Speaker 1: Episode four twenty two, How to Eat the Food you
Speaker 1: Have at Home.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life.
Speaker 3: Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, and today we are reminding you that
Speaker 1: you have food at home.
Speaker 3: Eat the food you have at home.
Speaker 1: But we're not just telling you to do it.
Speaker 3: We're singing it to you.
Speaker 1: And we're not just singing it to you. We're going
Speaker 1: to help you to do it, to have the internal
Speaker 1: motivation and the external hacks quote unquote to be able
Speaker 1: to choose the food you have at home over buying takeout,
Speaker 1: going to restaurants, what have you.
Speaker 3: We've got all the excuses in the book lined up
Speaker 3: and ready for us, and not quite all of the answers,
Speaker 3: but some of the solutions. Yes, But first, this episode
Speaker 3: is brought to you by foraging, picking berries, mushrooms, herbs,
Speaker 3: leafy greens, just out on a stroll in the woods
Speaker 3: in the backcountry, eating it and calling it dinner. Who
Speaker 3: needs grocery stores when you can just forage in the woods.
Speaker 3: But if this does sound like a lot of work
Speaker 3: and potentially lethal. You should be getting the Friend letter.
Speaker 3: We've done the foraging of information for you and are
Speaker 3: delivering free to your inbox updates on freebies that week,
Speaker 3: ways to save on the stuff you're already buying, and
Speaker 3: ideas to help you refine your thoughts about money. Frugal
Speaker 3: friendspodcast dot com. Don't forage in the woods, Forage in
Speaker 3: your inbox.
Speaker 1: But if you are interested in foraging, follow Black Forager
Speaker 1: on TikTok and Instagram. Alexis Nicole. I am kind of
Speaker 1: obsessed with her, have been for years. Love her. She
Speaker 1: is she knows everything about forging. I feel like everything
Speaker 1: is so interesting.
Speaker 3: I love the concept in theory. I want to be
Speaker 3: a forager. I just absolutely know I would die and
Speaker 3: my confidence would lead to death.
Speaker 1: Well she yeah, she says like how to tell the
Speaker 1: difference between so many things? And then she makes so many,
Speaker 1: so many things with her forged items. I think she
Speaker 1: lives somewhere up north, like Ohio or something Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 1: I just googled it. There is or Cincinnati, Ohio. So
Speaker 1: especially if you're in that area, her forging would be
Speaker 1: very relevant for you, so because a lot of forging
Speaker 1: is like specific to location.
Speaker 3: But you know what else is relevant for you is
Speaker 3: the friend letter.
Speaker 1: I took away.
Speaker 3: You really are sorry. This is why we don't make
Speaker 3: any money.
Speaker 1: Jent all right, So if you are interested in eating
Speaker 1: the food you have at home, or maybe the food
Speaker 1: that you have foraged, then we have a ton of
Speaker 1: episodes for you on meal planning, meal prepping, reducing food waste.
Speaker 1: I loved our episode three ninety five Creative Ways to
Speaker 1: Reduce Food Waste with Carl Bodrug of Planting you. I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with her cookbook Scrappy Cooking, and then episode three
Speaker 1: fifty four meal planning for people who hate to cook.
Speaker 1: And then we also just did a recent episode on
Speaker 1: very simple meal plans. So if you are I think
Speaker 1: that's episode four sixteen. So if you are trying to
Speaker 1: be better about your food spending, definitely check out those episodes.
Speaker 1: But we find and this I find in my life
Speaker 1: is the hardest thing when you have made the meal plan,
Speaker 1: You've prepped either the ingredients or the meal, and then
Speaker 1: it comes down to it Wednesday. Gen is just a
Speaker 1: different person than Sunday Gen was when she made the
Speaker 1: meal plan. And prepped the food. It's always that's how
Speaker 1: it goes, Like, I don't know Wednesday Gen does not
Speaker 1: know who Sunday Gen was, and Sunday Gen never sees
Speaker 1: Wednesday Gen.
Speaker 3: They never meet, they never meet.
Speaker 1: And so this episode is for me and Wednesday Gen
Speaker 1: as much as it is for you listening.
Speaker 3: But like, don't don't forget Sunday Gen.
Speaker 1: She still matters, right, Sunday Gen matters, And we have
Speaker 1: a ton of episodes for Sunday Gen. This this episode
Speaker 1: specifically is for Wednesday Gen. And so we have an
Speaker 1: article that is from help guide dot org called.
Speaker 3: Cooking at Home. God, yeah, this is just that's the
Speaker 3: whole thing. But they've I've got a lot of different subheadings.
Speaker 3: We're not going to go through all of them, but
Speaker 3: we do want to briefly talk about the benefits of
Speaker 3: cooking at home, and then we're going to jump to
Speaker 3: the overcoming obstacles to cooking at home. So you all
Speaker 3: know this, but I think it's worth a little bit
Speaker 3: of a raw raw pep talk of why are we
Speaker 3: even doing this, Why is this valuable? And it has
Speaker 3: to do with the ability to choose your own ingredients
Speaker 3: whatever reason you're coming at this from, whether it's for
Speaker 3: health reasons, or finance reasons or time reasons. Really eating
Speaker 3: at home can solve for all of those things. Not
Speaker 3: that you can't ever go out again, but if it's
Speaker 3: for health reasons, eating at home is your best option.
