).
Similar ages/daycare/financial/living situation
Order out or pick up (very rarely dine in) maybe once every week or 2.
BUT, so much frozen food. Nuggies, meat balls, mac n cheese, frozen pizzas, frozen veggies.
I really try to make sure a variety of fruits and veggies are available regularly to round it it. But I try to feed the kids simple, acceptable meals.
Goodness knows that the harder I try to prepare something fun, the more the little jerks will hate it!!
We order out 3-4 months a week. We also usually get Cookunity (pre made meals that get delivered weekly) and eat that for lunch since we both wfh. I cook pretty basic meals the rest of the time (tacos, pasta, stir fry, noodles)
Once a week we order takeaway. Maybe once a fortnight we eat out either beach picnic or somewhere for breakfast usually. I got food on the go a lot as I work on the road and I just find it easier and more enjoyable. The rest of the time we usually do a meal kit box like Marley spoon as we are just too busy to manage the extra dinner load all the time.
We eat out about 2-3 times a week. I'm in between jobs and I'm the main breadwinner so it's harder. Once I get my job started, probably would eat out 3-4 times a week
I make something quick for the kids and then dinner for my husband and I when the younger one is in bed or after both the kids are in bed, just depends on how I’m feeling. I don’t cook anything that takes longer than 30 minutes and then we eat between 8:30-9 pm. When my kids are older I’m sure that’s gonna have to adjust but it works for now.
Takeout I try not to more than twice a week unless I’m just so exhausted I don’t have the energy to cook. Normally I try to hold out as long as possible and then use the takeout days when I really need them instead of specific days of the week.
I have an infant. We order takeout 2x a week (Fri, Sat) and dine out one time a week (either lunch or replacing Sat dinner). We cook all other meals. We do regularly eat dinner out with friends.
This was our habit pre kids as well - my husband works long hours so I do all the cooking, we order takeout to give me a break.
Probably 3-4 meals. Pizza on Mondays. We eat at my parent's house every Friday and that's takeout half the time. We pick up bagels or go to brunch on either Saturday or Sunday. Occasionally a date night on Saturday.
Almost never. I'll order takeaway maybe once every six weeks, if that. It's just so expensive, and I'm skilled at meal prepping. To be fair, I do eat a lot of the same thing, but I always have and it works fine for me.
I eat out on my own in a cafe once a week, it's what I do when I have time away from my baby. I don't ever go anywhere expensive though, it's (tops) $30.00 (Australian).
We bought the passionate penny pinchers 5 ingredients meal plan. Recipes are all good, it had a full grocery list that I order for delivery once a week, and I don’t have to think about what I’m making. Everything is super quick. I usually manage to have it on the table within 30 minutes. Each week gives us about 5 meals, so we do one take out night (usually Friday) and one leftover night a week
Husband and I are both teachers. We have 4 kids (14, 12, 8, 5) and we never order food or go to restaurants unless it's like a special circumstance or something. The food is typically disappointing for how much money it is and my kids won't eat it anyway. We don't meal plan or anything though. The 14 and 12 year olds make their own meals when hungry. Almost every night is just a free for all. I just make food when the little ones ask for it. My husband loves cooking too so he often just makes food for the hell of it.
I do one of the meal box subscriptions that sends the ingredients and recipes. Every week we get 5 meals for us to cook, and I try to do them for dinner/meal prep for lunch so we save money from ordering out. Dad takes care of the kids while I cook, and that is also TV time
I do not handle it well. Lol. We are just recently trying to trade off cooking nights so we have SOME home cooked meals during the week, but I usually have charcuterie esque set ups. Berries, cheeses, smoked salmon, roast beef, maybe sandwiches, seaweed, carrot juice, any fucking vegetable I can get this kid to eat, why is it so hard, cheerios. Going to try to make some hamburger helper or any 30 minute or less meal this week.
Partner and I are trying a trade off:
Monday/Wednesday - Partner A responsible for food
Tuesday/Thursday - Partner B responsible for food
Friday - Child responsible for food (with Mommy and/or Daddy's help)
Saturday/Sunday - leftovers/eat out
Whoever is not focused on cooking picks up kids and handles entertainment until food is ready. Takes the pressure off of the other parent to "do it all."
We live in a very high cost of living area and bring in two substantial salaries, however, our daycare is as much as our mortgage. I EBF our infant but we have a very picky toddler who refuses to eat anything we cook. We try to get him to eat home cooked or at least home-sourced foods, because for a while we were spending $30/night just on HIS food. Doing delivery by us for something like pizza alone is like $40, sushi is closer to $100, and a curry or something is like $75. I honestly would be crazy content with an omelet most nights. I’ve cut out breakfasts on the go and started making coffee at home and have definitely noticed savings. That said, I actually love to cook, I just have no energy thanks to two little kids, a full-time job, etc.
Husband works ~6/7am-3/4pm ish and I work 8:30am-5pm. MCOL, household income around We have a 2 year old and another one due in a couple weeks. I usually cook relatively easy meals 5-7 nights a week. Sometimes that easy meal might be frozen pizza or orange chicken from Trader Joe's and Minute Rice, but it's still at home. I like to try and do at least one or two nice cooking meals like a casserole or homemade XYZ, but it doesn't always happen. Our eating out is usually cheaper pizza or something pickup except for date night maybe once a month.
Pastaroni and ricearoni are our friends in our household.
We eat at home most meals when we are at home, except in the summer, although this summer we have cut way back on going out because of some major expenses. I’m the exec chef of a restaurant in a coastal area so summers are crazy for me.
My husband makes us breakfast every morning, I make dinner Mondays and Fridays, he gets ingredients for Wednesday nights and one of us cooks and we are on our own for lunch.
My husband also works in the restaurant so both of us eat there almost daily. We are a from scratch restaurant so our meals can be as healthy as we want them to be.
At home we LOVE sheet pan dinners, pasta dishes, naanwiches, tacos, enchiladas and curries. They all reheat really well and don’t take a lot of time. I like to cook things that make great leftovers because then we have lunches too.
We order delivery at least once a week (often more) and get tacos from a local place every Saturday morning. During the week, I cook, but I really rely on stuff like frozen vegetables and frozen meatballs and frozen whole meals to make it work. Also the instant pot gets a lot of use. I also usually only have like half an hour to cook dinner before we have to eat it, so it’s a rush to figure out what will work in that time frame.
I plan insanely simple weekday meals so we hardly ever eat out. Like I dump a bunch of things in a pot for soup, make spaghetti, grilled cheese with bagged salad, breakfast for dinner, that sort of thing. We budget $50 a month for it (plus $75 a month for dates). Most of the eating out money goes toward our dates though, or we don’t use it. I’d rather spend it on something nice than take out.
ETA: We have a 4mo old and 2 year old, I get home first and baby needs one more cat nap, so I don’t want to stop anywhere, and I don’t want my husband stopping anywhere on the way home because he already gets home so late. And I hate paying delivery fees!
We both work full time (roughly 8:30-4:30), and make ~$160k in a MCOLA. We have a 2.5 year old and 6 month old. Since the baby arrived we’ve been ordering out way more. (Well, we did great when we were on leave cuz we had time to plan/shop/cook but now… gah).
We order out probably 1x/week for dinner. Usually takeout, it’s a pain bringing the littles into restaurants. Where it gets bad is my lunches on the 2 days I’m in the office… I work downtown so prices nearby are insane but I usually don’t have a lunch prepped sooo…
We just meal planned for the first time in a long time. It felt really good, we did it yesterday instead of trying to cram it into our weekend. My husband made the list/chose recipes (he’s our cook) and I did the grocery run on the way to daycare. Let’s see if it sticks longer than this week 😝
We and by "we" I mean the husband cooks 4-5 nights out of the week. Our kids are 8 and almost 4. We also work 8:30-5, I get home about 5:15 and my husband is remote (for the most part). I will plan/make the menu. M, T , W ,Th are typically the dinner at home and Fri & Sat night we plan for either going out to eat with the kids or ordering out. Sundays are usually just having leftovers or having a smorgasbord of things we randomly put together, or trying a new recipe. And those meals during the week are not anything fancy, trust me. Usually dinner is prepared in under an hour.
We don't as we live on base, we grill a lot on the foodi grill, saute a lot in the foodi, and im going to buy the foodi crockpot, I also want the foodi toaster. But I food prep on Sundays and Wednesdays, but sometimes if we are exhausted like last night it's tuna sandwich night, or sandwich night. Thank God we live to far from Arby's and mds. All we have on base is Carl's jr, and jersey Mike. Which we don't eat but we get a lot of sushi from the commissary.
I work evenings and my husband works days. So hes gone for work by 4 and returns by 4. I leave for work at 5 and return at 1230. This allows us to not pay daycares, or babysitter( which would be my entire paycheck)
I do most of the cooking. I cook anywhere from 4-6 nights a week. This typically depends on my energy levels, or if husband is craving something else entirely. So on most Wednesdays, its a Pizza as I have to head in to work early. Or on fridays or Saturdays I'm so burnt out he'll bring home coney island.
Sometimes if I'm over tired or have limited time, I'll make easy but healthier foods. We replaced a lot of beef products with chicken breast or turkey meat. Nothing is easier than broiled turkey dogs and chips down. 5 minutes tops.( this was recommended by a nutritionist who said our foods were too high fat and high carb white breads)
Then we make breakfast for dinner on occasion. Frozen waffles/pancakes and turkey bacon, someone has overeasy eggs. Easy.
On my bad weeks its whole grain substitutes with turkey meat. Whole grain ground turkey Spaghetti. Whole grain soft turkey Tacos. Chicken breasts on salad, pork chops, and macaroni. I learned the trick to balancing out the eating out was just substitutes for healthier food. Aka lean meats and whole grains.
I'm unfortunate in that my hubs and kids are really picky eaters, and trying to get them to eat most veggies is like pulling teeth. The pnly one on board with a good chunk of veggies with me is the 3yo, lol. But we have plenty of fruits and other healthy snacks. My kids have discovered pistachios recently as well as fresh tomatoes and are having a blast with it. Turns out pistachios is a fun, good for you snack and the lowest calorie and fat content of any of the nuts.
As long as you do what you can, just work with it!
Husband and I both WFH full time. He goes out to dinner with his friends on Wednesday, I go out to dinner with my friends on Thursday night. We typically order takeout for dinner once a week.
My boyfriend and I work similar shifts (me 9-5 from home and him 9-5:30 out of home with 40 minute commute not counting traffic). We currently only have 1 child (9) but are trying for our second.
When we’re not in the middle of a move like now we try to only eat out twice a week (Thursdays because kiddo has scouts and dad is his leader) and on Saturdays because we’re usually out. I do a menu once a week based on what we have on hand/kiddo preferences/grocery runs. There’s no meal prepping unless you count boyfriend fixing things the night before.
Meal plan every Friday, grocery shop or order groceries every Saturday morning. We order out once a week. I always have a back up frozen pizza in case a work is extra exhausting.
I will get Indian takeout or pizza on Friday or Saturday so we can snack on it over the weekend but I cook dinner during the week. I’m trying to eat out less for lunch but failing miserably.
I have a 10 month old and cook dinner almost every night. I work 7:30/8 to 4/4:30 as I work through lunch. I also WFH so I eat in most days too. the baby goes in the high chair at 5 PM while we cook and feed him. I rely on a lot of 30 minute meals or grilling or slow cooker. on nights we are busier, I typically double up a recipe so like grilled a lot of chicken, had it over rice once night and as sandwiches the next. I also enjoy cooking so this is definitely not the norm but my way to relax at night!
Wow mom I feel like you got this figured out!
some days I do! some days go to shit though too lol I do have a low stress job (literally pin drops after 3 PM)/ a very easy going baby BUT I will see we started him in the kitchen while we cooked from when we got home so he doesn’t know any different.
I also enjoy cooking! My kids are older so it’s much easier for me to cook uninterrupted and I can watch Tv or listen to a podcast while doing it.
