PP 163: An Update on My 30 Days of No Eating Out Challenge

In Episode 151 of the Positive Productivity podcast, Poor Business Planning Equals Poor Meal Planning, I shared with you how I found myself interviewing a prospective business coach from the McDonald’s drive thru. In that episode, I challenged myself to not eat dinner out for the next 30 days. Well, now just about two weeks later, I wanted to give you an update on how that’s going.

An Update on My 30 Days of No Eating Out Challenge

The day I released that episode, I actually spent an hour and a half at the grocery store that evening with my littles. Yes, with my littles, purchasing groceries to last the next week and a half. Now, in full disclosure, that was a very expensive shopping trip. However,, when I did the math, I realized how much money and time I had saved.

Spending money on my family eating out can easily cost us $30, $50 or even $70 just for one meal. And with an expenditure of only $200 at the grocery store, I bought enough groceries to last our family of seven a whole week and a half.

In the past week, I’ve only had to go to the grocery once. And that was because my son and I had fallen ill. I would love to tell you that we haven’t eaten dinner out in the last week, however, because my son and I had the flu, there was one night that we ordered delivery just because I was not feeling well enough to cook and my husband had to work.

We have to give ourselves a little bit of grace in circumstances like that. And, if you’re on this journey with me, I wouldn’t expect you to cook dinner with the flu. Give yourself a little grace and allow yourself the time to feel better.

If you’ve decided to embark on this journey of not eating out for the next 30 days, I would love to hear how it’s going for you. Please visit the show notes page at thekimsutton.com/pp163 and fill me in on how it’s going.

An Update on My 30 Days of No Eating Out Challenge

Because I’ve only been to the store once this week, I have saved almost two hours of time because I haven’t had to circle the grocery store parking lot numerous times. I haven’t had to walk up and down the aisles, and I haven’t had to stand in line waiting for the customers ahead of me to check out. I haven’t been late picking up my kids in daycare. I haven’t had to have client calls while going through the drive thru. And most importantly, doing the grocery shopping ahead of time actually left us in a good place for when I did get sick. I didn’t need to drag my tired butt through the grocery store to get dinner. I didn’t need to go through McDonald’s to pick something up. And the members of the family who weren’t sick were able to eat nutritious meals because we did not have to go through the drive thru.

While I haven’t yet placed my order for next week’s groceries, I’m excited to get that order placed because I’ve seen the benefits of planning in advance. And I share this with you because I want you to see those benefits too.

Now, with that said, go forth and make it a positive and productive day.