Speaker 3: You get to pick the ingredients, you can decide how
Speaker 3: much salt, sugar, processed foods that you are eating, and
Speaker 3: so there's a ton of health benefits that you can
Speaker 3: realize as a result of that. They've got also a
Speaker 3: whole chart that outlines some various health benefits, like it
Speaker 3: can give you more energy and improve sleep at night
Speaker 3: depending on the types of nutrients that you're getting. Preparing
Speaker 3: healthy meals at home can support your immune system and
Speaker 3: reduce the risk of illnesses such as heart disease, cancer,
Speaker 3: high blood pressure, diabetes. Now, we love preventative things. We're
Speaker 3: not saying that this is the cure all, but there
Speaker 3: have been links to nutrition and getting all of our
Speaker 3: healthy vegetables, fats, and protein as being helpful and preventative measures.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of Sunday Gen's problems and I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep doing this so sorry it annoys you.
Speaker 1: One of Sunday Gen's problems is that I make a
Speaker 1: really good meal plan, a really healthy meal plan, and
Speaker 1: Wednesday Gen is not as concerned about health. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a radical middle to be had. So if
Speaker 1: Sunday Gen just cared a little less about being perfect,
Speaker 1: then I could create a meal plan that's more realistic,
Speaker 1: maybe has a little more salt, sugar processed foods, but
Speaker 1: we'll still be appealing to Wednesday Gen and will be
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds healthier than something that I would get
Speaker 1: in like the quick service or fast food or even
Speaker 1: restaurants where you cannot control how much is in there.
Speaker 1: At least I have control. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the issues, is that maybe we make a meal
Speaker 1: plan that's a little less healthy than perfectly healthy, and
Speaker 1: so we also another benefit is portion control. You get
Speaker 1: to decide how much you eat. There's like we all
Speaker 1: have the problem of going out to eat and eating
Speaker 1: more than we want right and then you just feel
Speaker 1: sick afterwards. And so this article is written by a
Speaker 1: dietitian and a PhD, so like this is a lot
Speaker 1: of like health focus. But something I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: recently is that if I need two twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighteen hundred calories a day. What have you? Then
Speaker 1: if I eat more calories in that, that cost me
Speaker 1: more money essentially, So if I can control my portions,
Speaker 1: I save money. And I still I'm not restricting my calories.
Speaker 1: I'm just not like overspending and over eating. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of one of the ways, like I have recently
Speaker 1: been thinking about portion control. Take that, take without what
Speaker 1: you will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, eating at home, as we've said, is also a
Speaker 3: great way to be able to save money. It absolutely
Speaker 3: costs more money to go to a sit down restaurant
Speaker 3: than eating at home. I know some people might argue
Speaker 3: fast food can be cheaper. We'll get into that, but
Speaker 3: it's all so another win for cooking and eating at
Speaker 3: home is it's a great way to spend time with
Speaker 3: other people. You're not as rushed, there's more opportunity to
Speaker 3: chat with one another. You can even involve family members
Speaker 3: in the cooking process. They're citing kids being excited to
Speaker 3: cook in the kitchen with parents and might be more
Speaker 3: apt to eat or at least try the thing that
Speaker 3: they've made. That works for some doesn't work for others,
Speaker 3: But give it a try. If you've never tried it before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one benefit that I will add that's also
Speaker 1: in this article is that cooking at home actually takes
Speaker 1: less time than eating out, especially if you have children.
Speaker 1: There are nights where I am I don't want to cook,
Speaker 1: and I also don't want to go out because I
Speaker 1: don't want to take my children, and so nothing is planned.
Speaker 1: And so then take out it takes a lot of
Speaker 1: time to figure out where to get the take out
Speaker 1: what you want from where you're ordering to either go
Speaker 1: pick it up or wait for the delivery person to
Speaker 1: deliver it to you. It does take more time than
Speaker 1: making something at home. And so when you have a
Speaker 1: simple meal plan, which is what we talked about in
Speaker 1: episode four sixteen is how to keep those meal plans simple,
Speaker 1: then you do save a lot of time by cooking
Speaker 1: at home. I think we deceive ourselves because cooking at
Speaker 1: home takes a little more effort. We think it takes
Speaker 1: more time. But when you're really catering your meal plan
Speaker 1: to simplicity and minimal effort, then it is not a
Speaker 1: time suck.
Speaker 3: I have started to time things because I will think
Speaker 3: that I don't feel like as much as I love
Speaker 3: my vitamins, there are times that I don't feel like
Speaker 3: making a smoothie, but truly it takes me seven minutes,
Speaker 3: which does lead us into obstacle number one. Let's get
Speaker 3: to it all of our excuse.
Speaker 1: Five obstacles, five of many obstacles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first one is I don't have time to cook,
Speaker 3: which we just started talking about that. And sure, all
Speaker 3: of the shopping and the chopping and the cooking and
Speaker 3: the cleaning up afterwards, that is time consuming. And I
Speaker 3: think when we say this, that's what we mean. It's
Speaker 3: not necessarily just the hands on cooking time. It's all
Speaker 3: that is surrounding it. But they're offering a variety of
Speaker 3: different solutions depending on what the barrier is for you
Speaker 3: when it comes to time. So a couple of things
Speaker 3: can include shopping online and having the ingredients delivered to
Speaker 3: your door. Of course there could be that at it.
Speaker 3: There is that at a cost of delivery, tipping the driver.