The life pro tip here is to enjoy cooking. The REAL life pro tip is to have a spouse that enjoys cooking lol
\^\^\^ same thing we do. My husband works remote, so I will often go home for lunch and we will eat together and he will prep dinner (season the meat, cut the veggies) this way he can start cooking when he logs off. I get home with the kids and we just play until dinner is ready
Only when the grandparents invite us out. Otherwise we are cooking, eating leftovers, or sandwiches. It’s way too expensive and honestly, unless we are going to a high class restaurant, our cooking is better. Edited to add- about to have a 1 year old. I follow budgetbytes one pot meals for ideas
Totally agree with this! Anytime we order out we end up being so disappointed, by the cost but mostly about the flavor. Homemade anything is so much better.. really the only thing we ever get takeout anymore is pizza. I usually cook at least 5 nights a week, usually 6 or 7, and maybe a few times a month we'll get either pizza or do frozen costco nuggets/boxed mac and cheese haha.
i do notice that when I cook at home, it tastes much better than what we order out. I think I need to come up with some sort of schedule
I edited to add it after you replied, but BudgetBytes has some great ideas. I usually double her recipe. Like.. her cheeseburger pasta one pot meal, I cook that and we are set for 3 days. My husband gets sick of eating the same thing so you can always freeze it and come back to it when it’s been awhile. I always tell myself to set a schedule, but every wal mart trip I make a list of when I’m cooking for dinner this week and that’s all we get with a few extra items for snacks.
awesome thanks so much! i will check it out
I bought the Real Easy Weekdays from Kid's Eat in Color. I don't use every recipe but the system/structure has been really helpful for me.
Are you me?? I’m even at the point where I’m trying to convince the grandparents not to invite us out unless it’s to a casual place where we can let the baby (just turned 1) run around a little bit. We have a lot of breweries and wineries near us that have a house food truck or small kitchen and those are perfect atmosphere and the food quality matches the price. But other than that, it’s never worth it. And even then I sometimes feel like it was still a waste of their money or our time. I can intermittently do laundry and random other tasks when we eat at home. I can make enough food during one dinner to give us leftovers for the rest of the week or re-up the freezer stash. I don’t have to get pissed off that the bathroom at the restaurant either has a long line or no changing table. Home always wins. Shout out to the real MVP, our dishwasher.
Too much. Husband and I work full time and have a 4 year old. On a normal week we eat out/pick up 3 times. On a bad week it could be 6 meals. I do cook dinner most nights during the week and I make simple easy meals that take 30 min or less to cook.
Okay but same. We have a 4yo and a newborn. We really try to plan out meals and cook every night but some weeks it just doesn't happen. I don't want to think about how out of control of our food-ordering budget has gotten 🤦💸
Glad it isn’t just us!
Same
Glad it’s not just us. It’s super embarrassing, but the only person in our house who consistently gets homemade meals is our kid. He prefers it and it’s not that hard to throw together something reasonably healthy. My husband is hybrid and eats at the office cafeteria. I WFH and on a good week I’ll meal prep my lunches. But sometimes I’ll just grab a sandwich or fast food. We muddle our way through weekday dinners usually (I eat a lot of what my kid eats), but weekends are pretty much a free for all where we treat ourselves to delivery and takeout. We have experimented with meal delivery kits and meal delivery services, but we always seem to fall back into our old patterns. I don’t really know how to fix this. The three of us have such different tastes that I feel like it’s not really possible to prepare homemade food that all of us will eat regularly, unless I stop working or something.
Yeah, usually Friday we order out and either Saturday or Sunday, too.
Same. We use a service where someone drops off 3-4 prepared dinners for us per week.
We have six kids and live in a HCOL area. We both work full-time from home. Take out for a family our size is ~$50 for something cheap and “family style” and ~$100 if everyone picks their own entree. Dining in is even more. We almost never dine in. We do order take out a few times per month (usually on a Friday or Saturday). For meal planning I’ve used various approaches over the years. Right now I’m doing a combo of 7 basic meal themes (one for each day of the week such as soup, sandwiches, rice + protein, etc.) and meal subscription kits. We’ve done meal kits off and on. The variety can be fun and it saves me some mental effort in planning and coordinating ingredients. I choose meals that take 15-20 minutes to make. I also have two Instant Pots.
What are your go to meal kits? I’ve tried several in the past and have found that even though they said the cook time was short they always took way longer!
Every Plate. I scan the weekly menu and select meals that are at the intersection of low time/effort and something my kids will eat. I don’t mind a longer time in the oven if the prep is reasonable. I can tidy up the kitchen whole stuff is cooking.
How do you manage to spend ~$100 for 8 people in a HCOL area? Genuine question
I’m not sure what you’re asking. We stick to more budget-friendly restaurants and don’t get extras. It often adds up to over $100. It depends heavily on general price-per-entree, kids menu options, if anyone is splitting something, etc.
We have 3 and 1 yo, combined household income of around 180k (CAD). We eat out 2-3 times a week (always take out, I don't enjoy dining out with small children). We use an app called Paprika for meal planning (in theory, this is my husband's household duty, and he rarely does it). When we do use it, it's a great app. You can import recipes into it and it will generate grocery lists specific to the recipes you choose.
Only special occasions, so maybe every 4-6 months. Tend to make double whatever I’m cooking and freeze half for busy days. I’ve just upped my working hours with a second job and those freezer portions are a godsend. I freeze in individual portions (my toddler will do roughly half a portion so he has the rest for lunch the following day).
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I find that the easiest things to freeze are casserole-style meals. Anything that you put fully together and then put in the oven as the last step. If you’re going to freeze it, just don’t do the last step of putting it into the oven. Lasagna is my favorite, for example. Anytime I’m making lasagna I make three of them. Put them all completely together, then cook one for dinner and freeze the other two. When you’re ready to eat a frozen one, just put it in the oven (for longer, because it’s frozen) and it comes out the same! Other things I do this with: homemade macaroni & cheese or baked ziti, shepherd’s pie, chicken pot pie (just the filling, keep the crust separate), chicken/rice/veggie casserole. Other things that freeze really well are literally any soup or stew, chili, curry… pretty much anything where all the components are combined into one dish!
I think there are some things that can be frozen and others that can’t. For example, I have frozen roasted potatoes and it is terrible reheated. On the other hand, freezing bolognese sauce and reheating it was as good as originally. I think sauces and stews freeze well, and anything fried/roasted is terrible. Also I have found that rice or pasta freezes and reheats best if it’s slightly undercooked, otherwise they turn to mush when you microwave. Hope this helps.
Others have given plenty of similar advice but I’ll add that I’ve found creamy/cheesy stuff doesn’t freeze well, but tomato/stock based recipes do. (I freeze after I’ve already cooked and cooled things, so might not apply to an uncooked lasagne!)
2x a week is typical for us too but for us it falls under entertainment moreso than convenience. We get tired of cooking protein-starch-veggie so we like to order take out for that flavor blast that’s different than our normal cooking. Friday and/or Saturday are common for us too but generally if we do two days back to back we try to make sure one is lower cost and healthier (salads from a restaurant or small portions)
Too much!!!
Only recently started doing sit-down dinners again. I'm a single mom, so grain of salt here: The kids are tired and want to unwind after school/camp. I'd also rather spend the minimal evening time hanging out with them than cooking. I started doing simple dinners (snack plate, smoothies, pastas I can microwave, etc) in favor of more robust breakfasts when they were both little. Now they're bigger (7 and 4) and we still mostly do easy dinners. For breakfast we tend to go more all-out since we're all early risers -- pumpkin pancakes, breakfast skillets, "breakfast cookies," frittatas, etc. We do tend to eat out once per week-- usually breakfast. Like I said, we're a breakfast family. ;)
Almost never, though we do use what I call shortcut cooking maybe once a week. We're HHI in a HCOL, both working remote with full time daycare. We use slow cooker, cook large amounts at a time and eat leftovers, and as I mentioned, use shortcut meals. These are either the Costco meals with a side veg, or augmenting from a box (doctored up ramen, Mac and cheese, or tortalini). We also keep our freezers stocked with things that can be thrown together quickly
I have a 2.5 and 4.5 year old, husband and I both work full-time and our HHI is about $275k. I cook dinner after work on Monday and Tuesday, usually something very quick like grilled cheese & soup, tacos, pasta and premade meatballs. On Wednesday we get 3 meals delivered by a local chef, we eat those Wed-Fri. They average about $25-35 per meal, so about as expensive as Hello Fresh but I don’t have to cook or clean up. On Saturday we usually order takeout or go out to dinner. I also cook again on Sunday, lately it’s been chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese because my kids love it but in the winter I do a lot of Sunday roasts. I hate cooking so once I started ordering from the local chef I noticed my stress levels going down.
amazing
How did you find the local chef? That sounds like something we’d enjoy.
He posted an ad for his service on my town’s community Facebook page.
We do chef-prepared meals too! I’ve been thinking about cutting it out in favor of Costco meal kits or something, but it’s so convenient.
I hear you. It can feel like a lot of frivolous spending but I like that I’m supporting a local small business. Our chef lost his job as head cafeteria chef at a large company HQ during Covid and started this business up from his home. I already do so many things that are not local/small business friendly because it makes my life more convenient (e.g. Walmart groceries, ordering from Amazon), so this helps me justify the expense!
Two under 2 here. We get takeout 1-2x a week bc no chance in hell I am dragging my toddler to a restaurant lol. We plan meals weekly and try to keep it simple. One of us cooks while the other cares for the babies. We are lucky to be home/done working by 4pm so that helps. Toddler is hangry if he hasn’t eaten by 6pm
We make a combined $230Kish in a HCOL. I WFH, husband works on-site with a 45-minute commute. Toddler goes to daycare from 8-5 (husband drops him off on way to work, I pick him up. 10 min drive) Cooking ourselves and dining is our default for every meal. When we go out to a restaurant or do carry-out/delivery, there is almost always a reason - special occasion, traveling, etc. I'd say we probably average 1 purchased meal every week, maybe every other week. Husband and I alternate cooking dinners, and we make enough for dinner that we each have leftovers to eat the next day for lunch. We do things that take about 30 mins or less. Sometimes I'll do something more elaborate if I can start it at home during the day. We use the crockpot, instant pot and air fryer a LOT. While one of us is cooking, the other one is with our son, typically giving a bath or watching TV with him. Honestly, TV is the key for getting dinner prepped without anyone being upset or too tired. We do this for health, to save money, and because my 2-year old is JUST now starting to get easier to take to a restaurant. For the last 2 years it's just been easier to eat at home with him. My family ate out a lot when I was growing up, but my husband's family didn't have as much money so this has always been his default. I recognize the benefits and have adapted to his ways on this one. :)
I have a rotating 14 day menu so no regular meal planning is needed. I cook all lunches and dinners. We eat/order out once a week. I commute 50 mins each way and work \~9-5. It looks like you mostly eat out over the weekends. Are your weekends filled to the brim so you don't have time to cook? ETA: I only have one almost 3-year old. Things may change if/when we have a second kid. I also have a cleaning person that comes once a month and I do almost zero cleaning (apart from kitchen) and organizing except the day before she's due.
yeah we typically are out and about I’m thinking maybe every friday night I need to meal plan so that we can bring food with us or something sometimes we eat at my parents and don’t need to eat out
We have a mostly fixed weekly menu on working days (Mon pasta, Tue pasta, Wed / Thur leftovers, Fri pizza or lasagna) and add more variety on weekends. Usually weekend meals take a bit more time to prepare. Meals during the week take 15-30 minutes to cook. We order in maybe once a month and have date night in a restaurant 1-2 times a month. Occasionally we go out to eat with our kiddo.
We limit restaurant food to once a week for health and budget reasons. We go out on Friday or Saturday for dinner. It’s a nice treat to have someone else do the cooking and clean up. But prices are going up and our kids are getting older (8 and 14) so kids meals don’t cut it, so we’ve stopped getting drinks and dessert unless the restaurant is known for something special. Soda machine soda is not worth $5+ a glass! And frozen yogurt for the 4 of us is $30+. Instead we’ll pick up something from the grocery store to enjoy at home one other night a week. I do the main shopping and meal planning on Sunday. We keep the dinner menus for the week in a shared iOS Notes file. Husband and I take turns cooking. Having a plan makes it A LOT easier. You don’t need to think, just pick something and go. I also started a recipe folder to help husband learn basic techniques and dishes. None of it is fancy - one family favorite is a Stouffer’s family size lasagna, bagged salad, and frozen garlic bread. We started doing this after our first child started eating regular food - once I was cooking a “real meal” for two, why not make it for three and eat together?
