Eating out for WAY Less - Last Second Deal (Janssen)

Because I like to share a good deal . . .

We've talked about Restaurant.com before (here is Merrick's post about it). Today only, if you use the coupon code "WOW" you'll get 90% off any gift certificate, which means you buy most of the $25 gift certificates for a grand total of $1 (usually they are $10).

Austin has over a hundred restaurants that participate, so I went through and bought 8 for various restaurants - all for a grand total of $9.50. The gift certificates don't expire, either, which means now is a great time to stock up.

And, if $1 isn't cheap enough for you, be sure to go to Restaurant.com through Ebates and you'll get 15% back.

But this deal only goes through midnight tonight (Pacific time), so don't wait around. (It's been extended through Friday at midnight, so go ahead and stock up - just remember to check what the requirements for your gift certificate is; most require you to spend $35 total or order at least two entrees).

Free on Your Birthday (Janssen)

Last week was my birthday. And so, in honor of my big day, we did what I like most - got things for free.

I was inspired by my friend Erin's post about the free birthday food tour of Ann Arbor. The fact that I do not live anywhere near Ann Arbor did not deter me - I would find free food in my city.

And oh, did I ever.

On my birthday, I stopped at Schlotzsky's for my free small sandwich, then drove through Sonic for my free creamslush (delicious). I picked up Bart from work and we went to Firehouse Subs where you can get a free medium sandwich on your birthday if you have ID that verifies that it is indeed your birthday. We split the two sandwiches and the slush and went on our merry, none-the-poorer way. Happy birthday indeed (also, neither of us had ever been to Firehouse before and WOW, it was delicious).

After Bart was done at work, we went to Benihana for dinner because they send a free entree/$30 gift certificate for your birthday. We got the largest sushi combo on the menu that was under $30 and it fed us both - no cost except a nice tip.

I still have my coupons (that are good for another week or so) for a free cone at Maggie Moo's, a free Blizzard at Dairy Queen, free ice cream from Baskin Robbins, a free entree at Kona Grill, a free burger at Fuddruckers, and a free burger at Red Robin.

I also got a coupon for a free ice cream at Cold Stone but tragically all the Cold Stones in the Austin area have closed. The nearest one is some 80 miles away and even I am not dumb enough to drive that far for a free ice cream cone.

If that isn't ENOUGH free stuff for you, here's even more comprehensive lists of places that offer a birthday treat of some sort: Birthday Freebies, Hey It's Free!, and Happy Birthday Deals.

I can't wait for Bart's birthday in the spring. . .

Saving Tips for Travel (Merrick)

As you know, this week's posts are about saving money while traveling. This subject was a little tough for me because we do most of our penny pinching at home and then do a bit of splurging for our vacations. But despite that, I was able to come up with three ways that we tend to save money on vacations:

1. Restaurant.com: I talked about this in an earlier post, and it sort of relates to Janssen's idea of planning where you eat. It does take a little foresight, planning where you'll be on a given evening during your vacation and choosing something that you hope you'll be in the mood for once your vacation arrives. But those problems aside, it's a great way to save tons of money and try out great restaurants. Especially if you join their email list and get notifications of their 80% off promotions. We've used this several times and have never been disappointed.

2. Rewards Programs: There are lots of travel websites that have rewards programs; the two that we most frequently use are Southwest and Hotels.com. As you probably know with Southwest, you get free flights as your flight points accumulate. With Hotels.com, you get a free night when you book 10 nights through their site. This presents a great opportunity to stay in a really nice hotel, or fly somewhere expensive. It pays to be a loyal customer.

3. Upgrade when you get there: For my husband, Philip, one of the most important things when we travel is the hotel room. However, booking a suite or room with a view is usually pretty expensive. We've found that if we book the cheapest hotel room online, we can upgrade once we get there. If the hotel isn't full, they will often do this for free or for only a few dollars more per night. A great way to save money and get the room you want.