Speaker 3: I will say I have found even still, it saves
Speaker 3: me money over going to the store, and it absolutely
Speaker 3: saves me time. There are ways that I can find, Oh,
Speaker 3: this version of potato is actually less expensive than the
Speaker 3: one I am accustomed to putting in my cart When
Speaker 3: I'm there in person, I'm less likely to do some
Speaker 3: of those impulse purchases when I'm just searching for specific
Speaker 3: items online through the grocery store. So if that's you,
Speaker 3: consider shopping online getting it delivered. If you don't want
Speaker 3: to pay for that delivery fee, then make a grocery
Speaker 3: order online and pick it up for free on your
Speaker 3: way home from work or wherever it is that you're
Speaker 3: going online grocery shopping just at I even will add
Speaker 3: things to a car. I know you will too, jen
Speaker 3: as they run out. So it's not even like you
Speaker 3: need a long sit down opportunity to be adding things
Speaker 3: to your car. You're just doing it along the way.
Speaker 3: You can get your family involved, trade off either shopping
Speaker 3: clean up duties with a spouse or a roommate if
Speaker 3: you are open to sharing this responsibility with whoever you're
Speaker 3: living with. Doing preparation ahead of time, so like chopping
Speaker 3: your vegetables on the weekend when you're less pressed for time,
Speaker 3: can cut down on your final cooking time. You've got
Speaker 3: some great hacks for that gen of pre chopping onions,
Speaker 3: putting them in the freezer.
Speaker 1: The freezer is my best friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pre shredding things, even buying the convenience items, getting
Speaker 3: over whatever hurdle that is of I don't want to
Speaker 3: pay the higher price for convenience, I could chop it.
Speaker 3: That's great in theory. But if you're not then chopping
Speaker 3: the things, you're not eating what's at home, and it's
Speaker 3: going bad and you're wasting food, then we all would
Speaker 3: have been better off to buy the pre pressed garlic,
Speaker 3: the pre cut fruit and vegetables, the box rice, the
Speaker 3: pre cooked frozen chicken, the pre portioned turkey patties. It's
Speaker 3: all fine if it actually means it'll help you cook
Speaker 3: at home. Yeah, let the hacks work for you.
Speaker 1: People love buying their like two pound blocks of cheese
Speaker 1: and cutting them up and then hand grading them and
Speaker 1: then putting them in the freezer. And that's great if
Speaker 1: you love to do that. If you don't love to
Speaker 1: do that, you can still be frugal. You can still
Speaker 1: save money and buy it, buy it pre prepared. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that I do, you know,
Speaker 1: like onions, I don't. I don't buy pre chopped onions.
Speaker 1: I will shred those, so like it can also, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be one or the other it can
Speaker 1: be a variety, so it can be a balance between
Speaker 1: you know, what I can do and what I can't do,
Speaker 1: and every week it can be different. But they have
Speaker 1: use fresh ingredients here, but specifically for like salads. So
Speaker 1: every week almost I'll buy a big like like the
Speaker 1: Caesar salad in a bag and I and it saves me.
Speaker 1: Like I just pull some shredded chicken out of the freezer,
Speaker 1: let it defrost and or maybe heat it up myself,
Speaker 1: and then put it on that Caesar salad and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, it's done. It's a no brainer. So getting
Speaker 1: making sure you have no brainer meals on hand every week.
Speaker 3: Frozen veggie mixes. I love the frozen veggie frozen quinoa
Speaker 3: type of options that they have at Trader Joe's. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's more expensive than if you were to just make
Speaker 3: your own rice and chop your own veggies, but it
Speaker 3: is far less expensive than going out to eat and
Speaker 3: a great addition to some simple protein.
Speaker 1: All right. And two, the second obstacle is it's cheaper
Speaker 1: to eat fast food. And I think we've seen, especially
Speaker 1: in the last year, that that is incorrect. So they
Speaker 1: have referenced a few studies, one from the University of
Speaker 1: Washington revealed that people who cook at home ten to
Speaker 1: have healthier overall diets without higher food expenses, and long
Speaker 1: term that can be translated to fewer medical bills. Another
Speaker 1: study found that frequent home cooks spend about sixty per
Speaker 1: month less on food than those who ate out more often.
Speaker 1: I'll cite you know some newer research from finance buzz
Speaker 1: that shows the in like from twenty fourteen to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four average menu prices have risen between thirty nine
Speaker 1: percent and one hundred percent, all increases that outpace inflation
Speaker 1: over that ten years, which is thirty one percent. So
Speaker 1: all fast food in the last year is no longer
Speaker 1: the you know, the cheap option when you're out of
Speaker 1: money that we grew up with. In the last ten years,
Speaker 1: fast food is no longer a cheap option. It's fast,
Speaker 1: it's still fast, but it hasn't promised to be affordable.
Speaker 1: Uh and it really no longer is so the worst
Speaker 1: you know, villain, I don't know how to say. The
Speaker 1: worst one at one hundred percent is McDonald's. McDonald's prices
Speaker 1: have literally doubled since twenty fourteen across popular items. The
Speaker 1: next verse is Popeye's, followed by Taco Bell, followed by Chipotle.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, so we've this year, we've
Speaker 1: seen some like viral stuff about McDonald's, like an eighteen
Speaker 1: dollars big mac meal in Connecticut because it varies state
Speaker 1: to state, right, but the average price of a quarter
Speaker 1: pounder with cheese meal is eleven ninety nine now, and
Speaker 1: I looked what it is in our area, and it's
Speaker 1: like about nine. That's why, right, I can get I
Speaker 1: can go to Chipotle and get a burrito bowl for.
Speaker 3: Five, so like two meals, right, And.
Speaker 1: That's two meals. So for literally twenty cents more, I
Speaker 1: can get something that's leaps and bounds healthier and will
Speaker 1: be two meals for me. So when we think about
Speaker 1: fast food, something with a drive through, we have definitely
Speaker 1: been conditioned to think that it's more affordable, right, because
Speaker 1: at one point it was for a lot of us.