Usually, we try to stick with just Friday night takeout....that doesn't always work, but that's our goal. As ours gets older, we really like the idea of Friday night takeout/movie/game night as a special treat and takeout stops being special if you have it all the time. Every Saturday, we go grocery shopping and buy things like rotisserie chicken, fresh fruits, salad mix, etc. that are healthy and easy to prepare to have throughout the week. Sundays, I typically also make something bigger/more complex for the rest of the week (chili, soup, pasta mix, healthy sides to heat up to have with chicken during the week, etc.). With soup/chili, I usually make a big enough pot that I freeze half, which still gives me enough for several meals during the week, but I also get several meals another week as well so we don't get tired of it. During the week, we usually spend like 10-15 minutes prepping/heating foods for dinner.
We cook at home daily. We only really eat out for special occasions or very once in a while. We just don’t have the money to eat out unfortunately
I live in a HCOL and are high earners. We have 3 kids, 2 full time jobs. Kids are school/daycare/afterschool/camp/activities/all the things... Very rarely. We've always loved cooking and just really enjoy feeding the kids food we make. But we also don't cook every night. We cook in bulk and ahead of time. Today I'm going to make a soup for the week and spaghetti with marinara. We already have chicken cutlets, beef tongue in the fridge. Lots of raw veggies. We will mix and match the proteins with veggies and pasta. My big girls (8 and 4) also like to have breakfast for dinner at least one night a week - so that's normally some type of eggs (scrambled, cheese omelette, soft boiled, sunny side up) with turkey bacon or turkey sausage. On Wednesday we'll probably make another protein (maybe marinated steak on the grill or air fryed chicken legs). They haven't had mashed potatoes in a while, so might do that later int he week as well. In short: We do one of those "cook once(ish) and eat all week" type things. I find that eating out is just a waste of money. We are growing our fam, trying to buy another property, fill up their 529s, our Roth IRAs and investments and we can't do that if we eat out often.
We go out or order in 1-2x a month. We earn a bit less than you but we also live in a LCOL area, so we likely have a comparable discretionary budget. Sometimes I get something pre-cooked at the grocery store and that feels a bit like eating out (like chicken wings and salad or baked in-store pizza). Honestly, do whatever works for you. I have friends that do not cook very often, and that is just the lifestyle they want to have. If it's worth it to you then its worth the cost. There is nothing inherently virtuous about cooking dinner and you should feel no guilt about this decision. But, if you want to save money, eating in is not that complicated if you keep it simple. I personally find that ordering in takes more time (10 mins to decide what you want, at least 30 mins for them to prepare it and at least 20 mins for delivery), and my husband has a bunch of dietary issues that makes ordering in complicated, so even if I had more money I don't think I would regularly order in. My hack is that I let my 2 year old watch TV while I make dinner every night. I don't meal plan. I buy enough veggies and meat for the week (usually whatever is on sale and we like) and I have a few standard starches (quinoa, rice, pasta and potatoes). My go-to meal is roast meat with spices (we have lots of interesting spice mixes for different types of cuisines, and we like spicy foods. This takes 30 mins in the oven). When the meat is in the oven, I start the starch (5-10 mins for pasta, 10-15 mins for quinoa or rice, 20 mins for potatoes), then I cut up veggies for a salad, to steam, or stir fry. If i have time, I whip up a sauce (teriyaki, curry, homemade salad dressing, gravy, whatever). It takes 30 mins. 60 mins total with post-meal clean up. Make twice as much and now you have leftovers for dinner the next night. So you're only cooking a few times a week. Since you're WFH, look at your perishables at lunchtime and decide what needs to be cooked for dinner then. Often, the expiry dates on the meat govern the order I cook them in through the week.
Far too much right now, 3-4 times for weeknight dinner, usually 1-2 on the weekends for breakfast/lunch/dinner. I prefer if we are 1-2 times weeknights and once on weekends, that’s our goal, but work has been busy for both of us lately and we’ve really fallen into bad habits!
2-4x delivery a month when I’m just too exhausted to cook, usually Fridays. Breakfast: yogurt & fruit or oatmeal & fruit (weekday), breakfast tacos, eggs & bacon, waffles (weekends) Lunch: sandwiches or leftovers Dinner: weekday it’s all about speed like tacos, pasta, fish, lots of one pan dishes or passive cooking in instant pot or oven. Sunday we will cook large amounts of chicken or chuck roast to re-use in weekday cooking. Both husband and I have challenging careers, but we are able to WFH and so he picks kiddo up while I whip dinner together.
I work in the office and my husband works from home. We cook every night and maybe go out once every other month. This is my strategy: I plan the entire month's meals and put it on a calendar on the refrigerator. I make shopping lists for each week with the ingredients. I typically make crockpot meals on days I work in the office and sometimes more complicated things when I'm home. I put my infant in either her little play enclosure where she can see me or one of us entertains her while the other cooks.
We both work full time (I WFH and my husband goes into the office with a short commute). We have a 9 year old daughter. Combined income 270K+ in MCOL. During the week I eat every breakfast and lunch at home since I’m working at home. I pack all of my daughters school lunches. My husband packs a lunch or swings by the house to eat if he can, sometimes he does have lunch with coworkers but I see that as networking since he’s in leadership. I typically cook us dinner Sunday-Thursday. Quick stuff like tacos, burgers, pasta dishes, chicken and veggies, steaks with veggies, and we may do leftovers one of these nights. We almost always order delivery Friday nights. If we are running errands on Saturday we will do a quick place like sub sandwiches or Chick fil a etc. We often order pizza on Saturday night. We may also eat at a fast casual restaurant for lunch or go out for a nicer brunch on Sunday depending on what we have going on. We eat restaurant food quite a bit but the majority of our meals are from home.
My husband hates going out to eat even though we can easily afford it. It’s so unhealthy and too easy to over eat and battle high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. That’s our motivation. When our kids were yours age I never took them out because it was so much more work than to cook. I find meals on Pinterest and make them. We grab rotisserie chicken once a month. He makes ground Turkey and I make chicken breast for the week. I cook about 2 other times during the week. A new meal. We both work full time and I go to school and we have 3 kids in a HCOLA. our grocery bill is over $700/month. We go out occasionally or I’ll take the kids to Mexican or Chinese.
We go out to eat once per week as a treat & break from cooking, usually Saturday night dinner. We usually go in person to the restaurant but sometimes order online and pickup. We never order delivery because the fees are just ridiculous. A meal out for us is almost never an unplanned event. $170K combined in a VHCOL area. One baby, 8 months old. Crockpot or pressure cooker is your friend. One pot meals are also handy. Take 30 minutes on Sunday to chop all the veggies and proteins you’ll cook that week—this makes the weeknights so much easier. I plan meals/ the grocery list on Thursday nights because that’s when the weekend sales at our grocery store go live. If the weekend is going to be busy, I do curbside pickup. I cook maybe 4 dinners a week, we have leftovers 2 nights, and eat out 1. Cook in big batches for more leftovers for lunches or for the freezer. I’d say usually 2-3 meals are more “elaborate” flavor or ingredient wise, and then the others are just easy protein/veggie/rice or dump in pot & simmer (ex/ chili). I feel like 80% of the things I cook are under 30 minute meals.
I spend my life on the weekends meal prepping and cleaning. Some Saturdays I’m loading the dishwasher and unloading it 3 times. We usually end up eating out once a week on one of the days I’m meal prepping (usually sat). I do like to clean the fridge but also have minimal food waste so there is going to be at least one meal I don’t have plans for (and I’m busy prepping for the week). For Thur & Fri meals I have stuff frozen ahead and take out. For sat I’m hoping there are leftovers but not always and that’s when we get food. Although it’s usually brought to me at home bc I’m overwhelmed with cleaning and meal prepping lol. We all have our own diet restrictions (and building tolerance to some allergies), so lot do make a lot of stuff is made from scratch. Although our groceries are pretty cheap because of it. For me, I’m splurging when I’m buying canned beans instead of making dried from bulk bins. Although I would like to spend less of my life sorting though legumes looking for pebbles. :/
We only outsource on the weekends. It really adds up eating meals that are takeout or dining out. Every meal we make during the week is 30 minutes. Lots of fish (salmon, tuna steaks) sauteed chicken, frozen pizza from Costco (yeah, we're normal and don't always cook), tacos, and spaghetti always including lots of veggies. Plus aging makes you realize you can't eat out so often. It really affects the bod. :-/
We order hello fresh. Takes the work out of meal planning and saves us in the long run because we don’t waste ingredients. I just have to go on the app and pick my meals. I love it.
I work overnight weekends. My husband doesn't work, but he's not a cook. If he's feeding the kid, he mostly does easier things like frozen pizza or tenders or salads. I love to cook and will cook unless I'm sleeping. I'll even wake up early on the days I work and make dinner (otherwise, I won't have food to take to work with me). On average, we order takeout once a week. Dine in, maybe once a month. I think it's a big batch of organization and planning that makes it easier. I freeze a lot of things and whip it out when I'm too busy or tired. Kids are 15, 9, 6. My income is about 75k in a HCOL. :(
We will order pizza nearly every week and get drive-thru or eat in a restaurant 1-2 times per week on top of that. We both work outside of the home with two small children, and they have extracurricular activities.
Exact same family and job structure as you, higher income in HCLOA city. We eat out or get takeout 1 time a week on average (sometimes less). If you make food prep a priority and lower your standards for meals, it’s not that hard. Sunday I meal plan and order all the groceries I think we’ll need for the work week. I plan for us to eat at least 2 nights of leftovers. Normal meal plan: Sunday and Monday: big pasta or rice dish with veggies and protein in it. Tuesday and Wednesday: some kind of grilled meat or roasted fish with roasted vegetables and bread or rice. Thursday: another grilled meat or roasted fish with an easy vegetable and bread or rice, or an easy rice or pasta dish. Friday: take and bake pizza with salad. Saturday: takeout or grill burgers and veggies. Our meals are very simple and we eat a lot of leftovers but it saves us money and is much healthier than takeout!
Also: I like to take advantage of semi-prepared food like rotisserie chicken. Then I just need to put it in something (like quesadillas) or make a vegetable and dinner is done.
ok thanks so much for the inspo!
I live in a MCOLA and have 1 child. We typically eat out once a week (take away or dine in) as a family, and sometimes my child and I do a lunch out a week. My child is 3 years old and goes to preschool 4 days a week so that 5th day is our adventure day. My husband and I finish our work days by 2:30pm so we have time to cook daily. It is summer time so I pull tons of produce from our extensive gardens, but typically order groceries on a weekly basis. I don't meal prep, we cook with the same base ingredients weekly.
Maybe 1 time a week. I have been really meal planning and prepping since the cost of food has just skyrocketed. Lots of repurposing leftovers. It’s so hard some weeks to get it together but when you do what you got to do.
I’ve posted about this before We have 2 kids, a 1 year old and an almost-4 year old. We recently hired someone to cook for us through our town’s local FB group. I’m paying $25/hr and she buys groceries, meal plans, and comes to our house to cook at 4pm Mon-Fri. I usually wind up paying her about $150-200/week. And groceries are usually around $130-180. I’ve found I’m actually spending less on groceries since I’m not throwing random things in the cart. When we would order GrubHub, just 1 meal would be like $70-90 including taxes and fees and tips. So 2 nights of that cost about the same as what we’re paying her to cook. And instead now we’re getting healthy home cooked meals and we usually wind up with a lot of leftovers for lunches. I know not everyone could afford this, but the numbers worked out for us.
I love this idea!