We've said it before, but we'd love to hear more ideas of how you save when you travel!

Saving Tips for Travel (Carole)

This week we're going to respond to the request by Diana Banana to tell our favorite tips for saving money while traveling.

First, I've already written about how we fly free with Southwest Airlines by using their credit card through our office.  That is probably the biggest money saver we've ever done.  Check it out and see if it could work for you.

Second, because we live in a big city (and it happens to be a vacation destination) we have often headed downtown to a local hotel for a couple of days -- this works especially well for anniversaries.  Saves us both time and gasoline.  It's kinda' fun to play tourist in your own hometown.  Also, we can usually get a deal on a hotel and many shows because we are locals.  I don't know if that translates to other states, but it would be worth checking into.  Nevada residents can save up to 50% on many shows and hotels.  We also use personal contacts to get reduced hotel room prices or free upgrades and free show tickets.  We've seen Blue Man Group, Lord of the Dance, Mystere, Celine Dion, Lance Burton, Hans Klok, Donny and Marie Osmond, and Penn and Teller all for free because we knew someone who works behind the scenes.  These people usually get a few free tickets every month -- if you ask, they can be yours.

Lastly, the most typical way we save money while traveling, is to eat lunch and dinner from the grocery store rather than at a restaurant.  We have a typical menu for both breakfast and lunch that includes cold cereal, milk, yogurt, bananas, sandwich fixings, chips, juice and cookies.  (All of the perishables are kept cold either in the hotel fridge or in a garbage can filled with ice kept covered in the tub.)  Saving the total cost of both breakfast and lunch each day makes going out for dinner not seem so expensive.  And since we could never be mistaken for "foodies," we tend to choose reasonable establishments for our late meals.

How do stretch your travel dollars??

Eating On a Dollar A Day (Carole & Janssen)

I'm out in Boston with Janssen and her sweet new baby.  Plus her little family is days away from a move across the country.  We're a bit busy, to say the least!  So, rather than writing a post today, we're sharing a very interesting Time Magazine article, and the accompanying  blog, about 2 people who are feeding themselves on $1 per day.  Maybe a bit extreme, but it will get you thinking about your own food budget in a whole new way!

You'll quickly notice that they eat vegan.  

Time Magazine Article
http://www.dollaradaybook.com/blog 


Hope you're having a happy, happy day!!

Time Well Spent (Carole)

We've all heard the saying, "Time is Money."  When it comes to saving money, nothing could be more true.  This is just a short little post to remind you that -

the faster you're living your life, the more money you're probably spending

Because it takes some time to:
 *  Write up a budget
 *  Plan a menu
 *  Cook your own  meals
 *  Look for and use coupons
 *  Become familiar with the usual prices of things
*   Comparison shop
*   Do your homework on the best brands
*   Shop at more than one grocery store
*   Try a DIY project
*   Home repairs

Are you living your life too fast to be frugal??

It's difficult to remove yourself from the frenzied pace of modern life.  But try to slow it down, think things through, consider your options before you buy something, take a few deep breaths and spend your hard-earned money wisely.  Your savings can be enormous.


Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com  

How Much Does Your Lunch Cost? (Janssen)

The other night at dinner, I was telling Bart about the teacher lunches that are provided at the two elementary schools I work at. This is a new program this year, so many of the teachers were really excited because you could buy a non-chicken nugget lunch for only $3. I commented to Bart that $15 a week for lunches still seemed quite expensive to me, since if we both spent that, it would be 60% of our weekly budget.

Last year, in an effort to be healthy, Bart and I gave up fast food. The on-campus Wendy's had been an easy option if we were too tired or too rushed or simply didn't feel like making lunches on a school day. With the dollar menu, it felt like a pretty cheap way to go ($3 or $4 for a full lunch). When Wendy's was no longer an option for us, we were extremely committed to making sure we had a lunch every single day.