Speaker 1: But over the last ten years that has changed and
Speaker 1: some of these companies are like falling back. Like when
Speaker 1: we were writing the book, I like, I was writing
Speaker 1: about how we as a collective can tell companies by
Speaker 1: not spending money with them, that their practices are unacceptable.
Speaker 1: And so I proved that with a couple examples, like
Speaker 1: from PEPSI, like they they tracked their price hikes back,
Speaker 1: and so since we sent it off, we've just seen
Speaker 1: more of this, Like so these examples aren't even in
Speaker 1: the book, like like Target is rolling back, rolling back,
Speaker 1: like Walmart, They're they're rolling back prices on five I
Speaker 1: have thousand commonly purchased items, and the CEO of McDonald's
Speaker 1: said in its latest shareholder meeting that affordability is becoming
Speaker 1: a bigger priority. So I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: some of their prices roll back. So at collectively, when
Speaker 1: we are conscious about how we spend money, and we
Speaker 1: choose to not spend money in places we feel are
Speaker 1: where their practices are unethical, that's how we make a
Speaker 1: difference in how these these places operate because they're not inflating,
Speaker 1: because inflation requires them to. Inflation's at thirty one percent
Speaker 1: over the last ten years. That's a lot, But McDonalds
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, Popeye's eighty six percent, Taco Bell eighty
Speaker 1: one percent, like these these are not going towards food.
Speaker 1: These are going to c suite executives. These these increases,
Speaker 1: and we only we can tell them that we don't
Speaker 1: like that, only with a collective. We're eating at home.
Speaker 3: Now we're home, we're going to make our own double
Speaker 3: stack or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1: So I thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Speaker 3: Okay, number three reason I'm too tired Wednesday, Jen too tired.
Speaker 3: Has been a busy day.
Speaker 1: I am too tired.
Speaker 3: And creating meals at home, and even some healthy meals
Speaker 3: don't have to involve a huge investment of effort. A
Speaker 3: couple of ideas for if this is your main obstacle.
Speaker 3: You might be a slow cooker person. Maybe this is
Speaker 3: going to be the best solution for you. Is to
Speaker 3: throw a bunch of meat and vegetables in the morning
Speaker 3: into a slow cooker, and you come home to something
Speaker 3: that smells good and is ready for you to eat,
Speaker 3: so you don't have to have a lot of energy.
Speaker 3: I would really recommend leaning into the slow cookers the
Speaker 3: instant pots if tiredness and energy levels are low. For you,
Speaker 3: also finding days that you are not as tired. Typically
Speaker 3: that's for people when they're they have days off of
Speaker 3: work the weekends, when you can make a bunch of
Speaker 3: meals in bulk, freeze leftovers into single portions to eat
Speaker 3: when you don't have the time or energy to cook,
Speaker 3: Defrosting or reheating things from the freezer does not take
Speaker 3: as long as I previously thought, especially already cooked foods.
Speaker 3: Of course, thawing out your frozen meats and then cooking
Speaker 3: them can be a little bit time consuming, but if
Speaker 3: we've already prepared these things, it's not going to take
Speaker 3: more than twenty minutes to be ready to eat from
Speaker 3: the freezer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want to do like supercubes s O
Speaker 1: uper cubes, those are great for making a big batch
Speaker 1: of soup, freezing the supercubes, and then you already have
Speaker 1: like a controlled portion meal ready to pop into the mycrauth.
Speaker 3: I also like this one of cooking a main protein
Speaker 3: just once a week, even if that means Sunday night,
Speaker 3: when your Sunday gen roast the chicken, cook the turkey breast,
Speaker 3: make just a pile of meat, and then use that
Speaker 3: throughout the week in some easy stuff like soup, salad, sandwich, burrito,
Speaker 3: pasta dishes, cold salads.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: There are so many ways to use one type of
Speaker 3: ingredient in a variety of ways that all of those
Speaker 3: other things don't require a lot of prep. It takes
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen minutes to cook up pasta, It takes
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen minutes to arrange a burrito, It takes
Speaker 3: ten five to ten minutes to arrange a salad or sandwich.
Speaker 3: So as long as you've got the thing already cooked,
Speaker 3: the one thing already cooked, the rest of it will
Speaker 3: absolutely take less time than going out to eat, driving somewhere,
Speaker 3: sitting down ordering, waiting for your food. Recognize that that's
Speaker 3: going to take forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I recently posted a reel where I
Speaker 1: did this. I got my griddle out where I usually
Speaker 1: just use it for pancakes, but I got it out
Speaker 1: and I did a big batch of a couple of
Speaker 1: chicken breasts and made like prepared all those And this
Speaker 1: was the height of our renovation when I was just like,
Speaker 1: I can't do anything. I feel completely out of control,
Speaker 1: and the only thing I can control is is meal
Speaker 1: prepping some chicken and broccoli right now. That is the
Speaker 1: only thing I can control, And so that's I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm going to process that in a healthy coping mechanism
Speaker 1: by making a big batch of chicken and broccoli, and
Speaker 1: I did, and I capped it off with the real
Speaker 1: I capped it off with my saying like when I
Speaker 1: was really feeling that, and I was like, if you're
Speaker 1: going to be stressed, at least be well fed.
Speaker 3: Yes, so you do love a good chicken and broccoli combo.
