How Much Can You Save Eating at Home?

I'll bet you don't realize how much you could save eating at home. Good morning blog followers. It's another "trim tip" day. This is a good one, but a tough one for many. I know it was for me and my honey. Here ya go... If you stopped eating at restaurants, how much would you save? Would you save $50, $250 or $1000?

Would you have guessed that saving money eating at home today… is equivalent to saving a fortune for retirement?

When I was young, no one told me to prepare for retirement. Maybe I wouldn't have listened, because when retirement is years away, it is hard to see the future. But, I want to shout it out to my children. Yes, it's okay to have fun, eat out, spend money to enjoy life, but don't overlook saving for the future.

If at age 55, you no longer have a job... because you can't find a job, you're tired of working, or because of poor health — and your monthly living expenses are $2500... you need $30,000 for every year until social security. For anyone born in 1960 and later, the age for social security benefits is 67. That would be 12 years without an income from a job and before you could collect social security. Do you have $360,000 in savings and investments to pay 12 years worth of bills?

One of the ways to save money that my honey and I discovered was to cut down on eating out at restaurants. We love the fun of eating out, but we didn't realize how much it was costing us. After reviewing receipts, eating out 12 times in a month added up to about $384. Now that sounds reasonable, but when you consider that eating 12 meals at home was only $96, it becomes an eye-opener. Something to think about and seriously consider.

For me and my honey, learning to cook was one of the smartest moves I made, because the better my cooking gets, the more we want to eat at home — and that saves us money.

In fact, the cost of cooking your own meals at home is a fraction compared to the cost of dining out. If you're not sure what you and your honey spend dining out, there is a simple solution. For the next month or two, keep receipts from restaurants you visit, including coffee shops and fast food stops.

Nobody would argue that to live happy in retirement, you need money to pay living expenses when income from a job stops. Will you have enough money in the bank by the time you retire to pay your living expenses? Saving for your retirement when you're in your 30s and 40s is critical.

Imagine how much you'd save by the time you retire if every week you bank the difference between what you would have spent eating out and cooking at home?