I’m hoping to get any kind of advice on how to not get fast food as often as I am. My husband and I have 2 kids, I make the dinners. I feel stuck in a routine of the same few meals I cook, and when I think about different things to cook: fast food just sounds more appetizing to me. I want to save the money, but also be healthier. It’s kind of ironic though how I don’t want to cook the same rotation of meals, but get the same exact thing from the fast food place I go to.. I’ve thought about marking it on a calendar so I can see it visually how often I get it / see how often I can go without but I’m just struggling!
How do I stop myself from getting fast food so often?
byu/LittleMouseBear inFrugal
Posted by LittleMouseBear
38 Comments
I hear ya, it’s so easy to fall back on fast food when you’re tired or just bored of cooking the same meals. Something that’s helped me is staying on top of hydration. When I drink enough water and sip electrolytes through the day, I actually feel fuller for longer and I’m not as tempted to grab something quick just because I feel snacky.
You don’t have to change everything at once either. Maybe just try adding one new meal into your weekly rotation so it feels fresh without being overwhelming. I also love your calendar idea, seeing those “no fast food” days stack up would be so motivating. It’s the little habits like that that make a huge difference over time!
Before people say meal prep: Meal prep. At least create a menu and chop and portion ingredients.
jot down a calendar tracker for how many times you go in a week and then try to cut down from there
Maybe you’re like me and you don’t necessary like fast food but hate to food prep cook. Find easy things to make at home that are still satisfying. Tacos are pretty easy to make at home and can make the seasoned beef in bulk that just needs to be warmed up and tossed into a shell or tortilla. Get an instant pot to make rice and beans or stews/crockpot stuff where you can just dump stuff in for multiple meals that are easy to warm up.
I’ve noticed that it can get boring having food at home all the time. Have you considered getting ready to serve food at a grocery store? Frozen lasagna, precooked meat and sides at the deli counter and the like are usually far cheaper than the restaurant equivalent and don’t have social pressure to tip or buy unnecessary add ons for dessert or beverages.
I’m a big fan of buying ready to serve foods that I don’t make myself so I can evaluate the ingredients and see if I want to add them into my regular diet.
Recreate the sauces you get from there at home. If I add a spoonful of lard or tallow to frozen fries and bake normally, they turn out super crispy and amazing.
For me it’s about convenience. I keep a couple of cheap(ish) staples in the freezer that are easy and even higher in quality than my local fast food. Banquet mega filets from Walmart cooked in the oven, tossed in an Asian bbq sauce I make in bulk, on a buttered and toasted brioche bun, topped with bulk kimchi is as good as anything I get from my local fast food joints. This is just one example but having easy staples you can rely on regularly can quickly become your quick comfort meals. I’m not big on scratch cooking because of the time commitment but a little prep/jujze goes a long way.
Lately, I keep a bottle of water or a no-cal drink(not soda) in my car and drink the whole thing. It keeps me full until I get home.
Get your SO to do some cooking as well, you arent his mommy.
Exercise self control. Fast food is bad for your wallet and health. You shouldn’t feed your kids fast food anyway. Why isn’t your husband cooking?
tracking on a calendar will help you visualize it.
Also, try to find out *why* you get fast food so often. Is it because you’re tired getting home at the end of the day and you don’t feel like/have time for cooking? I can relate, so what I did was make ‘meal prep’ of things or ingredients that are quick/easy or “no-cook” e.g. chicken salad and pita or easy to nuke healthy burritos, or use the slow cooker for soups, etc.
start slow and work things *you’ll actually eat* into “rotation”. going cold-turkey and buying lots of food you aren’t going to eat doesn’t do anything positive.
Plan your weekly meals, shop for them, prep all or some of them, and then you’re invested and home food will be easier.
And anytime you cook, make a double batch, next time you can’t deal with dinner, it’s in your freezer.
Try a new recipe once a week, when you’re relaxed. Keep the keepers, and add to your rotation.
Making your fast food favourites at home will be cheaper, healthier, and taste better, too.
Get the family involved in the planning, and in the kitchen. It’s a life skill for the kids, and it takes the pressure off of you. Kids can do lots to help, and the non cooks can set the table, pour drinks, find condiments and do all the non cooking things that get dinner served.