Speaker 1: I love broccoli. I'm broccoli girl. So the fourth obstacle
Speaker 1: is I don't know how to cook. And this one
Speaker 1: is so much more common in than we realized because
Speaker 1: who actually took a class on how to cook? And
Speaker 1: not everybody was you know, had the parent that loved
Speaker 1: to cook and pass down their cooking skills to their
Speaker 1: child like I was. I remember when I was young,
Speaker 1: I was the one putting like chicken voila into the
Speaker 1: you know, frying pan at our house because my parents
Speaker 1: hated to cook and I didn't like to cook either,
Speaker 1: but I liked to eat. So that was my my childhood.
Speaker 1: And so as an adult, when I have more opportunity
Speaker 1: to you know, control my eating, I chose to eat
Speaker 1: out a lot because I just I didn't like to cook.
Speaker 1: And it's because I really didn't know how to cook.
Speaker 1: And so the more I have gained skills and learned
Speaker 1: about salts and fats and acid, heat, acid and heat.
Speaker 1: I have become more confident in the kitchen, and so
Speaker 1: maybe cooking still isn't my favorite thing, but at least
Speaker 1: I feel like I know how to do it. And
Speaker 1: so there's this great app called Zest and they don't
Speaker 1: sponsor us. I wish they would, but it's like duo
Speaker 1: lingo for cooking and it has so like I went
Speaker 1: through it just to try it out, and it is
Speaker 1: so funny. It's so good. So if you want to
Speaker 1: increase your cooking skills, and it'll give you a quiz
Speaker 1: at the very beginning. You don't start at the very beginning.
Speaker 1: You take this quiz to find out where you are
Speaker 1: skill wise, and then it'll put you there and then
Speaker 1: you go on in the lessons. But I really, I
Speaker 1: really liked that app for learning cooking skills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think following people on Instagram social media or
Speaker 3: watching shows that can kind of start to get you
Speaker 3: excited or learn new things about it. There's plenty of
Speaker 3: people on Instagram who are showing the QUI kind of
Speaker 3: sped up process. So I think becoming even more familiar
Speaker 3: by watching others but in an entertaining way can be
Speaker 3: really helpful. I know for me too, the delivery boxes
Speaker 3: has been really helpful for me, not just when time
Speaker 3: and convenience is a high value, but also in learning
Speaker 3: new ways of putting ingredients together. So yes, more expensive
Speaker 3: than just buying the ingredients at face value, but less
Speaker 3: expensive than going out. So if getting a meal delivery
Speaker 3: kit for a season is going to be your entry
Speaker 3: point to cooking at home, do that too. The final
Speaker 3: barrier that we're going to talk about on here is
Speaker 3: even if I cook a healthy meal at home, I
Speaker 3: can't get my family to eat it.
Speaker 1: So true, Yeah, true, And you know what, just make
Speaker 1: another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That's all. That's all
Speaker 1: I have to say. Make a ham sandwich. Just serve
Speaker 1: them a sandwich.
Speaker 3: We do like what they have to say on this
Speaker 3: that over time you can wean your family and yourself
Speaker 3: off the taste of takeout and prepackaged food. But it
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be cold turkey. You can start small.
Speaker 3: You can try cooking just once or twice a week
Speaker 3: if you are going out fairly regularly, and give everybody
Speaker 3: a taste, everybody's taste. But it's a chance to adjust.
Speaker 3: I like how they're describing this because I think that
Speaker 3: there's something to that. It's not always just about convenience,
Speaker 3: it's about flavor. Like I can't cook the things at
Speaker 3: home to taste as good as these other things. And
Speaker 3: part of that can be what if we try, What
Speaker 3: if we look up recipes that are dupes of the
Speaker 3: things that we love? That could be a nice entry, right.
Speaker 1: Able middle on the on the meal planning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also recognize that we have been conditioned to
Speaker 3: crave certain things, and you can just as easily wean
Speaker 3: yourself out of those things and enjoy what you're cooking
Speaker 3: at home, finding the recipe that you like, and giving
Speaker 3: your body an opportunity to kind of branch out from
Speaker 3: what you're accustomed to. This is also where they're referencing
Speaker 3: include your children in on the process. It might make
Speaker 3: them more apt to at least try what it is
Speaker 3: that they've made. And that the childhood impulse to imitate
Speaker 3: is so strong. So if you are forming new habits,
Speaker 3: doing new things, modeling, eating the food that you have
Speaker 3: at home, the more likely your kids are to follow suit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a lot of salt and sugar in
Speaker 1: foods cooked at restaurants, quick service fast food places, and
Speaker 1: the more of it we have, the more our bodies crave.
Speaker 1: So it is a time thing. You do have to
Speaker 1: give your body time to readjust from that, eventually you
Speaker 1: can train yourself to crave less salt and sugar and
Speaker 1: enjoy foods that have less of it in it. But
Speaker 1: it does take time, and like so often, we don't
Speaker 1: know how to cook like chefs at restaurants, and we
Speaker 1: don't enjoy it, so we don't give ourselves the time
Speaker 1: to readjust. But like anything, it takes time to learn
Speaker 1: to hone your skills and to retrain your body. And
Speaker 1: so I do I do agree. Young children love to
Speaker 1: help in the kitchen, and that is one way that
Speaker 1: you can get them to eat more of the food
Speaker 1: at home. Teenagers need to be taught how to cook.
Speaker 1: They need to be in the kitchen, uh, because a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of us just don't think about it.
Speaker 1: It's we don't, we don't. We're so tired and making
Speaker 1: food at home is like struggle enough that we don't
Speaker 1: also have the energy to also train our teenagers to
Speaker 1: cook too. But it is something that needs to be
Speaker 1: done fairly regularly so that they can go off into
Speaker 1: the world and feel like they have the skills to cook.