As we discussed this, we wondered how much we actually were spending every day on lunch now. Our main priorities when it comes to lunch are as follows: easy (no way are we assembling 7 part sandwiches in the morning when we're rushing to catch the T and beat traffic), cheap, and nutritious.

Here's what lunch looks like for us at the moment:

• Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches on homemade wheat bread ($0.30 - ten cents for two slices of bread, ten cents of peanut butter and ten cents of jelly)
• One yogurt ($0.25 cents each since I have become a rabid yogurt coupon collector and I wait for them to go on sale and buy many at once because in my experience it takes yogurt AGES to go bad). 
• One apple ($0.38)
• One banana ($0.27)

This puts the total for one lunch at $1.20, for a grand total of $12 a week for the two of us. Not bad - here in Massachusetts where Wendy's doesn't have a dollar menu, but instead a VALUE menu where everything runs about $1.29, you couldn't even get one carton of chicken nuggets for that cost.

We have experimented with a ton of different lunch options - string cheese, granola bars (both store bought and homemade), cookies, muffins, vegetables, pretzels, etc - over the last 18 months since we devoted ourselves wholeheartedly to homemade lunches. Some are too expensive, some are too unhealthy, some are too much effort to make in advance.

Our current combination though appears to be just the right amount of food for us - we eat it all, rather than leaving the apples uneaten while devouring the chocolate chip granola bars moments after arriving in the office.

What do you eat for lunch? Any idea how much it costs?

Categories to Cut (Janssen)

This year has been a year of focus for us - we've been working like crazy to pay off our student loans (both my husband and I completed masters degrees last summer) before our baby is born in July.

The interest rate was not particularly good on these loans and we really didn't want to have another required monthly expense when our overall expenses would likely be rising with the addition of a new family member.

Putting so much money toward paying off these loans means, of course, less spending in other categories, and we spent a little time looking over our budget to see where we could cut back.

We mapped out how long it would take us to pay off our loans and decided that we would be willing to entirely eliminate a few categories from our budget for the months that we were paying off our loans. That meant no spending, on either of our parts, until our loans were gone in the following categories:

• Entertainment. We would not go to any movies or concerts or rent movies during this time period. We would use redbox codes or the library to see any movies or watch things online (like Lost, which is available for free from abc.com). We aren't huge movie watchers anyway, so this wasn't a major sacrifice.
• Eating out. I like to cook and it costs nearly half our weekly budget to go out to dinner at an even low-end restaurant. Bart has a number of dinners that he goes to for his job anyway and I don't usually get enough satisfaction from a restaurant meal to justify the cost, so this was pretty low-impact for us.
• Our allowances. I mentioned in an early post that Bart and I both have an allowance of $50 a month. This money is ours to spend as we will, although realistically, since we don't have a clothing budget, this money generally goes to that. We decided to freeze this category until the loans were gone, so no money would be accruing in these accounts during this time period.

Do I want to never go out to dinner again or buy myself a cute pair of shoes? Of course not. But I'm willing to do it for a finite, specified amount of time. These categories are ones I don't miss all that much over the period of a few months.

Of course, the categories you'd be willing to give up for the short-term might be different than mine. You may hate to cook or need a weekly dinner out for mental health and the idea of not going out to dinner for six months is beyond intolerable. But you might be willing to give up your cell phone for a year. Or you might be willing to get rid of cable for six months.

What categories would you be willing to freeze spending on for a few months in order to put that money toward something greater?

Recipe Wednesday (Janssen)

In Texas, where I lived for the last three years, there was a little Indian grocery store that my husband and I absolutely loved, not because we bought a lot of Indian food, but because there was a tiny little restaurant counter in the back that had some of the best (and cheapest) curry and naan we'd ever had. The low-cost of living, the great weather, and our good friends aside, that place might be the thing we miss most about Texas.

We could purchase a serving of chicken tikka masala with rice (enough to feed us both a full meal) for the whopping price of $8.99. Not bad.