Can’t helpnyah.. the combo of these 2 ideas is what helps me.
It might sounds good. And from a health standpoint having it every once in awhile is ok… but then when I add in the cost, it’s like f me.. why do this for wasted money and power health for 5-10mins of pleasure..
Plus might take more time to get to the food then cook.. or even just do a quick meal at home
Idk, maybe try some cooking classes at the local library or something to invigorate your desire to cook for yourself.
I’ve worked in restaurants so I’m always let down by how long the waits are because I know how long it should take or the sub par quality when I know I can make something better for cheaper.
Do you use an app to order the food? If so, delete it! Remove your credit card from the website, etc, whatever you can do to make it inconvenient to order to help break the habit.
Look at your bank balances.
Budget Bytes is a great website – recipes are not complex and ingredients are easily accessible.
Buy a rotisserie chicken every week.
-tacos
-soup
-baked potatoes with bbq sauce
-salad with chicken
-bbq sandwiches.
So many options with so little work.
The frozen food aisle is your friend
-chicken nuggets and fries
-pizza
-Asian food
It’s take out but way cheaper.
Make a point to cook something brand new every week. To see if you can create new favorites. The most important thing to keeping stuff interesting is shuffling the protein and whatever the side is. Also shop at discount stores like Aldi to get more affordable meats. They have this amazing prime rib that’s very affordable 8 – 10 thin slices for $18. Costco has really awesome lambchops that cook up super fast on the grill as well.
I cracked the code on ramen broth so that’s become a thing. Again, using the broth and ramen ingredients + different protein extends the dinner out and keeps it interesting.
Make fast food at home. Make your favourites and in no time you won’t want it any other way
My husband and I starting getting meal delivery kits during the pandemic because it was the only way we could be assured of getting meats for a while due to the run on groceries.
Even though some of the kits can be expensive, it’s still cheaper than even fast food these days. The added bonus is that we stopped wasting groceries from those nights we didn’t feel like cooking. We still get them now, but only 3x a week every other week.
The service we use now is a heat and eat version, but there are less expensive plans that just require some prep. I will say that you should hold no loyalty to these plans. In our experience, the quality of the produce decreases after about 3 months – so we switched plans often until we got on our current one.
This won’t work for every budget, but it works for ours.
Has some easy go to meals to make at home that you can make when you’re tired or don’t have much time.
I have three to four reliable meals that I keep ingredients stocked for that I can make relatively easy and quickly
Get TV dinners for when you’re too tired.
It’s a bargain compared to eating out.
Changing a healthy lifestyle is difficult but it will take time..it’s going to be difficult to stop fast food but the best way to is to cut it down or find a “healthy” fast food alternative. In our area we got this buy one get one large chicken burrito (uber eats) whenever I’m craving something, I pounced on this deal instead of McDonald’s. However I still get McDonald’s from time to time. So find balance.
Also, I find that staying consistent in just one meal helps a lot. For me breakfast: 2 eggs & bread, 1/2 oatmeal mix w/ water & milk, 1 cup of protein mix in the oatmeal, 1 tbsp of peanut butter. EVERY morning. It’s not flashy but it works and feels me up.
And note the total or the total for the month
I find that I can help myself out with a grocery store rotisserie chicken. Then I can get a veg ready fast and some sort rice or potatoes.
In summer I’ll treat us to some deli potato salad
Try making some of your fast food favorites at home! I make a great burger sauce that tastes just like big Mac sauce and my wife makes an at home crunch wrap that’s sooo much better then taco bell.
I put a white board on the fridge and make a menu each weekend. I don’t have time to shop during the week so the menu helps me shop and also makes me feel less filled with rage when my partner asks what we are doing for dinner.
I also follow some recipe influencers (Mediterranean diet themed) that have pretty easy/healthy one pan meals to get new ideas.
Some recipes like soup I can make extra and freeze for days when I’m too tired to cook a whole meal. I can pull something out and maybe add a salad or tater tots or bread and that’s cheap and easy.
I have two kids, my hubs; and my dad I cook for! I kind of make it into a game to where each week I look at the grocery ad and see what I can make out of it that is new and tasty, and also keep some regular meals in there. This week chuck roast was on sale, so I’m making red wine braised beef, I found marked down chicken so we’re trying chicken paprikash. Etc.. just keep a Pinterest board of stuff! Also when you start home cooking, 90% of your ingredients needed are usually already at home and you just need to grab the protein and produce! 🙂
The whole family needs to be involved in planning and making dinner, unless your children are toddlers.