Speaker 1: They know that a meal needs to contain you know,
Speaker 1: like protein, carbs, fats, and micronutrients like it. You know
Speaker 1: what a basic makeup of a meal should have. So
Speaker 1: so all those things. And definitely check out our episode
Speaker 1: on how to Reduce food waste with Kids because we
Speaker 1: talk a lot, especially you have young children, and that's
Speaker 1: a really good episode for you that can help with this.
Speaker 3: You know what is an every episode that can help
Speaker 3: in all of the ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe if you did this, you would want
Speaker 1: to cook a homework Like it's just like maybe a
Speaker 1: cathartic thing you could do to start your cooking session.
Speaker 1: Maybe by yelling.
Speaker 3: The bill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week. Maybe baby was born and his name is Williams.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died
Speaker 2: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 2: Tough bills, blow bills, Bill Claron, this is the bill.
Speaker 1: Of the week.
Speaker 4: Hey girls, my name is Natalie and I wanted to
Speaker 4: share with you my bill of the week. So I
Speaker 4: have been in physical therapy for a snowboarding injury, and
Speaker 4: I was budgeting for it to be a very high
Speaker 4: price for each of the visits. I think I had
Speaker 4: about seven visits, and so I was budgeting, you know,
Speaker 4: this range that they had given me. So I budgeted
Speaker 4: the most just so it wouldn't be a surprise when
Speaker 4: the bill came.
Speaker 5: And I've been waiting and waiting for the bill just
Speaker 5: finished up, pet and I got the bill today and
Speaker 5: it was over five hundred dollars less than what I
Speaker 5: expected it to be. And I'm actually excited to pay
Speaker 5: for it and get out of the way because now
Speaker 5: my budget has just opened up greatly this month. And yeah,
Speaker 5: thank you guys so much for all you do, and
Speaker 5: I'm really excited to share this with you.
Speaker 1: Congrats Natalie h. Five hundred dollars less. What a treat,
Speaker 1: What a nice little life surprise.
Speaker 3: I love it when bills are less than what we expect,
Speaker 3: especially medical bills. You never anticipate that. I would still
Speaker 3: say me, probably paid it already, but make sure that
Speaker 3: there's not more you could negotiate there if you're really
Speaker 3: ready to pay it off in full. Just offering to
Speaker 3: pay cash in full could knock it down a little bit,
Speaker 3: but also making sure that what they build you is accurate.
Speaker 3: We keep talking about our episode with doctor Vergie Ellington, Yeah,
Speaker 3: about how to negotiate medical bills, So check that out
Speaker 3: to anybody else listening. If you've got a medical bill
Speaker 3: sitting on your desk, check out that episode really walks
Speaker 3: you through how to negotiate, how to lower those medical costs.
Speaker 1: And if you let your medical bill go into collections,
Speaker 1: definitely negotiate it because you can get at least twenty
Speaker 1: percent off of that probably more. Don't pay full price
Speaker 1: for anything in collections.
Speaker 3: So if any of this has helped you save on
Speaker 3: a medical bill, or you've just got anything else bill related,
Speaker 3: you want to talk to us about Frugal friendspodcast dot com,
Speaker 3: slash bill, leave us your bill, we want to hear it.
Speaker 3: And now it's time for might be Wronghoo.
Speaker 1: All right, So a time where you miserably failed at
Speaker 1: cooking and what happened. I mean a lot of times
Speaker 1: I try a lot of things and sometimes not all
Speaker 1: of them go well. I think, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: just like not a very good cook. I don't enjoy
Speaker 1: it very much.
Speaker 3: But food is good. You keep saying this, so then
Speaker 3: it makes me think like, oh, yeah, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't know if I want to eat your food, And
Speaker 3: then anytime that I do, it's amazing. You're a very
Speaker 3: good cook. Actually, I maybe you've gotten better.
Speaker 1: I have gotten better. I have gotten better, and it's
Speaker 1: because I understand more about flavor profiles and the chemistry
Speaker 1: of cooking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's what have you done when you failed miserably?
Speaker 3: What did it look like?
Speaker 1: Throwing it away? Nobody eats it, and we we do
Speaker 1: have to waste it.
Speaker 3: And then and then happens you dig for something in
Speaker 3: the freezer or like you have a go.
Speaker 1: To we eat one. It's just we eat. We don't
Speaker 1: save the leftovers. But Travis and I will power through.
Speaker 1: If it's made like, we'll eat it. And sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: save the leftovers because he's a garbage disposal and he'll
Speaker 1: eat it even if he doesn't like it. And you know,
Speaker 1: thank God for him.
Speaker 3: That truly doing the Lord's.
Speaker 1: Work, is doing the Lord's work, especially with my cooking.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I I don't have any rec
Speaker 1: like nothing, I've ever never caught anything on fire. That's
Speaker 1: my vision of miserably failing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're reminding me, I did just have a failure.
Speaker 3: You were here. You were here for it when I
Speaker 3: found out about the failure. Oh so, I had had
Speaker 3: an evening of just prepping a ton of root vegetables
Speaker 3: and other raw veggies and did a bunch of like
Speaker 3: batch cooking of it. Some of it just went directly
Speaker 3: to the freezer, some of it I was sharing with friends.
