Don't Let Restaurants Deprive You

Sometimes we go to restaurants, fast food joints, and Starbucks because we don't want to feel like we are being deprived of the "restaurant experience."  However, we have been looking at this deprivation thing all wrong.  In our area, most "regular people" restaurants suck.  

On about 30% of our restaurant visits, something is prepared wrong.  If you can under-cook something, burn something, make something too spicy, or make something too bland, restaurants in our area will do that to your food.  When they don't do that, they'll often let you sit at your table for far too long before being served or they will be surly when taking an order.  While the food quality won't send you out to wretch your guts out in the parking lot, the food quality and service are just poor enough to make you wonder if visiting the restaurant was worth your time and your money.

When we realize that low quality restaurants are not worth our time and money, we realize that we are not being deprived when we don't go out.  Instead, we realize that we are being deprived when we go out and don't get our money's worth in food and service quality.

Then, when we go to the grocery store, buy decent ingredients, and make a great meal at home, we realize that we've been crazy to go out and waste our money dining out all along!

Let's look at an example of a great home cooked meal.  My wife recently made enchiladas at home.  The can of beans was around a dollar.  The rice and tomato mixture is actually low carb cauliflower rice and canned tomatoes.  The tortilla is also a low carb variety and the ground beef inside was the lowest fat variety we could buy.  This entire meal for two people probably cost about $11.  At a local Mexican restaurant, it would have been about $45 when you include a tip.

Home-made enchiladas

By cooking at home, we controlled the ingredient quality, the nutrition, and the price of our meal.  We also saved about $30.  By eating out, we would have been deprived.

How to Save Money Using Radical Tactics

Choosing a Slightly Different Lifestyle Can Yield Real Savings

To compete globally, Americans may have to live differently and use radical tactics to get off of the treadmill and save money. Sometimes the American dream can be a treadmill. You have to spend money on a reliable car, suitable clothes and shoes for work, and for a safe place to live. All to often, there is little money left at the end of the day. But, to compete globally, Americans may have to use different tactics to get off of the treadmill and save money. Here are twelve radical tactics for saving money:

1. Drive your car forever. With routine maintenance cars can last for hunreds of thousands of miles. If you can make your car last, you can avoid the high monthly payment, high taxes, and high insurance rates that come with a new car. Even payments on a modest new car can run over $400 a month and that doesn't count the cost of insurance or gasoline. It's radical thinking to think that your car might last for twenty years instead of five, but it is a mindset that saves money.


2. Live close to work. If you want to keep miles off of your car, avoid the high price of gas, and save time and money each and every week, simply move closer to work. If you have the guts to be an urban pioneer, you really can keep your car forever and cut your time in traffic.

3. Walk, bike, moped, motor scooter, motorcycle, or take mass transit to work. If you can avoid driving to work entirely, you will avoid wear and tear on your car and in some urban areas you may be able to avoid car ownership entirely. Just be careful, it's not a very friendly world for bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorcyclists.

4. Cut your cable. With internet entertainment, digital TV, and extra broadcast channels, you may be able to ditch cable and satellite. That's another significant monthly bill reduced to zero. It might take a radical change of mindset, but a smart person might not have a smart phone.

5. Get a pre-paid cell phone and pay as you go. With Smartphones, Apps, and all the ways your phone can prompt you to spend more money, it might be time to step back and take a close look at your bill. How much to you really want to spend on telecommunications? If you want to save money, you can buy a basic pre-paid cell phone and reserve your minutes for bona fide emergencies.

6. Cook at home. The cost of dining out really adds up over time. Even $8 fast food meals can get costly when consumed nearly every day. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner eaten at home is money back in your pocket. You just need to learn how to save money at the grocery store.  If money is really tight, you can temporarily sacrifice good nutrition and eat super cheap foods.

7. Adopt a retro lifestyle. If a product was cool in 1987, it's probably still pretty cool today. By adopting a retro lifestyle, you can save lots of money at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets.

8. Re-use and recycle. While dumpster-diving is a radical way to save money, it is an extension of the movement to recycle, re-purpose, and re-use goods. For example, there a lots of resealable plastic containers on the market. But, few of them work as well as a pickle or peanut butter jar. Why pay $30 for a system, when you can soak a glass jar, scrape off the label, wash it, dry it, and put stuff in it. In more affluent areas where people often redecorate, you can even furnish your home for free with curbside finds.

9. Get roommates or rent out the basement. Remember how your rent was about $100 a month back in college. The low rent was a byproduct of having roommates. If you want to lower you mortgage or rent today, take in roommates again or rent out your basement or garage apartment.

10. Grow a garden. If you grow your own garden, you'll be able to eat no matter what happens to your paycheck. Growing your own food, saves money, provides better nutrition, and is an important step towards self-reliance. A garden can radically reduce your grocery bills.

11. Become a Lord of Darkness. If you want to cut your power bills, turn off the lights, minimize your use of utilities, conserve water and take shorter showers!

12. Live in a Smaller Space. If you can minimize the size of your space, you can minimize your utilities, lower your rent or mortgage and really start to save money. Many people are considering microhomes like tiny efficiency apartments, micro cabins, or mini cottages.