I've been leary of making Indian food at home because it's never anywhere as good as that from a restaurant, but I've made this recipe now TWICE and when I made it this weekend, my husband told me it was the best Indian food he'd ever had outside a restaurant. We both had the leftovers for lunch the next day and enjoyed them even more.

It's still probably not QUITE as good as what you'd get if you went out, but it's definitely fairly close, and it's far cheaper. Also, it's unbelievably easy.

Coconut Chicken Curry
Adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe
(serves 6)

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch chunks ($3.50)
1 teaspoon salt ($0.01)
1/2 teaspoon pepper ($0.01)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil ($0.05)
2 tablespoons curry powder ($0.75)
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika (substitute cayenne pepper if you like it more spicy) ($0.02)
1/2 onion, diced ($0.20)
2 cloves garlic, crushed ($0.05)
4 potatoes, cut into chunks (if I use red potatoes, I leave the skins on, if not, I peel them) ($1.00)
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk ($0.99)
1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes ($1.00)
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce ($0.50)
3 tablespoons sugar ($0.04)

Basmati rice (cooked) ($1.50)

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil, curry powder, and paprika in a large skillet over medium-low heat for two minutes, until fragrant, stirring to keep from burning. Turn the heat up to medium and stir in onions and garlic and cook ten minutes more or until onions are very clear. Add chicken, tossing lightly to coat with curry oil and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until chicken is cooked on the outside (it will cook all the way through later). Add potatoes, coconut milk, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and sugar into the pan, and stir to combine. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 30-40 minutes or until sauce thickens. Serve over rice.

Total cost - $9.62 for six servings (even at our dirt-cheap Indian place in Texas, this would have cost us  $26.97).

A Peek at the Promised Land (Carole)

A few weeks ago, Tara commented that she didn't see the point in being frugal, frugal, frugal just so she could be a millionaire when she and her husband are 80!  What is the fun in that??  Maybe some of you have had the same thoughts as you've thought about coupon-ing, garage sale-ing, eating at home. . .   Hopefully, I can give you a glimpse at where this whole Frugal Life thing is really headed.

If you have credit card debt, car loans and/or student loans, most people (when you finally get very serious about it) can pay all of it off within 3 years.  We have never carried credit card debt, but we've had a few car loans and we had over $60,000 in student loans back in the 1980's -- so about $130,000 in today's money.   We paid minimum payments for a number of years, and then we got religion.  We paid off our car in about 8 months and our student loans in about 2 years.  So we paid off all our consumer debt in right around that 3 year mark.  We weren't making tons of money and we had 3 children.  We were extremely average.  You could probably pay things off faster than we did.

Our next step was paying off our house.  We knew a couple of families our own age (early 30's) who had paid off their houses.  We were AMAZED.  Could we do that too??  How long would something like that take?  We owed about $160,000 on our house at the time.  As a little family we confronted this monumental financial goal with everything we had.  We printed out an amortization schedule (numerous pages of small type -- very scary), and taped it ALL to the back of the door where the bills were paid in our house.  Every month when we paid our regular house payment, we also added as much extra $$ as we could scrape out of our home budget and sent that along to the mortgage company too -- that extra money goes straight to the principle.   We often gathered our 3 girls into the room while we marked off  the payment amount with a highlighter pen and circled all the skipped interest payments that NEVER HAS TO BE PAID-- EVER!!  Did we starve through this time?  Live on nothing?  Never leave the house?  No, we actually took a few pretty decent vacations along the way and fed and clothed everyone.  Probably saw a few movies too.  But we stuck to our house payback schedule.  We threw everything we could at this debt and in 3+ years we received our title, free and clear, in the mail.  That is a moment never to be forgotten.

