What a grocery shop can do for you

Grocery shopping is the best way for me to stay on track with healthy eating.  I am blessed to live in an area with a multitude of food options all within a mile squared.  Hoboken, NJ is filled with restaurants, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, bars and more restaurants and bars!  I used to live on the busiest street, Washington, and when B and I lived there we pretty much never cooked.  We didn't have a dishwasher in that apartment, so my excuse was I don't feel like doing the dishes, but I knew it was just the fact that we lived in eye shot of amazing pizza, japanese, mexican, italian and american food, why not have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner?  We were still young and didn't have a great grasp on spending. 

As the years progressed our relationship blossomed, our pants size increased and our wallet diminished.  After two years of living together, we moved farther back into Hoboken into a nice duplex in a quieter part of town.  Our priorities started to shift.  We wanted a house, a family, a wedding.  These things are not free, so we took a hard look at our spending and all we saw was going out.  We didn't have a fabulous closet, or expensive furniture, if anything we were the opposite with our material things, frugal.  We did have hundreds of dollars at a clip being spent on steakhouse dinners, wine bar happy hours and other fun stuff.  We cut down a lot and it became actually nice.

We cooked dinner in at least 5 times a week, we drank wine, but half the time at home enjoying our company and Clyde.  My pants got looser, I started running again, my body felt more energized.  It is easy to veer off track when you are going out to eat every day and adding some wine to each dinner.  You become lazy, you eat more than you would if you cooked and you end up not being able to save for the things in life that you really want.  Groceries are a life saver to my diet, I don't ever like to throw food out so if I buy a grocery, I will eat it.  If the asparagus is about to go bad, I will look for a recipe to cook that includes asparagus instead of going out to eat that night.  This one decision can change your whole week, well it changes mine.