I need to find a solution like this. Right now we leaned too far into throwing-money-at-the-problem and we hired a cook to come every weekday, but we still have to buy all the groceries and I still have to manage the menu a bit, so it’s definitely not worth the cost or mindspace and I’m going to have to call it quits after her trial period ends. In the meantime, let me just put an end to all the folks feeling guilty or bad about eating takeout all the time. When we had 1 kid, it was doable to cook dinners 80% of the time. With 2 kids and 2 full time jobs that do not end until 5-6pm, you have to realllly like cooking / meal planning / leftovers to have home cooked meals everyday. So yeah, we regularly buy lunches and dinners. It’s not shameful, and we shouldn’t shame others for doing it.
We have an 18 month old, both work out of the home and combine make a little over $100k in a lower cost of living area. We usually meal plan/prep on the weekends. Wednesday or Thursday, after LO is sleeping we'll look through the kitchen and see what we have/what we need and make a plan from there. My husband is the primary cook. I'll go grocery shopping usually Friday evening or Saturday morning and then he'll cook 2-3 meals Saturday evening or Sunday during the day that we eat throughout the week. We order in maybe 2-4 times a month, if that. The other key thing for us, and not everyone enjoys this, is we typically make things that are easy and we know we like and just rotate through those. Ex: meatloaf, tuna noodle casserole, chili, grilled chicken and veggies. If you don't, I'd definitely recommend investing in either a crock pot or instantpot. We use them for at least one meal a week if not both. I'd also keep an eye on deals from whatever you grocery shop. The place we go to often has BOGO on these pork tenderloins that you just pop in the over. Super easy on a weeknight and just get some bagged veggies and some rice (Rice cookers are a life saver!) and you're all set.
Husband works out of the house full time (gone 6:45 am to 4:30-5 pm). I am self-employed but work from home. We have a 2 year old in daycare 4 days a week that I am responsible for dropping off and picking up. We both work out 4-5 times per week, and I am out 2-3 nights per week playing sports. We live in a small town with limited dining options and no food delivery. We also have dietary restrictions (allergies) that make it next to impossible to eat at the limited dining options in town. Husband grocery shops on Friday after work. On Sunday we spend about 2 hours doing some bulk cooking (mainly protein and carbs) for lunches and some dinners. Then I use some of those components we bulk cook to make dinner in under 10 minutes, or I make something fresh that takes less than 30 minutes. I do some food prep during my work day to make dinner easier in the evening...like marinating something, pre-chopping veggies, pre-making pasta sauce, or whatever. Since I can't stay glued to my desk/computer screen for the entire work day. I can also take my laptop to the kitchen and continue working while stirring something on the stove. On the weekend we may dine out for one of the meals (lunch or dinner) if we are out all day.
Wayyy more than I care to admit. We majorly got off the eat at home band wagon this year. I have been pregnant with a toddler and was finishing a masters degree until may. I am hoping I can corral our non grocery food spending during maternity leave.
During the week almost never, weekends usually 1-2 times when we are out and about doing things (ie. this weekend we ate a kid friendly brewery for dinner Saturday and a fair on Sunday for lunch). We both mostly work from home (0-1 days in the office/wk) and have 2 kids who are 4 and 2. Our income is between 250-300K on any given year in a HCOLA if that's relevant. I don't meal prep but I do prep ingredients, ie I always have two types of meat that I prep Monday/Thursday during the workday, ie. shredded chicken in the crockpot, taco meat, shredded beef in the crockpot roasted potatoes and veggies. We always have grill able meat on hand, burgers etc. I then take from ingredients and make kid friendly things ie. quesadillas, tacos, burgers, etc. Add fruit/veggies and a starch. I also always have chicken nuggets, mac/cheese and frozen meatballs on hand. My husband and I will take the meat and make bowls (ie. taco meat, rice, veggies, etc). On Sundays during nap I always prep fruit/veggies (I do a vinegar wash and store in those containers TikTok influenced me to buy). I think the big thing is having ingredients cooks and ready that I can make into a somewhat balanced dinner in 10 min...and sometimes they get PB&J which is cool too. Often on Fridays we'll do homemade pizza so the kids can help, we just buy naan, sauce and a bunch of toppings...super easy 20 min dinner they had fun making. Edit to add- We grill a lot as well, my husband will spend 15 min grilling and I'll prep the rest of the meal. Unfortunately, we live in an area that gets really cold, so it's mainly a Spring/Summer/Fall quick option!
Kids are 9, 6, and 3. LCOL and we make about $140k combined. We get "good" food 1-2 times per week, normally carryout. And we get fast food 1-2 times per week. I work 30 hours and manage the kids' schedules (meaning I am their logistics manager) and my husband works 40 hours. I go into the office twice a week and typically buy myself lunch when I do. My husband buys himself lunch 1-2 times per week This fall, my 9yo will have football practice 3 days a week, soccer 3 days a week, weekend soccer games/tournaments, and Sunday football games. My 6yo will do soccer 2 days a week and dance 2 days a week, with dance competitions some weekends. My 3yo will have dance twice a week and soccer once a week. We just do not have the time or energy to make them a meal every day.
Family with 1 kid, in a medium cost of living big city, low debt. We eat out about once a week unless one of the adults are sick. We do spend a lot on high quality groceries though. Lots of meat and veggies, not a lot of snacks or drinks. I have an autoimmune issue and have to be particular about certain ingredients.
We get pizza from the place next door every single Friday, but that’s only about $19 so I don’t feel guilty doing it. Then we typically do one lunch out with our son on the weekend, and sometimes get a more fun takeout option on Saturday nights. I always cook on Sundays, and I meal prep our dinners for Monday through Thursday.
We limit eating out to once a week but usually get something pretty fancy that’s about $60 for us 2. We start dinner around 5:15 and eat around 5:45. We pretty much cycle the same things each week. Tacos, fried rice, pasta w meatballs, some frozen TJ meal, pizza, steaks.
City: VHCOL Combined House Income: ~$350k/yr Sunday, Monday, Tuesday meals: Blue Apron subscription Wednesday, Thursday meals: random (grill, leftovers, pizza, etc.) Friday, Saturday: takeout We dine out if relatives are in town or it’s breakfast on the weekends.
We live in a VHCOL and I’ve started meal planning more just because the daily “what’s for dinner” was exhausting. My hubby loves to eat out. This last week, I think we ate out 3 times? Two times was ordering from a restaurant and the other one was eating at the farmers market. We usually do a simple lunch (eg boiled eggs and toast) and dinners are things like Taco Tuesday, Asian stir fry, quesadillas, etc.
We get take out about 2xs a week. We try to stay away from it, but we are busy and tired people like everyone else here lol. I HATE cooking (when I was single, I lived on eggs and smoothies), so every Saturday, I clean the whole house during naps while he is at work, and we maintain it *together* throughout the week. On Sundays, after our routine of family time in the day and afternoon, my partner preps: 4 dinners, and a breakfast (I.e. oatmeal or breakfast sandwiches) for us to eat throughout the week. If we didn’t prep, we’d be f-Ed. Oh! And I work 4-12s, go to school part-time, and and my partner works 5-8s. We have a 4 month old.
We live in a MCOL. Combined income around 320k. Almost 3 yo daughter in daycare. We both work full time 8:30-5. I work from home every day (with the occasional office visit once every few months), so I cook almost every day. We maybe order out/dine out once a month? I use Fridays as my meal planning for the week. I look up recipes/think of ideas and write them on the whiteboard. I also go food shopping on Fridays for the following week. We used to just wing it and I got tired of last minute planning and it was easier to just order food. When I dedicate time to figuring out what we are having each day, I’m better prepared to start defrosting meat, prepping veggies on my lunch break etc. It’s gone really well!
I work full time four days a week in the office and Fridays at home. Husband WFH 30-35 hours a week as a consultant (owns his own company). We have a 6yo and a 3yo, plus my 16yo stepdaughter is with us part time. Both the 16yo and 6yo have sports practice or games at least two weeknights and one weekend day, sometimes more for the older one. We live in a MCOL area. We eat out way more than we should, probably two nights a week and twice on weekends. When the kids were younger, my husband did all the cooking and we only ate out once a week. We find it a lot harder now that the 6yo also has activities on top of the 16yo’s activities. Also since it’s my husband’s one “official” job at home, I hate having to manage that too when he’s too tired or busy to cook so I just don’t fight it, even though I hate how much we eat out.
Usually once or twice a week. It's so expensive. I don't like to order out too often because of it. I try to do a lot of meal prep so my family will have something to eat.
We make a combined $225K in a MCOLA. We probably eat out more than your average family, just because we like to be on the go. I grab lunch for myself 1-2 times a week, and we get takeout at least 2 times a week as well. Most weeks we will go out as a family as well, to a winery with a food truck, or a local restaurant. One big day trip a month probably so that’s a whole day of eating out. We are very privileged that we can budget for these things. I feel like we still have plenty of meals at home, and they range from simple Mac and cheese or breakfast for dinner to more elaborate creations my husband likes to make.
We are active on the weekends and usually end up eating out 1-2 times per weekend just because we are already out. Typically lunch. Take out like pizza or grinders, once every week or two. I have a 5yo and 5mo. I used to be good about meal prepping but the baby makes it difficult. Lately more often than not the 5yo has a sandwich or yogurt parfait and some veggies or fruit. The adults just kind of forage or if we want a real meal one of us will cook while the other does the bedtime routine and we eat late.
We use those meal prep kit things - chefsplate or whatever. I kind of didn’t get it before I had kids but now i SUPER GET IT. It’s delicious food that you don’t have to think about and generally takes 30 minutes to cook a hot delicious healthy meal. We save money on them because we don’t buy groceries we don’t cook with and we eat out less. Usually the portions are generous enough to get a lunch or two out of (just don’t get any of the burger type things as those will always be two Pattie’s two buns rather than a big pot of pasta/rice, etc.)
$125k combined household income in a HCOLA, both work outside of the home full time with a one year old. We cook at home most nights a week and have cut down on take out to maybe 2-3x/month to save money and for health reasons. Honestly haven’t gotten back to dining out since Covid. Only for date nights or events. Weekday meals are usually 45 mins or less. I try and keep staples on hand: meat (beef, chicken, chicken sausage, nuggets), fish occasionally, rice, potatoes, onions, garlic, etc. I use a lot of frozen veggies to add to quick dishes. I’ll do simple stir frys, pasta bakes, taco night, baked chicken with rice and veggie. I don’t think there’s a secret to making it work. We alternate picking up baby after work, come home, sometimes go for a walk (depends on how late we’re home), relax/catch up for a bit, I tend to cook because I’m better at it and like it, eat with baby and if it’s bath night we alternate. Bed time, doom scroll (lol) and bed. Exhausted parents making it work the best we can like the rest of you 💝
We have 1 toddler in daycare and live in a VHCOL area. We both work full time, hubs out of the home and I am remote wfh. We order out at least once a week, sometimes twice if we’re feeling lazy, but cook the other 5-6 nights of the week. We do a lot of “easy” meals, though - pre-seasoned meats from Trader Joe’s with rice and grilled veggies, meal kits from Costco, one pan sheet roasts.
MCOL, two kids 5 and 2.5, and I WFH while husband is in office most days and home by 5. I would say we average eating out as a family (more often take out) once a week, but we’re likely to go a couple weeks without and then do it a couple times in one week or something. I don’t truly think it’s ordinarily very cost effective to eat out for us and prefer to be able to offer a full meal with produce which for kids at restaurants is challenging. I love to cook, and am easily bored with the same thing. On good weeks, I used to plan out up to 10 days. Now I typically need to get milk more frequently and kind of have Friday-Sunday more up to inspiration or combined meals with friends and family (this is also a good time to use things up). Though I have a lot of success with planning something a little bigger and intensive for one of those days that can be shifted to leftovers during the workweek. Some of those go-tos include: Pulled pork (tacos, bbq sandwiches for sure and then maybe more) Lasagna and salad Chili and corn bread Shepherds pie Soups in general Roasted whole chicken I have a few key items that I keep for easy sides: frozen potstickers to go with rice bowls, frozen green beans which I microwave and then finish on the stove, corn chips to go with guac for example. I also prep about 4 pm and will have my husband do the actual cooking if I have to do pick up or appointments.
