Eating Out and Thank You!

Last night a friend of mine shared this article on Facebook. 
Red Lobster is having Financial problems

The main point of the article is that Red Lobster is having tough times and may have to close.   The article touches on a very important point that most of us have already realized.  Times are tough and people are not eating out as much.  It talks about how the working class is the ones taking a hit right now. 

My first though well Duh!! We have been saying this for a while now. We can't eat out like we used to. Prices are higher and for our family of five it costs us easily $45 - $65 at a restaurant. I know it will just get more expensive as my kids get older.  We still have one that eats on the kids menu but at seven years old he is starting to get to the point where it doesn't fill him up.  The article got me to thinking about some of the changes we have been making to save more money.

I started really watching what we spend about a year and a half ago as I was trying to get us out of debt. I have quickly learned that a weekly meal plan saves us a ton of money and eating at home is not that bad. I started following Melissa over at House Full of Searls  right after I started doing meal plans.  I started following Melissa and that lead me to everyone else on the wonderful blog world, Judy, sluggy, Kim, Cindi, Carla, Sharon and many more.  I have been opened up to so many more ways of saving money that I would have ever thought of on my own.


To the wonderful group of ladies who take the time to blog and share your experiences and your money saving tips I say THANK YOU!!

 I still have lots to learn but slowly and surely we have started making our way out of debt.

Weekly Plan

This is late as usual.  I started the week off with snow and below zero temps.  The HIGH yesterday was -8F, we had wind chills in the -40 to -50 range.  Schools were closed and a lot of businesses were closed it was too dangerous to go outside. The snow started Saturday night and ended on Sunday afternoon. I didn't leave the house from Saturday night until this morning and I was starting to go a little stir crazy! :)

Weekly Meal Plan:
      Sunday: Meatball Sandwiches w/ Appetizers ( junkfood). We watched movies and Football all day.
      Monday: Chili , Cornbread.
      Tuesday: Tacos
      Wednesday:  Ham & Bean Soup or Lasagna Soup  - not sure which yet.
       Thursday: Pork Chops  w/ Veggie.
       Friday: Homemade pizza. 
       Saturday:  ??  My son has a wrestling meet and then we have a basketball game.



Goals:

1.  Find my dining room table. We moved some furniture around and the table became the dumping ground for everything.  
2. Organize my craft corner.  I made several gifts for Christmas and my craft corner is rather messy still. 
3. Exercise - I have got out of the habit of going to the gym and I can tell.

What are you goals for the week ?