Things have gone great with the no eating out challenge so far. I've made all food at home for the past 3 days, and am on track for today as well. When we were at the grocery store yesterday, the kids wanted me to buy them a couple of premade soups from the salad bar, but I felt like that would be cheating on the intent if not the letter of the challenge.

Then there is the fact that each one of those soups costs $4, so $8 for soup when I can make a big pot of soup for a lot less money, that will feed us about 8 times the amount of that soup. And I'll be using the leftover potatoes from last night's meal to do it.

On tonight's menu is baked potato soup. So they only had to wait a day for soup. And while it is not savory pot roast soup, we just had beef stew on Monday with all the same ingredients, so I don't feel like I'm disappointing them any by making a different hearty soup. Plus its on the menu plan anyway. They can live with it. And they always like my soups and stews better anyhow.

I feel better when we eat this way. Even eating out once a week makes me feel cruddy afterwards and almost like I am hung over the next day from the excessive carbohydrate intake.

So far I feel if I continue to plan well for this, that I won't have any problems making it through the month.

The biggest thing I am noticing is how there isn't nearly the garbage without the eating out. And none of the food is getting wasted at all since I am making planned overs and those get eaten up in the next meal or the one after that. It's much more efficient, since I am using the oven less for long-term cooking, and then being much quicker on the stove top the next day by using leftover ingredients. Less waste will lead to saving more on the grocery budget since everything gets used up.

Hopefully I will stay this together and focused as we head into October, the second half of which is always my big cold season starting.