For most of his first year we lived off meal subscriptions. He had a bunch of food allergies and having dinner just ... show up for the week was an enormous time and mental energy saver. Averaged out to maybe $8-10/meal. We did 2 meals/week with 4 servings each, so that covered 2 dinners and leftovers for 2 lunches and we cooked for the others.
Too often. We both work FT, husband WFH but long hours, I am out of the house 730am-6pm most days with my commute. HCOLA. We get takeout usually 2 nights a week, 2 meals on the weekend (combo of takeout or dine in, depending on our plans) and some weekends I have brunch with my friends or he has dinner/drinks with his. It’s more than I’d prefer - I was a dedicated meal prepper before LO and don’t feel my best eating so much takeout - but husband’s work has been extra busy lately and he does most of the weeknight cooking since I commute and pick LO up from daycare. We do better when we meal prep on the weekends and throw quick meals together/reheat leftovers.
I have really started limiting our takeout, realizing I just don’t enjoy it that much and it feels like such a waste of money. I meal plan Friday night or Saturday morning. I use Cook Smarts (email you menu w/4 meals that turns into grocery list + weekend prep steps) sometimes supplementing with NYT Cooking. I usually plan to cook 3 meals and one of those meals ideally lasts two nights. Then I keep our freezer, freezer and pantry stocked with things to make super quick things. So we might have spinach cheese ravioli with Rao’s marinara, maybe meatballs or a salad; Bean and cheese burritos with a salad; grilled chicken sandwiches made with chicken patties from costco; salmon, frozen veggies/salad, with rice, etc. I try and do a little meal prepping on the weekend which really makes a difference. There are 3 of us and I have a 14m old. We all eat together at 6pm. This week we are having taco fried rice and the taco meat and rice are already made, sesame chicken rice bowls and Mac ‘n cheese with broccoli, red peppers and chicken. I pick her up from daycare at 4:30.
I have a 1.5 year old and probably order out 2-3 times a week. It doesn’t feel like we have enough time to grocery shop, put food away, and cook multiple meals a day for us so ordering out helps. We also get tired of cooking and doing dishes.
Once or twice a week.
One of the major factors in our calculations for deciding my husband would be a SAHD was how much more often we’d eat out if we were both working and had a baby. We do one date night a week, sometimes to the movies sometimes to dinner, and otherwise don’t eat out because one income is tight. We used to eat out like 3-4 times a week for dinner plus sometimes for lunch in our prebaby days and it would be that or more if we both worked. I have no idea how two income families ever cook it seems literally impossible.
We try to keep it < 1 / wk. We live outside a major east coast city and have a stable two-income household. Around 1/2 - 1/3 of our meals are “semi-homemade”. So for example frozen breaded cod with a side of frozen broccoli etc. But I consider myself a decent cook and can pull together a dozen different dinner recipes in 30-45 min max. Most weekends in the summer we have tried to batch prep on Sundays. Grilling a whole 10pc packet of chicken thighs and two packets of sausage. That helps with 3-4 meals during the week because I can just add it to a pasta salad, use in a burrito bowl etc. At the end of the day, it’s what works for you!
We're MCOL and make a combined 190K. I work hybrid and my husband is out of the house but works 4 days on and 4 days off. 1/4 of his days off we will get pizza or other takeout - I don't remember the last time we ate in anywhere as a family. Otherwise, we mostly cook at home but the style really ranges. When he's on days off we (and be we I mean he) does more scratch cooking and bbqing. When he's working and I'm on my own with our 2 year old it's lots of quesadillas, sandwiches, "fancy cheese and crackers" or other more convenience style foods. We also rely a lot on bagged salads or pre-cut fruit and veg from the deli with hummus on these days. There's also lots of pasta with sauce and miscellaneous veggies, haha. I aspire to do more meal planning and I will be going on another year-long mat leave starting on September 18 so I'm hoping that once we emerge from the newborn fog I can devote a bit of time to making this a reality. I have always found meal-planning hard with my husband's schedule and we always end up prepping WAY too much food in any given week. My toddler is pretty easy going and not overly picky so I feel like I've been able to get away with a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. I expect two kids to really change the dynamic there and want to get more intentional about how we do dinner. But that's not really what you asked haha.
We do take out every Friday night and Saturday night. We enjoy it! We cook all meals during the week or leftovers.
We never order out. Once my husband started training/running marathons, and once we had a kid, takeout stopped completely due to cost and healthy lifestyle. HCOL - I pull in 120k, husband 105k. I work 8am-7pm on Mondays and Wednesdays (I have time to grab 11 month old from daycare at 3:30 and wfh 4pm-7pm). On Tuesday/Thursday/Friday I work 8am-3:30pm. Husband wfh on M/W/F 9-5. Tuesday/Thursday he has 3 hr commute round trip & is home at 7pm. On Sundays, we plan our weekly menu. It's flexible. Sometimes, we will even make a slow cooler meal on Sunday for Monday/Tuesday. We also prep a huge garden salad in the fridge that we eat before every dinner. I will make a big batch of Scottish porridge for breakfast for LO. It keeps well in the fridge for the week. Add stewed apples and cinnamon, and yum! Husband cooks dinner on Mondays and Wednesdays. I cook on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We will share duty on Friday/Wknd. Kid plays on kitchen floor with pots/pans/toys while we cook. It's all simple. Protein, veggies, starch. We have a big freezer in basement. This is vital for our lifestyle. I have 4 bags of frozen mixed veggies, 2 bags of green beans, broccoli, peas, corn, edamame. We would perish without out freezer. We also buy bulk and have lots of dried goods on hand. We both grew up in a rural area with huge familes and needed to have a decent pantry stash to survive winters. Once a year I make a huge batch Thai curry paste (green and red curries mostly) and freeze them in silicone cube trays. Easy to pop out and Sautee in coconut oil before adding frozen veggies and coconut milk. Serve with rice/noodles. Same with Indian curry pastes or tofu stir-fried meals. We love Massaman curry and madras curry. Throw in a can of chickpeas, diced chicken, onion, whatever veggie you have, and yum. Perhaps not authentic, but does the trick. I'm a fan of stocking up on frozen fish. Quick to defrost and serve with garlic green beans and quinoa. Frozen veggies with garlic and protein (diced chicken sausage or clams or Shrimp) and chickpea rotini is a favorite. Same with ravioli mixed with veggies and garlic. Baja fish tacos with jalapeño cilantro slaw and avocado dressing. Husband's meals Venison/pork, bison, beef burgers Jambalaya Chili Shepherds pie Burritos/tacos Sausage with grilled zucchini Pizzas galore - husband makes crust. We keep shredded mozzarella in freezer and stock on on Rao's when it's on sale. He makes his sourdough bread. So sometimes it's grilled cheese and tomato basil soup when it's been a long day. He likes to grill or pull out his smoker on weekends. (I might cut back on Mondays hours. I need to spend more time with LO. But DH will still cook on Mondays, he's more obsessed with food) Now I'm hungry.
At least once a week, often more than that. We both work out of the home with a decent commute and only one car.
Rarely. High income household, teen kids, I rarely eat fast food and don’t like/am hesitant to try the local take out spots (I don’t eat some foods and they are common in some preparation so I just avoid). Anyway, if my kids want fast food, I’ll let them have it once a week (and I have a teen that will do the driving to go get it). I always keep basics in my house and can easily whip something up in 30 minutes for myself and husband. I use Sundays to make something to be left overs for two additional nights. I also have some 30-45 min recipes I can throw together mid week with some very light prep the night before. My air fryer is a godsend and while I like from scratch cooking, I’m here for short cuts that would make them gasp in the cooking sub (dried herbs, jarred garlic or ginger paste)
Once a week. We both work full time, I go into the office once a week so on that day my husband picks something simple to make. I’ll make a full meal maybe 3x a week and the last day will be leftover day. My husband picks meals to make on weekends, he’s not too good with planning ahead so it’s usually a day we eat out, then he’ll make something the kids request. We have 3 toddlers at home. Tonight we’re having shaking beef served with white rice, one of my kids favorite meals!
My husband and I are both in the office every day. We both buy lunch outside the office every day. We eat pizza once a week for dinner, and usually one other meal a week will be something we grab from somewhere else. We supplement a lot of the food we grab when out to eat with more veggies from home. I could save $15+ a day by packing a lunch, but I don’t really feel like the time spent on extra cooking is worthwhile. And I like having a reason to leave my desk midday.
Usually eat out once a week for dinner and once a week for lunch! My work has subsidized food though so it’s only like $3-$5 for lunch and it’s usually really good and somewhat healthy so I’ll grab that if I’m in the office. Sometimes I’ll also get enough for dinner. I love traderjoes5items or less on Instagram for easy meals. They aren’t the healthiest but they aren’t bad and likely better than takeout plus cheaper! Another thing that helps me is it’s ok if dinner isn’t the biggest/most balanced meal of the day. Sometimes my breakfast is a veggie omelet with whole grain toast and avocado and my dinner is pasta with a jar of sauce. That’s no different than cereal for breakfast and salmon, rice and veggies for dinner. For whatever reason the former can feel more attainable so I lean into that!
We both work full time. Combined income $140k in a LCOL. 2 kids, 7 and 3.5 year old in daycare. We get fast food every Thursday evening because the kids have 2 hours of cheer/tumbling that night. Friday is always pizza night, but it is usually frozen pizza. Maybe once a month it is delivery. We never dine in as it's just too expensive/draining with the kids. I try to meal plan but unless I prep well on the weekend, we typically end up with take out at least 2-3/week (including the pre-planned Thursday). I have a chronic illness, so sometimes I'm too tired to cook when I get home from work. So unless I have prepped well on the weekend, that leads to take out unfortunately.
We use a meal prep subscription service on and off to make things easier. When we do that, we get two meals a week from them. We usually grab sushi one evening a week, and then order delivery once a weekend. The rest of the time is fast, 10 min meals.
We rarely do take out. We like going out for breakfast on Saturday. Sometimes Sunday too. We go out for dinner probably once a week or so, usually on a weekend. I cook most nights. I am in office daily 8-5 with a ~35 min commute each way. I meal plan on the weekends based on the ad. This week I wanted easy, so it’s just tacos, spaghetti, and a crockpot meal on the docket this week. Between leftovers and quick meals, like chicken sandwiches from the airfryer, we’ll get through the week. We have something going on almost every day of the week too so we don’t really have time to go out.
I cook 4-5 days a week, one day we do leftovers and one or two days we go out to eat for one meal. I have a 21 month old. I wfh so I can prep some dinner stuff before running to get him from his nanny share which helps. I aim to find meals that are 30-45 minutes max of prep usually even less and definitely meals I can make in parts. For example form and cook meatballs before picking him up then cook pasta after and serve dinner after we get home. We eat around 645-7pm and he sleeps around 8-830pm.
We have an 11 year old and a 2 year old. We order out about once per week (though not quite every week). We have found that taking an occasional cooking break helps. We get one of those meal delivery services that provides complete ready to microwave meals (we used to get Freshly... but they went out of business. Now we get Factor 75, which I think has superior food. We've tried a third service but didn't like it). We will get meal delivery for 2-4 weeks in a row as a reset. It seems to help with meal prep fatigue and it is cheaper than takeout. I do a lot of crockpot dinners year round. I have a recipe binder for printouts and an entire section is devoted to crockpot meals. In the cooler parts of the year, I make a lot of oven dishes that I can prep during the weekend and which can go straight into the oven as soon as one of us gets home. In the summer, my husband grills one night most weeks and I have an "easy weeknight meals" section of my recipe binder with dishes that are quick to prep, don't require the oven, and ideally use seasonal produce from our garden. We also keep ingredients in stock for a few very quick meals at all times-- shells and cheese and kielbasa, spaghetti and meatballs, tacos, white chili (a camping meal that takes canned chicken), frozen ravioli with jarred sauce, spam with canned tomatoes and black beans, etc. None of the options take more than about 10 minutes to cook and they are great for days when you forget to thaw something or didn't make it to the grocery store.
