There’s no denying it- money can definitely be one of the biggest stressors in life. While money is not essential to happiness, it certainly makes things a little easier! With a new little addition to our family this year (who also stayed in the NICU for several days, resulting in some not-so-low medical bills), my husband and I have been looking at ways to cut back and save money.

And you know what? We found our bane. Our money-sucker. Our weakness: We really like to eat out.

Sometimes it’s just for convenience- after soccer games or running errands or a crazy day of homeschool and home projects, kids are tired and hungry and this mama just needs to get kids fed! But sometimes, we eat out just for the fun of it- date nights are always recharging, and I love eating tasty food! And not having dishes afterwards is a definite bonus ;).

But we realized we were just spending way too much on eating out. It’s not a bad thing to enjoy going out to eat and indulging every so often- but we were doing it way too often. We decided to commit to ourselves to significantly cut back on our eating out, and committed to eating at home.

Honestly- it’s amazing how much money we saved just doing this one thing. It literally feels like my husband received a raise at his job, because we have been seeing that much more money in our account each month as we sit down to do our budget. My in-laws took our little family to Disneyland in September, and we decided to invest in a nice double jogging stroller for the occasion (and because we knew we’d get plenty of use out of it afterwards!). Instead of having to scrounge for cash or put it on a credit card (which we never do), or take it from an emergency fund, we were able to just use our monthly cash flow to cover it, because we’ve been doing so much better on not eating out!

This has also given me a great opportunity to practice some more fun and tasty recipes (like deep dish pizza) that my husband loves and we can replicate at home. It’s truly been fun- and a confidence booster!

Maybe your family doesn’t struggle with eating out for dinner- if so, kudos to you! But we all have our weaknesses- maybe it’s your daily cup of coffee from Starbucks, or maybe it’s buying convenience food for lunches instead of making sandwiches, or maybe you spend too much on magazines, books, board games, shoes- it could be anything! Sit down and look through your budget and really look at where your money goes. Take one area that you tend to overspend in and commit to cutting back! You’ll be giving yourself a raise- and you’ll be able to spend that money on so many other needs! You’ll be amazed at how much more money you see in your account each month!