Making good choices is always better! – Millionaire on the Prairie

Making good choices isn’t always easy or convenient, but it almost always pays off.

I’ll be frank. I love eating out. I go out for meals with friends regularly, usually twice a week. It’s part of my social life and I don’t apologize for it. There are other things I don’t buy so that I have money to spend time with my nearest and dearest. Sharing a meal is one of my favourite things to do.

That said, I get very vexed with myself when I have to eat out because I was too lazy to cook something beforehand. Leftovers are a fundamental requirement to me living my best life, since I’m not a fan of grocery shopping and I’m not too eager to cook every single day. That said, I hate being forced to to buy something – anything – just because I’m hungry. It’s a reminder that I’ve made a bad choice with my time, my diet, and my money.

On Sunday afternoon, I was out with a family member running errands when I realized that I was very hungry. My stomach was rumbling and all I could think about was a drive-through. I briefly considered going to a sit-down restaurant for lunch, then remembered that I have food at home. Good food – healthy food – the kind of food that I want to be putting into my body on a regular basis!

We had only completed two errands. The major to-do left on my list was grocery shopping, but I know better than to go to the grocery store while hungry! That’s a recipe for an unnecessarily large bill for things that I may or may not eat in the future.

Instead of finding a restaurant, I went home and made myself a tasty lunch. It was simple – marble cheese on whole grain toast with a gala apple. It was both delicious and gentle on my wallet. You see, if I’d gone to a restaurant as per my initial whim, I would’ve spent atleast $30. That’s $30 that I hadn’t planned to spend. The meal likely would’ve been too many calories, to many carbs, and too big of a portion. My choice to come home and feed myself out of my own kitchen saved me money, kept my food intake aligned with my nutritional goals, and was another teensy little step towards fulfilling my financial dreams of early retirement. (That $30 can go towards my short term goals and my retirement fund.)

Coming home for lunch in the middle of my errands might not have been ideal, but it was the right choice for me.

Now, it’s not always an option to come home when I’m hungry. For example, when I’m at work, I can’t simply visit my own kitchen when it’s time for lunch. Also, my office is located in a not-so-nice part of downtown so I don’t have great food options. My choices are crappy fast food or expensive slow food. Neither options appeal to me. So what’s my alternative?

I’ve chosen to batch cook on the weekend and take something tasty to the office with me. This week, I’ll be dining on sweet potatoes, baked chicken breast in a lightly-sweetened glaze, and a medley of mushrooms and brussels sprouts. For snack, I’ll be taking some nuts or some fruit. My lunches will be delicious, filling, and inexpensive.

As I’ve said before, there’s a fortune to be found in your kitchen. Cooking most of your meals at home means that more of your money can be directed towards the things that matter most to you. I’m not suggesting that you never eat out. Rather, I’m putting it out there that you might want to spend a little more time in your kitchen. Eating out is a luxury! Somehow as a society, we have forgotten this. Having an app to order our food is a very new idea. The financially better option is to buy your own food and cook for yourself. Make enough to have some leftovers for the next day, or to freeze for those days when time gets away from you but you still need to eat when you get home.

I’m not immune to the lure of the app. There have been many nights when I’ve wanted to order a pizza or something else on my phone. You know what stops me? It’s not the cost of the food item. It’s the cost of the add-on’s. There’s a service fee, a delivery fee, taxes, the day-ending-in-y fee, and a tip. After it’s all added up, the medium pizza that I’d planned to buy is somehow $40!!! I’m not yet at a stage in my life where $40 for one pizza makes any kind of sense. So instead of entering my credit card information, I close the app and go to my kitchen where I can always get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or cheese and crackers with an apple, or a bowl of oatmeal. I would rather have an un-glamourous, not-Instagramable dinner than spend $40 on a single pizza.

The other benefit of cooking my own food is that I don’t have my credit card on too many servers, waiting to be found by hackers. I’m not a tech-bro, nor do I have any background in the security features of apps. However, there are far too many stories of big companies being hacked and Bad Guys getting their hands on customers’ credit card information. This is something I don’t have to worry about too, too much when I don’t use apps and websites to order my food.

Making good choices is always better. It might not be convenient or easy, but it’s optimal. Cooking at home and taking food with you when you’re on the go is an all-around benefit. You control what goes into your body. Your skills in the kitchen mean that you can feed yourself as needed. And it should go without saying that your wallet stays a little heavier since money isn’t flying out as fast.

So if you’re looking for some extra cash to put towards your financial dreams, I suggest that you start by looking in your kitchen. A little extra time with your stove could result in a big boost to your budget. Take it from me and make good choices!