We paid that house off in 1996.  In 2003 I wanted a bigger house (we had more children, the older ones were larger, and we wanted to live in a better school district).  We found the house we wanted and went back into a $100,000 mortgage (we were able to pay for MOST of the house with cold, hard cash from the sale of our first house -- that felt very, very nice).  We paid off this new mortgage in about 2 years.  I thought I would mention here that both times we got down to the last $30,000 on our mortgage, extra money just started appearing.  I can't even explain it.  It's like the Lord knows you are serious about taking care of your family and your finances, so He blesses you beyond anything you've ever seen.  The last $30,000 was paid off about 5 months earlier than scheduled -- both times.  When you get to that point, let me know if this happens to you too!

So, when you've paid off all of your debt -- in under 5 years probably -- how does life look?  It is an amazing place to be.  Think of the amount of money you bring home every month in your paycheck.  Now think of how much it would cost you to live with no major bills.  No credit card payments, no car loans, no student loans, no house payment.  Can you even wrap your mind around that?

You still have to buy food, electricity, gasoline, car insurance, clothes, property taxes.  That's about it.  Hmm.  How much would that add up to in a month?  Not very much.  All the rest of your take home pay is YOURS.  Wow.

What will you do with it?

Saving is a big thing.  Putting as much money as you can into tax-free or tax-deferred programs is very smart.

Beyond that, you can spend it on anything you want.  You could buy a new car with cash  -- every few months!  You could buy a brand new boat in cash, also in just a few months.  You could redecorate your entire house.  Put in a backyard pool.  You can be generous beyond anything you can imagine.  Travel to Europe, Asia, Africa -- every few months.  All for cash.

You will finally be free.  All the hard work you (or your spouse) puts in to bring home money, will finally benefit YOU.  All in about 5 years.

Enjoy.

Recipe Wednesday - Beef Stroganoff (Carole)

It's nice to have a sense of what your at-home recipes cost to cook -- and we are here to help!  You typically save about 80 - 90% by cooking dinner at home instead of going to a restaurant.  Now that feels great!!

Beef Stroganoff

(Cost for entire dish = $5.67)

Serves between 4 - 6 people.  Depending on the people.

2+ lbs beef roast  ($4.27)

1 Dry Onion Soup mix ($0.90)

1/4 cup water

1 cup sour cream ($0.50)

Cut the roast into 2 inch pieces, place in a crock pot on low.  Add onion soup mix and water.  Cook for 6 - 8 hours, stirring occasionally and adding small amounts of water if it gets dry.  10 minutes before serving, stir in sour cream and let heat through.

Serve over rice, potatoes or pasta.

These ingredient prices are so low because I watch for in-store sales.  The meat was $1.89/lb (nearly half price) and my local store almost always has store brand sour cream for $1.00 for a pint.  I usually buy the store brand of soup mix which is about half the price of Liptons.  

And I LOVE my crock pot.  It works all day and has dinner ready and smelling divine when I'm ready to feed my hungry crew.  

Unnecessary Expenses: Part 5 (Merrick)

I’ve blogged about it before, but I’ll blog about it again. Eating out is an unnecessary expense.

Unless you’re only eating off the $.99 menu at McDonalds or Wendy’s, chances are you’re dropping a significant amount of money for your meal and a tip every time you go out to eat. It is obviously a luxury to eat out once or twice a week, and if you’re looking for place to cut back, this is a good one. And I don’t know about you, but half the time I go out to eat, I end up ordering something only sub-par and I walk away thinking, “too bad I just spent $15.00 on that meal that I didn’t really LOVE.”

I’ve been reading The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook, and have recently started integrating her meals into my weekly menus. She breaks down the cost of each item in each meal, including side dishes, and every meal costs less than $5 (and each makes enough for a family of five). After I’ve finished this book, I’ll blog about it a little more in-depth, but for now, suffice it to say that feeding your entire family for $5 is pretty great compared to the $50 or more you would spend taking them all out to eat. That means you could feed your family for one and a half weeks for the same price as one meal at a restaurant!

