What is your biggest challenge keeping your food expenditures down?

For me, the biggest challenge is not eating out all the time.  Over the years, I have significantly pared down every other area in my budget.  I shop for clothes almost exclusively at thrift shops.  I've cut out cable television.  Heck, I drove the same car for 18 years.  I had a pay as you go cell phone for years.  However, eating out has remained the hardest area for me to control.

There are multiple issues the contribute to this. I am very busy.  I tend to work long hours. And I've been in school for the last several years.  After I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is work some more and prepare a meal.  And then clean up after the meal. It seems like a lot of work to cook for one person and then clean up.  While there may be more plates and utensils to wash after a meal, it takes the same number of harder to clean items like pots and pans to cook the same meal for one as it does for six.

And I like inventive, tasty food, and I am a basic cook because the day you find me making a wine reduction (or reduction of anything else) definitely means I must have been out of work for weeks, because otherwise I am not putting that kind of time and effort into cooking.

Even when I do have a meal in the refrigerator that just needs heating, I still would rather eat out... I get tired of repeats and leftover very quickly.

I still haven't found a good answer to this yet, but some techniques have helped.

I try to do my chopping and cutting once a week and bag produce up for use later in the week.

I utilize my freezer to try to help cut down on repetition...this was working really well until my freezer went out and I lost an entire freezer full of food.. and it still hasn't been replenished.

I try to focus on foods that are inexpensive and I don't tire of quickly (like Sheppard's pie... I could eat it daily for weeks without complaint).

Some of it, recently, has just been reminding myself that I would rather pay off my car early than have an exciting meal.

I also reflect back on a mission trip I took to Haiti and remind myself I should be happy to have ANYTHING to eat, let alone just exactly what I want at that moment.

How are you overcoming your biggest food expense obstacle?

The blueberry pie.... from Helen's Restaurant, in Machias, Maine. One of the best pieces of blueberry pie I've ever eaten!