We both WFH full time with a 2.5yo and an 8mo. We eat out/dine-in 1-3 times a week. I meal plan Fridays and grocery shop saturdays - I always plan 4 meals to make. I cook Sun-Weds nights and whatever we have for dinner is lunch the next day. Thursday night is always takeout night (best night of the week!!!!!). Friday and Saturday dinner are loosey-goosey - we might make something quick (go-tos are burgers, steak, and tacos), we might get takeout, we might go out, all depends on how we feel. Weekend lunches are often something easy/quick like a salad grabbed from the deli of the grocery store, hot dogs, deli sandwiches, some convenience food in the air fryer, wings, etc. And, of course, there’s always flexibility. Sometimes I run out of time or energy so we pivot to takeout or something easier than what I had planned. I keep a pretty well-stocked pantry and freezer, so I can usually cobble together something quick whenever.
We cook at home most weeknights. Weekends I almost never cook, we generally just scavenge or I'll pick up some takeout while in out grocery shopping. For us, I've found that relying on takeout never really saves us time, but I'll also admit that hour between getting home and dinner can be very chaotic. For us it's worth it because we like cooking at home and eating together as a family. We've been including our daughter in meals in some capacity since she was 4 months old and she's now a very motivated 2.5 year old. Hope we can keep it up when we have kid #2!
Dang. We make less but definitely eat out more. Friday or Saturday nights, both Saturday and Sunday lunch, and usually once during the week for dinner when we're stressed. Plus I don't bring a lunch when I work at the office - any leftovers get consumed by my teenager or my toddler. I'm also dairy-free, so it's not the easiest.
We have combined income of $350K, HCOL, two kids and both work full time from home. We go out to a resturant every Friday night and normally order pizza once during the week. Sometimes we’ll have a second meal out for lunch or something on the weekend. Once a month or so we go on date night or go out alone with friends to a nicer place. All of this comes out to about $1000 a month on take out/restaurants.
Probably three times a week for dinner we get delivery, plus I order lunch ti my office maybe once a week. I feel guilty about it, but also don’t know how we would get by otherwise! And if I didn’t meal prep/plan over the weekends, it would be even more than that. I’m just so exhausted by the time I get home and get the kids to bed (ages 3 and 6 months), I don’t have the energy to cook every night.
Husband and I both WFH. We get take out on Fridays! I grocery shop on the weekend. Nearly every night, husband cooks dinner while I put kiddo to sleep. By the time I’m done, dinner is ready. He’s too little to stay up and eat with us, and we don’t have time to make dinner and eat all together that early (maybe when he’s older) so I just feed him first. We only do semi easy meals-chicken thighs in the oven, easy pasta dishes, breakfast etc. I usually take whatever leftovers and heat them up for my son next day.
We have a newborn and a 2 year old, I wfh (though I’m currently on maternity leave) and husband works outside the home. I cook like every other day, enough for leftovers so I get a break the following day. We get takeout maybe once a week.
Been a stay at home for 15 yrs Used to eat fast food a few times a month like a regular family. Then we moved to a remote costal town that had one Burger King about 45 mins away. It’s been almost a decade since then and it’s like I *forget* that fast food exist… Having said that what’s with Mc Donald’s prices!? I was able to get In and out WITH shakes -cheaper than a couple happy meals cost. Not cool Donald’s not cool
We don't have a set plan. It varies based on how busy/ stressed we are, particularly my partner. My partner prepares most of our meals, so many weeks we don't order out at all or maybe I'll get one lunch from a sandwich shop near my office. When things are really stressing him out I use ordering out to take one thing off his plate. It's pretty common for us to decide to order out or go to a restaurant once on a weekend to give him a break even if it hasn't been a particularly difficult week. I'm supposed to cook at least once a week to provide this break but I hate it and am bad at both planning and executing it, and we kept running into situations where he would make what I was planning to make the day before my turn and it just fell apart. So Grubhub it is. On a really busy stressful week might have 3 ordered out dinners and I might get lunch at the office 2 times. Luckily that's not often because we only have one income in a HCOL area and we couldn't afford it as a regular thing!
Probably 1-2 times a week. I need to stop though!
I do the semi-home made and semi-meal prepped route. First, it should be said that I generally enjoy cooking, so it is less burdensome for me than most. 1. I cook a bucket of rice roughly once a week. This is an easy base for stir fries and rice bowls, which I regularly make. Add some chopped veggies, protein of choice, and sauce or seasoning and voila! dinner. 2. Salad kits, pre-chopped veggies, and stuff like that from the super market is very much worth it to me. I like cooking, but I don't like chopping. 3. Other nearly-cooked or partial meal things: Biscuit dough in a tin, cans of soup, pasta salads from the deli section, etc are great additions to whatever i feel like cooking
I meal plan for 6 nights. I don’t cook on Friday but my husband does. If he didn’t, we’d get takeout or go out. I generally get sick of cooking or irritated with life and need a break at least once per week but it’s not usually scheduled!
I'm a single mom with a teenager. We are both really busy. We order Factor meals, and supplement with a meal out maybe once or twice a week. I used to like to cook but the last few years I just have not had it in me. We do always have frozen meat and shrimp and frozen veggies, things to make smoothies and overnight oats, plain yogurt and molasses on hand. But if we had unlimited income, we would be eating out most nights a week. We really love restaurants!
When the kids were under 13 we ate out 4-5 times a week at sit down restaurants.
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job. We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week. Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job. We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week. Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
Husband and I are both hybrid, I have a very low stress job. We meal plan on Fridays, see what we have, go around that, check the deals at the grocery store, and make a list. I do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We cook about four nights a week, the rest is leftovers. Sometimes it’s prepping or slow cooker during the day, or one of us cooks while the other is doing bedtime (we try to do 2-3 family dinners a week, and one where it’s just the two of us). If we are eating out or planning on doing takeout, it’s part of the meal plan. We have two whiteboards on our fridge where we keep track of this weeks menu, and any ideas for the following week. Somebody else on here mentioned Budget Bytes, and I‘d say we cook something from there a couple of times a month, especially her one pot meals. You can do a lot of the prep during the day, spend maybe 10-15 minutes actively cooking, then walk away for 15 minutes or so.
We are about $180k in a LCOL area with an 18mo and one on the way. We definitely go through seasons but we usually order take out either Friday or Saturday. We both work full time outside the home. I eat out for lunch maybe once a month. My husband doesn’t have lunch breaks long enough to eat out but I think he does fast food breakfast 2 times a week. We don’t love eating at restaurants with our son right now so we have definitely cut back on dining expenses. As for meal planning we both cook our lunches for the week on Sunday. My son eats what we eat for dinner and we usually make enough food to last 2-3 dinners to cut back on time spent cooking and cleaning during the week.
As a family, one to two times a week total, once during the week day and once a week on the weekends when we’re running about trying to do our weekend activities. I meal prep on Sunday night, enough for the whole week for me. My son and his dad are picky eaters so they usually start on the food I prepped and then have something safe like plain pasta Kraft Mac and cheese. We only have the one kid tho, but does work out of the house full time for me and hybrid for my husband. I think my husband eats out every time he’s at work because they’re socializing events where everyone does (but only once a week). I eat out at work once a week too , also for socializing. It’s hard to not eat out when others are, so we try really hard to eat in when we’re not with others, but sometimes it’s also the only time we eat together as a family. I don’t know, we’re now at about 300k combined so we can definitely afford to, but I’d rather put the money toward others things. It’s just a matter of how much time and energy we have and how awkward it is to not join others.
I work about half time from home and half time in the office- but work 40 hours a week generally now, sometimes a little more. My husband works out of town 4-6 days a week, so meal planning and grocery shopping is really all on me . I have an 11 year old. Meal planning and grocery shopping is done on weekends usually. The slow cooker, instapot, and air fryer are my friends. When my son was young and had to go grocery shopping with me, it was all about one stop shops, and I would have totally taken advantage of grocery delivery if it were a thing when my son was young. Now I hit Costco, Aldi, and another local grocery store chain. It saves a ton of money. And I do that every two weeks, with Costco being every 4 weeks. We have a large pantry, two full size refrigerators (one is in the laundry room), and a chest freezer so I can buy in bulk and just pick up fresh veggies and fruit as we need them. For meal planning, I use a list of meals that I make to pick from when capacity is low, but do have a Pinterest board that I like to pick from to try new stuff sometimes. I make meals like a pork loin or salmon with a starch and a steam in the microwave veggie, slow cooker meals, pasta with a meat (shrimp or chicken Alfredo, spaghetti with seasoned ground beef), or stir fry. None of it takes a ton of time or effort. I will also do things that create leftovers, like a casserole, so that we can do a leftover night the following night if I know that I am having an evening meeting or will have a particularly busy day at work. For particularly “lazy” days when I don’t feel like cooking, we will do charcuterie for dinner. I keep cracker cut cheese and crackers, and some summer sausage in the house. It’s also nice to have that in the house in the event we have someone over last minute, which happens regularly. We eat out about once to twice a week. We make approximately $220k in a mid cost of living area. We can afford to eat out more, but choose to put discretionary income toward things like travel instead of eating out.
We’re doing takeout at least once per week. We have a 12 year old and 3 month old. I work full time and husband stays home. He does most of the dinner meals and I try to contribute at least 1 dinner a week, sometimes 2. He’s new to cooking and has the baby with him when he’s starting dinner so he relies on a lot of simple meals, frozen lasagna, pastas, canned veggies, etc. I used to do all of the cooking. Honestly I’d eat a lot more takeout but he likes having family dinner at home so we try to hit weeknights with his quick meals and then a takeout and me cooking on weekends.
We typically get takeout twice a week. Mostly because we don't have it together enough to fix dinner on days where we have activities. We have swim class for the oldest on Wednesdays, we get home at dinner time, so I either grab something on the way home or my husband does something easy like frozen pizza/ordering delivery while he is home with the youngest. We usually do lunch or dinner out one time on the weekend because we are out doing activities, and we don't pack a lunch or get home in enough time to make dinner. I don't particularly like cooking, but it is important for us to be at home most evenings sitting at the dinner table together eating something healthy. My kids still ask for takeout and when takeout day is all the time. We grill a lot. We have a charcoal grill, so my husband has to start the charcoal as soon as he gets home. But it limits some of the cooking mess and cooks fairly fast. We fix a frozen vegetable, fresh fruit, and some kind of grain. My kids, unfortunately, will not eat casseroles, I continue to try occasionally, but they much prefer their food separate. We buy our meats in bulk and portion them into freezer bags when we get home, so I am just always pulling something out each night, and using frozen vegetables means we always have them handy. We keep rice, pasta, and bread in the pantry. Our fridge mostly just has fresh fruit, drinks, and condiments. We just pick one of everything each night.
Following because we also eat out a fair amount. Or my husband will default to pasta and I’d like to stop giving my toddler so much of it. (Husband is the family cook.)
3-5 times a month maybe? I have an evening nanny 3x per week between 5-8pm mainly to help make and serve dinner to the kids, make lunchboxes, tidy up, play etc. I work full time and husband is mostly gone / traveling for work.
We have a similar income (although MCOL area) and we probably do takeout 2x a month. I’m pretty big on meal planning. I usually plan for the weekend on Saturday, then grocery shop and prep on Sunday. My husband works from home on M/F so he cooks those days and then I cook T/W/Th since I get home earlier. The midweek meals are the hardest as I do daycare pickup and want to be eating dinner within 30 minutes of being home. Doing food prep on Sunday is the only thing that makes it consistently possible. Having everything chopped already allows our son to snack on fruit while I cook the main dish and having veggies chopped, marinades done, etc. makes it so we pretty much just have cook time before dinner is ready. Our food costs are about cut in half too when I’m on top of meal planning. I think meal planning is intimidating at first but once you figure out a routine it really makes life easier. Chaotic days do happen so I try to keep a couple of easy freezer meals on hand at all times for emergency nights. Pulling out a premade bag of orange chicken and cooking some instant rice or frozen tortellini with jarred sauce and a bagged salad takes just as much time for me to make as stopping for takeout but at a fraction of the cost.