Slow cooker meals are a great way to prepare dinner the night before or the morning of the day you plan to eat it.
One option is to learn how to make the fast food thing you’re craving. If you can scratch the itch once a week or twice a month, that may be enough to stop your from going out. The only trade off will be the effort.
The only other thing I’ve heard of is to eat really bland food for a few weeks to reset your taste to appreciate your normal foods.
I buy frozen pizzas when on deep sale and default to these when I don’t want to cook, jazz up frozen pizzas with any leftover veggies, deli meat, cheese etc u need to use up in fridge .
I also cook enough 1 night for the next 2 nights so I’m really only cooking every 3rd or 4th night!
i always keep a bag of salad on hand to serve with meals so I feel like we’re eating waaaay healthier than fast food.
We eat leftovers a lot so we don’t have to cook all that much, and that is very helpful.
Read what recovery from coronary bypass surgery is like. It’s been almost a year for me & a hard sneeze can still hurt & I’M HAPPY that it now takes a hard sneeze.
Explore different cuisines from around the world. Like, one week would be Korean, another Mexican, then Middle Eastern. You know, pick a country. There are sauce and spice mixes available. You can also try different cooking methods such as steaming, charcoal grill, etc. At least that’s what I do. Maybe adjust the taste so your kids would eat the food. I get ideas from watching MasterChef AU
We prepare the majority of our meals, but some nights we’re just plain tired. You didn’t mention but do you both have paycheck jobs? That’s especially exhausting!
Sometimes you just don’t want to cook, and that’s okay! You’re not alone.
I get your desire for variety but that does take extra energy to try new recipes all the time. Your favorites can be your favorites and you don’t have to apologize to anyone for repeating them.
You don’t have to do it all.
One meal prep we do is we get a family pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut them up into smaller pieces, put 3 breasts’ worth in a Ziploc bag with some salad dressing or other marinade, and freeze them. Then we have them ready to thaw overnight and then cook in the air fryer.
We also get handy with stir fry. Our daughter is living in an apartment at college for the first time on a reduced meal plan and she’s doing this for herself! Has a wok and everything.
Another tack is that you can opt for healthier fast food if it’s available. Chipotle over McDonald’s for example.
Learn to cook more meals. If necessary, look up copycat recipes of the fast food items you are buying.
i don’t think anyone here can help you on this. it is a matter of self-motivation.
We got fast food breakfast and coffee shop lattes one morning for a little treat and I realized it cost us almost $45. Fast food is not the cheap thing it used to be and I think it’s hard to break the habit because we are so ingrained to think that it’s a cheap and convenient thing to do when we don’t have the energy to cook and clean. I also hate doing weekly meal prep. So, I have freezer friendly staples on hand that I can just throw from the freezer to the stovetop or oven.
I make these when I do have the desire to get things done or even while I’m actively cooking a different meal. I usually also try to take advantage of sales at the grocery to make these things in bulk so it’s not really even a frequent thing. For example, I always have turkey meatballs in the freezer. I make them in 3# batches when ground turkey is on sale. I usually make my own sauce and freeze it in usable portions. I put a frozen sauce in a pan with meatballs, put a lid on, turn the burner on low and that’s it. The trick with the freezer is the usable portions. If you make a half gallon of sauce and freeze it in a big bag then you have to find a use for all of it. If you freeze it in 4 pint sized servings then you have set yourself up for an easy meal with no waste.
Freeze bags flat on a pan and clearly label what’s in there. Freeze other things in useable portions on a sheet tray so they aren’t touching and bag them up when they are solid. When I open a can of tomato paste I scoop the remainder with a tablespoon sized cookie scoop, freeze, and put them in a bag. That process works for a lot of things, like cookie dough, roux, garlic paste or processed ginger… It’s all about being able to just use it in the moment easily so you’ll be less likely to hate the idea of dealing with it later. And you get a better meal at a fraction of the cost. Win, win!
I remind myself: “Fast food lasts 10 minutes. The guilt lasts all night.” Weirdly effective.