Thought Provoking Thursday
Thought Provoking ThursdayBefore I can share today's provoking thought, I must share two very personal things about myself...
1. I L.O.V.E. Feta cheese. LOVE IT! Seriously, I could eat it every single day! I've loved it since I was a little girl! I crave Greek Salads! Sheepishly, I'll admit that *sometimes* I will even order a hot dog with feta and fresh tomato slices on top (proof) when we go to the coney... and sometimes I'll even order a baby Greek salad on the side. Yum. That's how I really feel!
2. I have an AMAZING husband! Dave loves me for who I am- even my weird quirks like LOVING Feta cheese! Dave looks for ways to show me how much he loves me and thinks about me... and the above picture was a Christmas gift from Dave! (Isn't he awesome?)
The NINE pound bucket O' Feta pictured above was lovingly purchased at Gordon Food Service ($21 if you want one too!), and was my 'stocking stuffer' (ahem... more like Wifey stuffer, but I digress!). While it didn't quite fit into my stocking, I did clear half a shelf in my fridge to accommodate its greatness (on so many levels!).
Dave is a wise man. Yep, he definitely made his wife very happy, and he also discovered a new way for our family to save a little bit more money!
You see, when I have a hankering for Feta, it usually means that our family is going to eat dinner that night at my favorite coney island... Leo's! (Can I get an amen?) And... well..., I usually have a hankering once a week! (I know, this post is getting more and more embarrassing by the minute!)
Going out to dinner isn't awful, especially just once a week and to a fairly inexpensive coney island, but Dave no longer actually counts eating at Leo's as actually going out to dinner... he considers it more of my kitchen away from my kitchen. More often than not, at least a couple of weeks out of the month consist of another dinner out or ordering a pizza.
With my own personal Feta Factory in my fridge, I can now curb another 'attack of the Leo's' in the comfort of my own home!
Dave's brilliant (and delicious, all nine pounds of it) gift of blessed Feta both hit the spot financially, by keeping our family home for dinner when a hankering strikes- that's $20-ish more in our pockets than in Leo's bank account (Leo's, I still love you!), and it hit the spot both in my heart and in my belly! Yumm-O!
Just for the record, since friends and family, once hearing of my nine pound tub always ask, the Feta can be refrigerated for up to six months... sure, like it'll last that long!
Do YOU usually head out to dinner to:
Avoid cooking?
Satisfy a craving?
Be waited on hand & foot?
Let someone else clean up?
Satisfy a craving?
Be waited on hand & foot?
Let someone else clean up?
15 comments:
I like to go out to eat so I don't have to figure out what to feed myself and three others! They can all choose what they want.
We saved all our receipts from last year to add up all our totals for spending and discovered that we were eating out WAY too much. So for the first couple months at least, we are limiting our family to one time per month. It'll be tough but it will save us money!
It's something my mom taught me when I was VERY young - Mom does not cook on Fridays! Honestly I don't care what we eat, where we eat or Who does the cooking - it's not me! We do tend to frequent Qdoba a lot - I've gotten coupons, after 10 meals you get 1 free and by signing up I get coupons emailed regularly - we rarely pay more than $15 for the 3 of us and I LOOOOVVVE Mexican!
Yikes... if I had only tracked THOSE receipts!
We Webbers are currently doing a NO DINNERS OUT January... we're 8/8, although the month is early- but I'm determined to make it the full 31 days!
We'll definitely celebrate by going out to eat though, I'm sure of it!
We almost never go out to eat. I don't think we've taken the kids out to eat in a couple of years, except for hitting the drive through on a couple of road trips.
For some reason, the thought of trying to keep my 2 boys behaving nicely at a restaurant stresses me out. And I don't want to pay for the opportunity to be stressed!!!
We do eat out as a couple maybe twice a month, which is great. And having a cooking husband is a major contributing factor to not going out to eat. As is stockpiling. There's always SOMETHING to eat. And since the boys only have about 2 things they like, it's easy to cook for them! (wait...does peanut butter or grilled cheese count as cooking?)
Carrie,
As long as its peanut butter OR Grilled cheese, not peanut butter AND grilled cheese... then its cooking to me!
We budget $100/month for dining out and that usually gets us out once a week but we've been out twice, once to Leo's :) and once for my son's birthday for Garbage Burgers and we've spent $95 of our budget and it's only Jan 8th. :( What a long month it's going to be because, for all of the reasons you named, we won't be going out unless I can transfer money from one category to another . . . Hmmmm, I'll have to work on that one!
We eat out about once a week. I have always loved eating out so we've always budgeted and have taught our kids to behave in restaurants. It's a fun family night out for all 6 of us! And I usually do it to avoid cooking but sometimes it's to satisfy a craving.
We usually end up going out because I haven't planned anything for dinner and don't feel like thawing something at the last minute. It's much too easy to just say "let's go out." And with kids that are 14, 11, and 6, it's not as cheap as it used to be. Perhaps my next goal should be weekly meal planning...
Another quick note...my mom always put peanut butter ON our grilled cheese when I was a kid. I think she used the peanut butter to hold the sandwich together until the cheese melted. It's actually quite tasty!! :-)
Oh Becky... seriously?
I eat out more than I should for convenience. With my husband on 2nd shift and a 10 month old, after working all day, I often don't feel like coming home to cook dinner for one. I have been better about meal planning and "prepping" on the weekend though!
I go out to eat in order to get a break and as a treat.
Oh no - I don't combine peanut butter and grilled cheese.
What I do combine, thanks to my hubby for introducing this to the boys, is peanut butter and chocolate chips. They call it "peanut butter treat sandwich."
MMMhm! Dave served that up when I wasn't around, and it took ALL DAY the next day for me to figure out what my then 18 month old was crying for!
We eat out once a week, usually going to a local diner for breakfast after church. It's become a family tradition! I pay for it out of my grocery budget, though, so it's like a "reward" for my smart shopping and cooking the rest of the week!
All of the above! :)
I actually got a super nice gift from my sister in law for Christmas.
My weakness is lattes. Unfortunately I cannot afford (nor do I think it is wise) to go to our starbucks every week. I used to get a lot of gift cards for presents and I would be SO happy until after about three drinks they were gone.
My sis-in-law got me an espresso machine! I am happy to say that I haven't even wanted to go to Starbucks for the last couple of weeks. This is HUGE!
Now if I can only find toffee syrup somewhere...
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