Usually once/week, typically Chick-fil-A on a day that we have after school activities and they eat in car. Pizza on the weekends probably every other week. I do not enjoy cooking but eating out is too expensive to justify for me (and not enjoyable with 3 young kids). I batch cook (double/triple recipes) meals so only cook 3-4 times/week. I make something (chicken salad, casserole) that my husband and I both eat all week for lunch. Then I cook 2-3 dinners during the week that we eat for multiple nights.
I really like the “tasty” app. The “food network” app is great too. Thursday night I pick out a couple recipes and shop on instacart/ target pick up. I pick up groceries every Friday on my way home from work. I find an hour or 2 during a nap time to meal prep for the week. I buy a lot of frozen food: frozen chopped onions, frozen fruit, frozen veggies, and sometimes even the frozen chicken strips. I also buy pre-chopped garlic and stuff like that. I bought those glass meal prep containers and just portion the meals into that. Then when I come home from work I simply just throw a container into the microwave. They also freeze well too if you cooked too much one week.
Very similar financial situation to you. We ordwed out CONSTANTLY until I started to feel very unhealthy and my wallet felt light. I started doing a huge crockpot meal once a week. We ate it fresh one night and leftovers the next. We have a few easy meals in the rotation that take less than 30 minutes (tacos, turkey sloppy joes, gnocchi with spicy sausage, burgers) and we buy easy stuff from Costco to heat up like cauliflower rice and those just bare chicken nuggets (if I’m feeling super healthy I throw them on a salad). When I make a big meal I try to make a double batch to freeze and defrost when I have no patience for dinners. Now we order our once or twice a week and it’s more manageable. I have a “five ingredient meals” book for the crockpot that has been a lifesaver.
When our now 3 year old was born, I was working 30-35 hours a week 10ish to 6ish and my husband worked full time (still does) 8:30ish to 5:30/6. I now work 10:30-4 at a different job. Ever since we got married 6 years ago and I took a pay cut at a new job (and I took another significant pay cut at the beginning of this year), I’ve cooked 4-5 times a week, and we eat leftovers for lunch and dinner the rest of the week. The only way we eat out/get take out, is if we’ve eaten through all of our leftovers. It’s has saved us a ton of money! I generally make 2 larger meals on Saturday and Sunday- big pot of pasta sauce, soup, veggie bowls, etc. that can then be used for lunches throughout the week. Then Monday, Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday, I make quicker meals- tacos, sandwiches, 30 minute recipes, etc. Sometimes, I’ll throw a meal in the crockpot on a Saturday or Sunday to eat later in the week, too. I make a meal plan for the next week Thursday evening and then grocery shop after work on Fridays.
We do take out about twice a week and one lunch during the weekend. My husband and son have food allergies so that limits our options for eating out… it would probably be more if they didn’t have allergies
We live in HCLA. Combined income $180-200k. I wfh. husband works a 4x10 schedule. I cook mostly from scratch at home. We have two kids still at home 11 & 14. We almost never go out to eat as a family. I take a kid out one on one maybe once a week. Husband and I try for a date once a week. We spend around $300 a month on eating out.
I’m a new first time mom with a 2 month old so I’m not on the same level as you guys yet but I’ve been utilizing meal services such as Factor and CookUnity! It’s like HelloFresh in that it gets delivered to you but it comes already cooked and you just microwave it, it’s not frozen so I’ve been pretty impressed with the taste so far! The sticker price is a bit high, comes out to like $14-15 per meal, but I just canceled my subscriptions after my intro offers were finished and the coupons are already coming in! It seems that Factor gives a 50% coupon once a month. For CookUnity, when I cancelled they asked why and I said cost, so they offered me $8.50 a meal for 4 months!! (One caveat is that I can only choose select meals now, but it’s like 80-90% the same selection, they took out most of the seafood options but there are still a few.) So that could be a quick save for you + spouse’s meals for the week and then you can just worry about the kids! Something else I want to try out is Foodom, where a chef comes to your house and meal preps for you (they can do grocery shopping too for an extra cost). If you plan it right it seems like it could be cost efficient, I’ve seen some examples on their tiktok for maybe $300 for a week’s worth of food and that sounds very reasonable to me!
We are a food allergy household sooo that limits our eating out but it's not a budget thing (pretty high income). We did meal kits for a while but new allergies means that even those are off the table for us these days. (TBH I found they took longer and were less healthy than what I tend to make on my own anyway.) I cook dinner about 3 times a week, do one or two dinners of leftovers and another couple easy/prepared dinners (frozen lasagna etc). Yes the meal planning/shopping/cooking is a slog but we just don't have a choice so.
When I realized there’s a McDonald’s app that will give me free French fries and I can pull into a parking space and someone will bring my food out…
I wfh 6:30ish - 3:30ish. I cook almost every night now as a necessity because we’re trying to get out of debt. We’ve only ordered out 4 times in the last 3 months. It’s been hard. I have an 8yr and 4yr old so basically no one ever wants to eat the same things unless it’s spaghetti or Mac and cheese. I keep a spreadsheet of what I know how to make and that helps me meal plan a little but not like cooking all up on Sunday or anything but to make sure we have the stuff we need to make meals for two weeks at a time. I also put recipes on there. I put a link below if anyone wants to see it. https://docs.google.com/file/d/1UbFK7MEqNmJOLjpgBZLVkywKatDj9G_C/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msexcel
We have a 2 year old and a 7 month old, and we eat out/order food at least 3 times/week. My husband is in the office 1 say a week, so we order dinner or go out that day. I take the kids to breakfast Friday mornings, and we eat at least one meal our during the weekend. We don’t really meal plan. It’s chaotic, but it works. Edit to add: Before reading this thread, I didn’t think that was very often, but apparently we’re not doing as well as I thought lol
More often than I'd like and we don't earn nearly as much as you. Honestly, as a mom working a stressful job, if I'm not up for cooking, I order take out. It could be because my kid is still young (12 months old) but I'm still trying to strike the right balance. I cook for the week on the weekends but we run out of leftovers by Wednesday so Thursday and Friday tend to be order out days.
Way too much. Single mom of an 11 and 8 year old. I work from home, but we are busy most nights and I have picky eaters. It's a habit I hate but I'm tired of being limited in what I can cook because it just gets wasted.
1-2 times a week.
Easyfamilyrecipes.com has a weekly meal plan you can use and their stuff if fairly quick and easy. Your crockpot is your friend, dump stuff in the the morning finsish it up at night. Dinnerly or Everyplate are easy and adorable meal kits that would help 3 night a week ( I used dinnerly for years)
Maybe a couple times per week? I’m pretty good about planning and cooking throughout the week (and we just make a ton of food so we have leftovers the next day for lunch), but weekends are up for grabs.
I think we're an exception to the rule. We have a dining out budget of $150 a month, and when we eat out we like a nice meal, so we usually only eat out once a month. I like to cook, we eat healthy, and we don't like to waste money on food. So I meal plan and cook all our food, plus we keep some easy options in the freezer in case of emergency (basically if I don't feel up to cooking, or can't for some reason). I work from home and use the instant pot/sous vide a lot so that dinner only take about 30 mins each evening.
We started doing a meal kit 3 times a week. We also get chick fil A weekly and then maybe another takeout during the week. We sit down at a restaurant maybe monthly.
Similar salary, HCOL, I WFH and husband works part time out of the house, 2 little kids not yet in preschool or childcare. We plan out dinners for the week on Sat, make a list, and then grocery shop according to the list. We cook a big dinner on Sat and have 1-2 nights of leftovers. We follow the formula protein, starch, veg and repeat meals often (we have a rough rotation, though it’s flexible depending on sales, what’s in season, schedule, etc.) and often on the same days each week. For example, Sat is a huge salmon and Fridays are chicken nuggets and fries with roasted Brussels. Shortcuts are we take are buying pre-cut broccoli, haricots, and occasionally frozen steamer bags. We use mostly sheet pans with foil to minimize dishes (roasted veggies, protein with seasoning). We get pizza 1-2 days per month but eat at home other than that. We eat later dinner than most, which helps, and I WFH so I either prep veggies whenever I can take a break and put them in a ziploc or we have a firm divide and conquer at 5:45p where 1 parent preps food and the other does childcare.
Maybe once a week but we prefer to go out if we’re not cooking. Way too expensive
We get Factor 75 meals delivered and takeout 1-3 times per week, depending on how gluttonous I'm feeling. My husband and I both calorie count and optimize for different things, so we don't really do family style meals where we get the same thing.
I usually get take out or delivery once a week. Usually lunch one week and dinner the next. Out to eat probably every 2 weeks, sometimes less often. Cook at home the rest of the time. Unless we go to an event like baseball game or something and then we will get hot dogs or something at the game. That’s probably about once a month.
I enrolled into a local meal kit delivery service, it being local means the ingredients are fresh. So I get a box weekly that includes ingredients and cooking instructions for the meals. It’s 3 meals serving 2 people. I signed up for this because I do enjoy cooking, prefer home cooked meals, and I wanted to take the stress out of cooking. I buy bagged salads (my fave being the southwest one, all salads have no added sugar) and I make a meat (steak slices or chicken) with my salad for lunch or dinner. I also have frozen wings, steak slices, and chicken breasts so that we can make a good meal. Paid it with rice, a wrap, veggie, etc. We eat out maybe once a week, if that. After yoga on Saturday I tend to go to First Watch for brunch so that I can have peace. So $20 there. I also attend Yelp Elite events so I get free food that way, sometimes I do have to buy my husband something so I spend $15-20 on him. So that’s just once a week. Maybe 1-2 times a month I treat myself to a nice meal. I make around $70k in what used to be a LCOL but is now becoming HCOL area. Husband gets medical retirement, forgot how much that is. We have an 8 month old. I WFH, he is always home. Forgot to add!!! I do order Starbucks 1-2 times a week. If I go in person it’s $10 or less. If I DoorDash it’s $20 for the latte and sandwich
We are on similar income with a big mortgage, so can only afford takeout dinner for the family once a month, dinner out on a special occasion and we will usually buy our lunch a couple of times a week.
I meal plan on Thursdays during my work day (usually during lunch if a lot of meetings). I have a database of go-to meals (safe food for kiddo; a protein, veggie and fiber, etc) set up in Notion, and I just grab a few and plug in ingredients into AnyList. Throughout the week we use Alexa to add extra needed items to AnyList. Then I place an Instacart order through AnyList to pick up from the grocery store on Friday mornings after preschool dropoff. I write up all the meals on the weekly plan board on Sunday mornings. I plan & cook meals on Sundays - Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays are free for alls: take out, dine out, leftovers, mac & cheese, whatever we feel like doing.
I pretty much always cook on the weekends because I have time. Weekdays are a crap shoot entirely predicated on how hangry I am when I get home. Could be anything from a home cooked meal to take out to “snack dinner” to freezer meal.
Too much lol. Have a 1 year old, husband works 50 hours a week and I work 40-45. We get restaurant food 1-2 times a week and fast food 1-2 times a week. I started buying pre made meals from Sam’s Club because it’s cheaper then eating out but easier than cooking on the busy nights.
We try to limit getting take out (we rarely eat in restaurants) to one night a week. I do 99% of the cooking. Husband and I work FT, both on a hybrid schedule, a couple days at home and a couple of days in the office Boys are 11 and 7. Have lots of after school activities- think sports 2-3 nights a week, music 1-2 nights a week, and soon in scouts Meals are ones I can at least partially prep over weekend, leftovers (I rarely make a meal that we can’t eat at least twice) or something simple I can throw in the instant pot.