So although eating out can be fun and a good break for us wives who cook on a nightly basis for their families, it is obviously an unnecessary expense. Huge amounts of money can be saved if you limit your eating out to once or twice a month and instead eat at home, using recipes that can feed the whole family for only a few dollars.

Reducing Your Gasoline Bill (Carole)

In nearly every city there is one grocery store chain that offers a discount on gasoline based on the amount of money you spend at their store.  In our town it is Albertsons.  Where my in-laws live, it is Smith's.  It usually works something like this:  for every $50 you spend on groceries, you get $.05 off a gallon of gasoline (up to 20 gallons) when you purchase from their affiliated gas station.  This by itself isn't that amazing of a deal, since I can usually beat that 5 cent savings just by going to Sam's Club to buy gas.  But there are additional ways...
Using Coupons:  The required $50 spent on groceries is calculated on the cost of your groceries BEFORE your coupon savings are subtracted from your bill.  So, if you've figured out how to use coupons STRATEGICALLY (which I will cover in the next few weeks), you can spend very little cash on food and still qualify for the gasoline savings.  The savings are cumulative: when you spend $100 on groceries then you save 10 cents every gallon, $150 then you get a 15 cent savings.  Those kinds of savings are worth driving past any other gas station.  If you are spending a few hundred dollars each month on groceries, you can usually get one tankful of gasoline for just about free each month.  Pretty nifty.

Buying Gift Cards:  Nearly every large grocery store chain sells its own store gift cards.  Often (especially during the holidays) they will load on an extra $10 - $30 with a $100 grocery gift card purchase.  There also isn't a gift card fee for their own store cards (unlike when you buy a VISA gift card).  You can buy YOURSELF a grocery gift card  (aren't you thoughtful!) and use it for your upcoming trips to the store.  And gain an extra $10 - $30 in free groceries.  AND all of those free groceries add to your gasoline savings.

Store Specials on Register Tape:  Look on the back of your register tape and occasionally (more often than you'd guess) the store is offering DOUBLE gasoline savings.  So, instead of a 5 cent discount on every gallon, you'll get a 10 cent discount.  Way to go!

Other Gift Cards:  And lastly, if you know you're going to be going out to dinner at Chili's or Red Lobster or wherever, and your grocery store sells gift cards to these restaurants, buy yourself a gift card.  This way your evening out (with your Restaurant.com coupon, of course!) also adds to your gasoline savings.  The same holds true for ANY gift card you buy at the grocery store -- Old Navy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Southwest Airlines. . .  Take a look at the gift card rack and see where you shop anyway, and give your gasoline budget a breather!

Check your grocery store web site for all their rules.

Eating Out For Less (Merrick)

OK – now that we’ve talked about saving money by eating in, let’s talk about a few ways to eat out, but still save money.

I’m all about eating out; I think it’s a great way to get out of the house, have a nice date night with your spouse, or just avoid doing the dishes for one night. But it’s all about moderation and knowing how to find great deals.

One great website for restaurant deals is Restaurant.com. Have you heard of it? It’s a website that has gift certificates for thousands of restaurants, but all at a discounted price. For example, you can purchase a $25 restaurant gift certificate for $10, with the only catch being that you have to order at least two entrees, or a minimum purchase of $35 (this will vary by restaurant).

But wait, it gets even better. I have personally never purchased a $25 gift certificate for $10 because I simply added myself to their email list and I’m constantly getting emails about their 80% off specials. Yes, you read that right. 80% off. That means at $25 gift certificate for….(wait for it)….$2!!