Speaker 3: Others was prepped for food. It really only took me
Speaker 3: a couple of hours that evening, in and out of
Speaker 3: me doing other things, which was great, except for that
Speaker 3: final batch of root veggies remained in the oven until
Speaker 3: the next day because right it wasn't on I put
Speaker 3: it in. I've got like an air fryer that's also
Speaker 3: an oven and can fit like a nine by thirteen
Speaker 3: pan in it. So and you set it to a
Speaker 3: certain time and then it turns off. And I didn't
Speaker 3: hear it turn off, and I did not remember it,
Speaker 3: and it sat out for over twelve hours.
Speaker 1: Did turn the turn the timer but sound off that too?
Speaker 3: No, Eric turned the timer buzzer off of the microwave
Speaker 3: because we are often on calls or recording that really
Speaker 3: he did it because he wants to be able to
Speaker 3: heat things up when we're recording and not hear the
Speaker 3: timer go off. So he's turned it off infinitely, and
Speaker 3: now it's just confused.
Speaker 1: Now we never know when our food is done because
Speaker 1: the microwave doesn't turn.
Speaker 3: Off, keeps going.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so the fan keeps going and it sounds
Speaker 1: just like it sounds when the microwave is cooking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're sitting there for five minutes and not thinking
Speaker 1: about it, and the microwave is just going. It's not
Speaker 1: heating up past the timer. It's just you just don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't remember unless you sit there and watch it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, uh, it is what it is. That's one
Speaker 3: of the risks you take. And coming over to my house. Now,
Speaker 3: what were easing up your food? What was your original
Speaker 3: answer for? My original answer is that most of my life,
Speaker 3: most of my adult life up until now, I was
Speaker 3: failing miserably at cooking.
Speaker 1: What is now like last six months, last year, last
Speaker 1: four years, I would.
Speaker 3: Say since COVID. I think COVID really did a shift
Speaker 3: because I was forced to be at home and I
Speaker 3: hate food delivery.
Speaker 1: I do not. I don't like it. It's so gross
Speaker 1: by the time it gets. Yes, I never do delivery
Speaker 1: and more unless I have like a gift card for it,
Speaker 1: I always pick up whatever it is. Yeah, because not
Speaker 1: only does it save money, it's also saving time so
Speaker 1: the food is not gross by the time it gets.
Speaker 3: And you actually get to check it. I literally can't
Speaker 3: think of a time when everything was correct in the order.
Speaker 3: It's not the driver's fall, but if I would have
Speaker 3: picked it up, I would have been able to know
Speaker 3: you missed my rice. This isn't my entree. This like
Speaker 3: I don't really like it. Yeah, so I was forced
Speaker 3: to cook. I will say a lot of me failing
Speaker 3: miserably did have to do with the time, And that's legit.
Speaker 3: There just there are some seasons of life where I
Speaker 3: mean I was working from I was out, gone from
Speaker 3: the house seven am till eight pm for a lot
Speaker 3: of my social work career in my twenties, and that's
Speaker 3: just that's not great.
Speaker 1: And part of you lived in the RV with I
Speaker 1: actually did.
Speaker 3: I will say I did well in the RV. I
Speaker 3: love cooking in a small kitchen. That was really helpful
Speaker 3: for me, pairing down my not having a complicated pots
Speaker 3: and pans, knives, or even pantry set up. It's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons I'm so for a minimalist pantry, which
Speaker 3: we've also done episodes on that, because that complication and
Speaker 3: chaos is reduced, so it's much easier to know, I'm
Speaker 3: just going to cook some rice and I'm going to
Speaker 3: make a protein. Yeah, maybe I'll roast some vegetables and
Speaker 3: another barrier. Like when you have fewer kitchen gadgets, then
Speaker 3: it's easier to process how.
Speaker 1: You're going to cook food. It's one less decision you
Speaker 1: have to make because by the time dinner comes around,
Speaker 1: so many decisions have been made, decision fatigued. So if
Speaker 1: you don't have ten different ways to make your food,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to make a meal plan. It's much
Speaker 1: easier to make your food. It's truly Simplicity is truly
Speaker 1: a gift in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good way to try to enter
Speaker 3: in is just what's as simple as possible, Like don't
Speaker 3: go super elaborate, don't go like the fanciest type of
Speaker 3: food that the thing that you think your taste buds
Speaker 3: will love the most. Just do it simple and start
Speaker 3: to get a habit forming and then start stacking more
Speaker 3: on top of it.
Speaker 1: We'll do something that your taste buds will love.
Speaker 3: Sure, but I'm thinking these like thirty five ingredient two
Speaker 3: hours in the kitchen, which is a lot of what
Speaker 3: some of these people on Instagram are doing and it
Speaker 3: looks amazing, but then you look at their recipes, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but I'm not a food influencer, so no, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to get all of these ingredients.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Their job is to make food look
Speaker 1: really beautiful and really great, so sometimes these are really complex, Yeah,
Speaker 1: waitings and recipes like because that's their job. If the
Speaker 1: food doesn't look good, and then you don't go to
Speaker 1: their website and see all their ads, that generates all
Speaker 1: their revenues.
Speaker 3: So why you need to follow the people who are
Speaker 3: doing it like you would do it. The people who
Speaker 3: are showing you how to make ten meals out of
Speaker 3: fifty dollars worth of food they got at Trader Joe's.
Speaker 3: And the ones who are doing good yeah with three Oh,
Speaker 3: Jen it's good does a lot. She does that. She
Speaker 3: also does a lot of meal prep. She does low
Speaker 3: ingredient recipes. She's a good one to follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's really great. And then the family Freezer. I
Speaker 1: love her for freezer meals. The one thing with freezer
Speaker 1: meals is I love to cook them in the instant pot.
