Going out to eat is a huge struggle of mine. In fact, my entertainment/eating out budget category is the one I tend to go over in every single month. When I first started budgeting in January 2014, I tended to go over this budget category by a few dollars each month, but since then it’s gotten progressively worse.
As my life has gotten busier, my eating out budget overage has gotten larger. In fact, until I started freelancing online in the second half of 2014, I would only go over my budget by about $20 or less each month. Last month I went over my budget by nearly $200!
After reflecting on why I keep going further and further over budget for eating out, I realized it’s because I don’t keep any easy, quick meal ingredients on hand for nights when I am especially busy and don’t have time to cook. After I realized that, I decided to make a list of quick meal ideas so I can try to do better at not eating out as often out of pure convenience.
Note: These are not the healthiest of choices, but they are quick meal ideas to help you avoid eating out which is bad for your health and your wallet.
- Canned Soup and Grilled Cheese – my favorites are tomato soup or chicken noodle soup
- Peanut Butter and Jelly
- Eggs – you can cook these in so many different ways to make a quick meal, like scrambled, omelette, over easy, egg sandwich, etc.
- Spaghetti
- Cheese and Crackers
- Cheese Wrap or Quesadilla
- Pancakes or Waffles
- French Toast
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Rice Skillet with Vegetables
- Frozen Pizza
- Chips with Quacamole
- Popcorn
- Rice and Beans
- Salad with Lunch Meat
- Lunch Meat Sandwich
- Hot Dogs
- Slow Cooker Chicken with Gravy
- Slow Cooker Beef with Gravy
- Pasta Alfredo
- Sloppy Joes
- Tuna Salad Sandwich
- Tuna Pasta Bake or Skillet
- Meatloaf
- Cereal
As I said, some of these are not really the most healthy meals, so you shouldn’t use this list for all of your meals everyday. But I am going to print off this list of quick meal ideas and hang it inside my cabinet so when I can’t decide what to have for a quick dinner I have a list of no-excuses ideas readily available. Hopefully this will help me avoid going out to eat as often which will help me save money and eat a little healthier (maybe?).
What do you resort to eating when you don’t feel like cooking or need a quick meal?
How about ramen (instant noodle)? 🙂
That’s a great one! I haven’t had that in forever, but it’s definitely cheap and quick 🙂
We buy this microwave pasta that takes two minutes.
Great! I love quick meals. Sometimes I just don’t feel like cooking.