I was a little dubious about it until I finally caved in and tried it for the first time for a vacation a few years ago (we don’t use this site very often for date nights since Provo has a total of two participating restaurants…). Vacations already cost so much between plane flights, hotel rooms, daily activities, and eating out every day, so we’re always trying to save wherever we can. I knew roughly where we would be each night of the vacation, so I searched the available restaurants in those areas with Philip and we found one that sounded great. Using my 80% off discount code, I purchased the $25 gift certificate. This particular restaurant required a minimum purchase of $35, but 18% gratuity was included prior to the discount. Being the miserly people we are, we figured out exactly how much food we had to get so that the 18% gratuity would bump us up to $35. We walked out that night after a large appetizer, drinks, and two large entrees, with a total bill of $35.20, meaning we only spent $12.20 for all that food! We now use this site every time we go on a vacation and have probably saved hundreds of dollars as a result.

This is only one of so many ways to save on eating out, and if you take a little time to research what restaurants participate in your area, think of all the money you could save on those weekly date nights.

Why Go Out When You Can Stay In? (Merrick)

How often do you eat out?

After a little online research, I discovered that Americans eat out on average four times a week! Although some of these meals may be lunch (slightly cheaper), it’s still a huge number when we think about how much money is being drained out of our wallets simply by eating out.

My husband and I rarely eat out for lunch, but for the last few years we’ve had regular date nights once a week. Regardless of where we go, we spend anywhere from $20-30 (plus tip!) for just the two of us.

Once a week, spending roughly $25, adds up to $100 a month, and $1200 a year! Now what if we were eating out four times a week? That’s almost $5000 a year – just on eating out! And that doesn’t include all the money you’re spending at the grocery store.

So why do we eat out so often? In a 2006 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it was found that American’s eat out for three primary reasons: variety, convenience, and entertainment.

I’m here today to tell you that if you want variety, convenience and entertainment, you don’t necessarily have to go out (although we will talk about ways to eat out cheaply another day). About a year ago, I instigated “Friday Homemade Pizza Night.” It started out a little slow, but now it has become tradition and is a fun date night together. We stay in, we rent a movie from the Redbox (with a free rental code, of course), I make homemade pizza, and it fulfils all three of those reasons American’s eat out.

1. Variety: Yes, I understand that pizza once a week does not seem like variety, but after catching on to the tradition I’ve picked up a few pizza cookbooks and since then we’ve tried many different kinds of pizza. We have our favorites that we always go back to, but it’s fun to try new things, especially if it’s cheap.
2. Convenience: From the time I start making the pizza dough to the time it comes out of the oven is about 45 minutes. If you go to a restaurant, especially on a Friday night, you’ll be waiting for longer than that. Yes, you might not have to do any cooking or cleaning up, but a 10-15 minute prep time (and 30 mins in the oven) is really pretty hard to beat. (If we really want to talk about convenience, I’ll show you the fastest way to make homemade pizza – 5 minutes! – in another post…but I don’t do that every week).
3. Entertainment: Philip and I often make the pizza together, putting the toppings on as part of our date night. Then once the pizza is cooked, we cuddle up on the couch to enjoy a free movie ($1 at the most!) and dinner simultaneously.

And here’s the best part. I’ve broken down our cost for dinner, dessert and a movie so you can see our savings:

DINNER:
Homemade Crust (4 ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt): $1.00 estimated – possibly cheaper
Sauce (Kroger Brand from Smiths, $1.79/jar, I use about 1/3 of the jar): $0.54
Cheese (I only buy it when the big bricks are on sale, 2/$6, and use about 1/3): $1.50
Meat (pepperoni, Canadian bacon, salami, etc. I use about ½ a pack at $3): $1.50
Veggies (peppers, mushrooms, etc): $2.00 estimated

DESSERT:
Vanilla Ice Cream (Kroger brand from Smiths, $2/qt, we use about 1/3): $0.60
Crushed Candy Bar (2/$1.00, we only use one): $0.50

MOVIE:
Redbox (usually can find free rental code): $0.00

TOTAL for dinner, dessert, and a movie: $7.64 (and no tip!) for two people!!

Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever eat out, but look at the difference. Think about that next time you don’t feel like cooking…