Speaker 1: If you're going to do them in the slow cooker,
Speaker 1: then you have to make sure they are one hundred
Speaker 1: percent completely thought you might need to thaw over two
Speaker 1: days because you do not want to put any frozen
Speaker 1: meat that is raw in the slow cooker. You can
Speaker 1: do that in the instant pot, but not in the
Speaker 1: slow cooker. So well some bonus tips. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. I hope that after this episode this week,
Speaker 1: you will choose this upcoming weekend. This upcoming week, you
Speaker 1: will choose to eat at home, even if it's just
Speaker 1: an extra day, even if you just avoid takeout one
Speaker 1: extra day. Please let us know that it helped you
Speaker 1: in a rating and review kind of like this one
Speaker 1: from Kate Sowers that says impressed and says wow, I've
Speaker 1: been looking for something like this for so long. Millennial
Speaker 1: women discussing money and getting at the root causes of
Speaker 1: a lot of issues. Thank you, ladies so much for
Speaker 1: doing this podcast. Makes me feel less alone in the
Speaker 1: world of finances and impulse spending, et cetera. Love it
Speaker 1: and yours can you can add? And I didn't eat
Speaker 1: at McDonald's this week because forget them, and they're one
Speaker 1: hundred percent inflation.
Speaker 3: Forget those golden arches. I'm staying out.
Speaker 1: I am almost I am. I am almost sad that
Speaker 1: we once referred to ourselves as the Taco Bell of
Speaker 1: podcasts almost because of what Taco is doing has inflated
Speaker 1: so much. And you know how much we've inflated zero
Speaker 1: zero percent. We're still free, so we are still. We've
Speaker 1: we started free, we still free, and we're still and
Speaker 1: we're giving you more free stuff. So actually would that
Speaker 1: be negative We could say negative one hundred percent inflation
Speaker 1: because we've doubled the amount of free things we give you,
Speaker 1: like the friend letter podcast dot com. Instead of taking
Speaker 1: money from the consumer, consumer, instead of taking money from
Speaker 1: the consumer, we're taking money from the businesses. So thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to our ad spots.
Speaker 3: Yes, and thank you Katie for that lovely review. Thank
Speaker 3: you all for listening, and thank you for the reviews
Speaker 3: that you're about to go leave us see you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni all right, chill.
Speaker 1: So I was this morning. I was listening to music
Speaker 1: and I had a just a random generated playlist on
Speaker 1: and the Avit Brothers Abbot Brothers. They have a new
Speaker 1: album out, and one of their songs came up. It's
Speaker 1: called untitled Number four, and I was like, did they
Speaker 1: name their songs this album? I don't know. I only
Speaker 1: listened to one, but it was saying I'm happier with nothing.
Speaker 1: And I got through like two thirds of the song
Speaker 1: because I really wanted to hear. I'm like, okay, tell
Speaker 1: me more, tell me more. And two thirds of the
Speaker 1: way through the song, I'm just like no, like I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm happier with money.
Speaker 3: Right right, Well, it's needed, right.
Speaker 1: So, And I don't know what his nothing is like.
Speaker 1: His nothing is probably more than most people something, right.
Speaker 3: He only got there by way of having a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I just couldn't. I couldn't get through
Speaker 1: the song. And I know the purpose of this, like
Speaker 1: I know it is pure purpose behind it, but like
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting in my car and I was like,
Speaker 1: you couldn't even name the friggin song. You couldn't even
Speaker 1: name it, Yeah, name it and claim it man, I.
Speaker 3: So did it make you angry? Are you angry?
Speaker 1: It didn't make me angry. I was just like, no, brother, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is not it. This is not it. I am
Speaker 1: happier with money. I am happier with things to an extent, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of diminishing returns. But like I think,
Speaker 1: but part of it, one of the reasons is I
Speaker 1: think it made me upset maybe and I'm I'm processing
Speaker 1: this in real time, is that when we hear narratives
Speaker 1: like that, people like us think, Okay, yeah, I should
Speaker 1: be happy with nothing. He's happier with nothing. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: happier with nothing. But like his nothing is not our nothing.
Speaker 1: We are different. The nothings are different. It's the different
Speaker 1: day John and Sunday Jen. They're never gonna meet, right,
Speaker 1: But these are two different people.
Speaker 3: This is.
Speaker 1: You know, Ralph Ralph, right, and they don't. They're never
Speaker 1: gonna meet. So don't don't compare your nothing to his nothing,
Speaker 1: because he still probably has like a very nice house
Speaker 1: and a very nice neighborhood and a lot of money
Speaker 1: in investments.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So that so sometimes that causes people like us to say,
Speaker 1: like I don't need to you know, I should just
Speaker 1: be content with what I have, and there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with me for not being content with what I have.
Speaker 1: We think it's an internal problem. It's not an internal problem.
Speaker 1: It is good for you to want more and pursue
Speaker 1: more incongruence with what you value most, Like we're rejecting
Speaker 1: hustle culture, but we're not embracing poverty.
Speaker 3: Right. Wanting more it can also be said as just
Speaker 3: like wanting growth, wanting life, wanting purpose, wanting the next
Speaker 3: day to be and hold value, Like that's a good
Speaker 3: thing to want. Otherwise, what's the alternative?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so that was my That was my morning
Speaker 1: with the Abbot Wow Avid Brothers album.
Speaker 3: You really, I.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even the album, it was one song I
Speaker 1: listened to.
Speaker 3: Was it a lot of pondering about that that you did?
Speaker 1: I pondered a bit