The Monthly Challenge

On a daily basis, I find myself losing precious time & money on my eating habits.  During the week, I eat out twice a day---lunch & dinner.  Not big & expensive meals, but on a daily basis this really adds up.  Also, I waste a lot of time just figuring out what I want to eat.  I could spend an entire hour sitting with my wife discussing what we want to eat or browsing the web looking for a nearby, affordable option before we even put our shoes on to go pick up the food.  You add up the time, money, wear & tear on my car & body, etc---and that's not a very efficient lifestyle.

So here's the skinny on my first ever monthly challenge.  For the entire month of June, I am going to use Sundays to completely map out my meals and grocery shop to cover a weeks worth of those meals.  This means every Sunday I plan out breakfast, lunch & dinner for 7 full days and put it all on a Google calendar so I can glimpse at it & know exactly what to expect.  It'll be very much like an old elementary school lunch schedule.  Everything I eat for an entire month will be store bought & prepared by me.  That means not a single meal from a restaurant.  Living here in LA, that's a tough thing to do.

Benefits:

1. I know exactly how much money I'll spend on food on a weekly basis.
2. I can round out my diet & fill in the holes where I'm lacking in specific food groups.
3. Best of all, I no longer have to waste time figuring things out.  Every meal is a no brainer.

Now this isn't about eating healthier & cutting things outta my diet.  Its strictly about saving time & money.  If I happen to eat better, its because my grocery market has a much more variety than all of the taco stands, pizza parlors & rotisserie chicken joints I frequent.

***EXCEPTIONS TO THE ABOVE RULES:  There may be an occasional meal that is unavoidable.  For example, taking a client out for a business lunch.