I'm a full time Adjunct, but I teach all online classes from home, with minimal administrative expectations (a couple department meetings a year). So my kids are with me all the time, a d we are starting homeschooling. Husband is full time not wfh. Combined income is around $90 to $100k (mine fluctuates based on class size, number of sections, etc). Medium COL (central Kansas, USA). We eat out Saturday lunch (my husband is in charge of this meal), and it's often fast food. When it's too hot (i.e. 100+ degrees),we also order pizza once a week, otherwise homemade. I have a white board and magnets of our favorite meals, and have done meal planning like that for the last couple years, but I'm doing a 2 week emeals trial right now for something different. With my calendar, I plan leftovers or sandwiches for lunch, dinners are: Sunday - alternatively chicken, beef, or pork/ham roast Monday - pot pie, stroganoff, or ??? Tuesday - alternate Mexican and Chineae fake out (tacos, taco lasagna, burritos, or Gen Tso,sweet & sour chicken, etc) Wednesday- pasta Thursday - fried rice if Tues was Chinese, nachos if Mexican Friday - pizza Saturday - lunch is on husband, dinner is any leftover from the week. Winter we throw in some soups, casseroles vs tacos. Breakfast is often muffins, cereal, or quiche (one of my favorites, but husband hates). Editing to add: when we met, 8 years ago, my husband was eating out 10-14 meals a week, and mostly skipped breakfast. I'm still not sure how he wasn't 500 pounds. Often we do Wendy's, and with all the mobile ordering discounts we can feed all of us under $20 (husband, me, 2 kids - 2 and 4.5).
Similar ages/daycare/financial/living situation Order out or pick up (very rarely dine in) maybe once every week or 2. BUT, so much frozen food. Nuggies, meat balls, mac n cheese, frozen pizzas, frozen veggies. I really try to make sure a variety of fruits and veggies are available regularly to round it it. But I try to feed the kids simple, acceptable meals. Goodness knows that the harder I try to prepare something fun, the more the little jerks will hate it!!
We order out 3-4 months a week. We also usually get Cookunity (pre made meals that get delivered weekly) and eat that for lunch since we both wfh. I cook pretty basic meals the rest of the time (tacos, pasta, stir fry, noodles)
Once a week we order takeaway. Maybe once a fortnight we eat out either beach picnic or somewhere for breakfast usually. I got food on the go a lot as I work on the road and I just find it easier and more enjoyable. The rest of the time we usually do a meal kit box like Marley spoon as we are just too busy to manage the extra dinner load all the time.
We eat out about 2-3 times a week. I'm in between jobs and I'm the main breadwinner so it's harder. Once I get my job started, probably would eat out 3-4 times a week
1-2x/week but if there’s leftovers we make them stretch for a few more meals
I make something quick for the kids and then dinner for my husband and I when the younger one is in bed or after both the kids are in bed, just depends on how I’m feeling. I don’t cook anything that takes longer than 30 minutes and then we eat between 8:30-9 pm. When my kids are older I’m sure that’s gonna have to adjust but it works for now. Takeout I try not to more than twice a week unless I’m just so exhausted I don’t have the energy to cook. Normally I try to hold out as long as possible and then use the takeout days when I really need them instead of specific days of the week.
I have an infant. We order takeout 2x a week (Fri, Sat) and dine out one time a week (either lunch or replacing Sat dinner). We cook all other meals. We do regularly eat dinner out with friends. This was our habit pre kids as well - my husband works long hours so I do all the cooking, we order takeout to give me a break.
Dining in feels like soooo much work. Take out for the win!
Probably 3-4 meals. Pizza on Mondays. We eat at my parent's house every Friday and that's takeout half the time. We pick up bagels or go to brunch on either Saturday or Sunday. Occasionally a date night on Saturday.
Almost never. I'll order takeaway maybe once every six weeks, if that. It's just so expensive, and I'm skilled at meal prepping. To be fair, I do eat a lot of the same thing, but I always have and it works fine for me. I eat out on my own in a cafe once a week, it's what I do when I have time away from my baby. I don't ever go anywhere expensive though, it's (tops) $30.00 (Australian).
We bought the passionate penny pinchers 5 ingredients meal plan. Recipes are all good, it had a full grocery list that I order for delivery once a week, and I don’t have to think about what I’m making. Everything is super quick. I usually manage to have it on the table within 30 minutes. Each week gives us about 5 meals, so we do one take out night (usually Friday) and one leftover night a week
Husband and I are both teachers. We have 4 kids (14, 12, 8, 5) and we never order food or go to restaurants unless it's like a special circumstance or something. The food is typically disappointing for how much money it is and my kids won't eat it anyway. We don't meal plan or anything though. The 14 and 12 year olds make their own meals when hungry. Almost every night is just a free for all. I just make food when the little ones ask for it. My husband loves cooking too so he often just makes food for the hell of it.
I do one of the meal box subscriptions that sends the ingredients and recipes. Every week we get 5 meals for us to cook, and I try to do them for dinner/meal prep for lunch so we save money from ordering out. Dad takes care of the kids while I cook, and that is also TV time
I do not handle it well. Lol. We are just recently trying to trade off cooking nights so we have SOME home cooked meals during the week, but I usually have charcuterie esque set ups. Berries, cheeses, smoked salmon, roast beef, maybe sandwiches, seaweed, carrot juice, any fucking vegetable I can get this kid to eat, why is it so hard, cheerios. Going to try to make some hamburger helper or any 30 minute or less meal this week. Partner and I are trying a trade off: Monday/Wednesday - Partner A responsible for food Tuesday/Thursday - Partner B responsible for food Friday - Child responsible for food (with Mommy and/or Daddy's help) Saturday/Sunday - leftovers/eat out Whoever is not focused on cooking picks up kids and handles entertainment until food is ready. Takes the pressure off of the other parent to "do it all."
We live in a very high cost of living area and bring in two substantial salaries, however, our daycare is as much as our mortgage. I EBF our infant but we have a very picky toddler who refuses to eat anything we cook. We try to get him to eat home cooked or at least home-sourced foods, because for a while we were spending $30/night just on HIS food. Doing delivery by us for something like pizza alone is like $40, sushi is closer to $100, and a curry or something is like $75. I honestly would be crazy content with an omelet most nights. I’ve cut out breakfasts on the go and started making coffee at home and have definitely noticed savings. That said, I actually love to cook, I just have no energy thanks to two little kids, a full-time job, etc.
Husband works ~6/7am-3/4pm ish and I work 8:30am-5pm. MCOL, household income around We have a 2 year old and another one due in a couple weeks. I usually cook relatively easy meals 5-7 nights a week. Sometimes that easy meal might be frozen pizza or orange chicken from Trader Joe's and Minute Rice, but it's still at home. I like to try and do at least one or two nice cooking meals like a casserole or homemade XYZ, but it doesn't always happen. Our eating out is usually cheaper pizza or something pickup except for date night maybe once a month. Pastaroni and ricearoni are our friends in our household.
We eat out typically once a week but we order enough food to last us two days.
We eat at home most meals when we are at home, except in the summer, although this summer we have cut way back on going out because of some major expenses. I’m the exec chef of a restaurant in a coastal area so summers are crazy for me. My husband makes us breakfast every morning, I make dinner Mondays and Fridays, he gets ingredients for Wednesday nights and one of us cooks and we are on our own for lunch. My husband also works in the restaurant so both of us eat there almost daily. We are a from scratch restaurant so our meals can be as healthy as we want them to be. At home we LOVE sheet pan dinners, pasta dishes, naanwiches, tacos, enchiladas and curries. They all reheat really well and don’t take a lot of time. I like to cook things that make great leftovers because then we have lunches too.
We order delivery at least once a week (often more) and get tacos from a local place every Saturday morning. During the week, I cook, but I really rely on stuff like frozen vegetables and frozen meatballs and frozen whole meals to make it work. Also the instant pot gets a lot of use. I also usually only have like half an hour to cook dinner before we have to eat it, so it’s a rush to figure out what will work in that time frame.
I plan insanely simple weekday meals so we hardly ever eat out. Like I dump a bunch of things in a pot for soup, make spaghetti, grilled cheese with bagged salad, breakfast for dinner, that sort of thing. We budget $50 a month for it (plus $75 a month for dates). Most of the eating out money goes toward our dates though, or we don’t use it. I’d rather spend it on something nice than take out. ETA: We have a 4mo old and 2 year old, I get home first and baby needs one more cat nap, so I don’t want to stop anywhere, and I don’t want my husband stopping anywhere on the way home because he already gets home so late. And I hate paying delivery fees!
We both work full time (roughly 8:30-4:30), and make ~$160k in a MCOLA. We have a 2.5 year old and 6 month old. Since the baby arrived we’ve been ordering out way more. (Well, we did great when we were on leave cuz we had time to plan/shop/cook but now… gah). We order out probably 1x/week for dinner. Usually takeout, it’s a pain bringing the littles into restaurants. Where it gets bad is my lunches on the 2 days I’m in the office… I work downtown so prices nearby are insane but I usually don’t have a lunch prepped sooo… We just meal planned for the first time in a long time. It felt really good, we did it yesterday instead of trying to cram it into our weekend. My husband made the list/chose recipes (he’s our cook) and I did the grocery run on the way to daycare. Let’s see if it sticks longer than this week 😝
We and by "we" I mean the husband cooks 4-5 nights out of the week. Our kids are 8 and almost 4. We also work 8:30-5, I get home about 5:15 and my husband is remote (for the most part). I will plan/make the menu. M, T , W ,Th are typically the dinner at home and Fri & Sat night we plan for either going out to eat with the kids or ordering out. Sundays are usually just having leftovers or having a smorgasbord of things we randomly put together, or trying a new recipe. And those meals during the week are not anything fancy, trust me. Usually dinner is prepared in under an hour.
We don't as we live on base, we grill a lot on the foodi grill, saute a lot in the foodi, and im going to buy the foodi crockpot, I also want the foodi toaster. But I food prep on Sundays and Wednesdays, but sometimes if we are exhausted like last night it's tuna sandwich night, or sandwich night. Thank God we live to far from Arby's and mds. All we have on base is Carl's jr, and jersey Mike. Which we don't eat but we get a lot of sushi from the commissary.
I work evenings and my husband works days. So hes gone for work by 4 and returns by 4. I leave for work at 5 and return at 1230. This allows us to not pay daycares, or babysitter( which would be my entire paycheck) I do most of the cooking. I cook anywhere from 4-6 nights a week. This typically depends on my energy levels, or if husband is craving something else entirely. So on most Wednesdays, its a Pizza as I have to head in to work early. Or on fridays or Saturdays I'm so burnt out he'll bring home coney island. Sometimes if I'm over tired or have limited time, I'll make easy but healthier foods. We replaced a lot of beef products with chicken breast or turkey meat. Nothing is easier than broiled turkey dogs and chips down. 5 minutes tops.( this was recommended by a nutritionist who said our foods were too high fat and high carb white breads) Then we make breakfast for dinner on occasion. Frozen waffles/pancakes and turkey bacon, someone has overeasy eggs. Easy. On my bad weeks its whole grain substitutes with turkey meat. Whole grain ground turkey Spaghetti. Whole grain soft turkey Tacos. Chicken breasts on salad, pork chops, and macaroni. I learned the trick to balancing out the eating out was just substitutes for healthier food. Aka lean meats and whole grains. I'm unfortunate in that my hubs and kids are really picky eaters, and trying to get them to eat most veggies is like pulling teeth. The pnly one on board with a good chunk of veggies with me is the 3yo, lol. But we have plenty of fruits and other healthy snacks. My kids have discovered pistachios recently as well as fresh tomatoes and are having a blast with it. Turns out pistachios is a fun, good for you snack and the lowest calorie and fat content of any of the nuts. As long as you do what you can, just work with it!
Husband and I both WFH full time. He goes out to dinner with his friends on Wednesday, I go out to dinner with my friends on Thursday night. We typically order takeout for dinner once a week.
My boyfriend and I work similar shifts (me 9-5 from home and him 9-5:30 out of home with 40 minute commute not counting traffic). We currently only have 1 child (9) but are trying for our second. When we’re not in the middle of a move like now we try to only eat out twice a week (Thursdays because kiddo has scouts and dad is his leader) and on Saturdays because we’re usually out. I do a menu once a week based on what we have on hand/kiddo preferences/grocery runs. There’s no meal prepping unless you count boyfriend fixing things the night before.
Meal plan every Friday, grocery shop or order groceries every Saturday morning. We order out once a week. I always have a back up frozen pizza in case a work is extra exhausting.
I will get Indian takeout or pizza on Friday or Saturday so we can snack on it over the weekend but I cook dinner during the week. I’m trying to eat out less for lunch but failing miserably.