No Takeout November | Skinnytaste Meal Planner

Hello, November! I can not believe how quickly time is passing these days. Sunrise/sunset... Okay, moving on. I have a friend who's doing a No Spend November and she is basically my hero. If any of you have done something like this successfully, and saved a quick and easy thousand dollars in the process, my hat's off to you! Truly, I think I would die. But the idea inspired me to take an honest look at where most of my money goes each month (cough, cough, takeout/restaurants/bars) and I've isolated something I can SAVE BIG on without going berserk.

No Takeout November, for a New Yorker, is definitely still a sacrifice in order to save big. I typically buy breakfast, lunch, and usually dinner from various restaurants ranging from Dunkin Donuts (coffee + breakfast at work), to my favorite local Mexican restaurant (a dinnertime favorite), to Domino's Pizza (yes, I am the worst New Yorker ever...my boyfriend will be the first to point this out). Hear me: It is ridiculous to eat 3 meals out every. single. day. And, trust me, it adds up fast. Also, when left to my own devices and spur-of-the-moment decisions, I am just NOT a healthy eater. So cooking healthy for myself is a secondary benefit!

My go-to website (and cookbook) for healthy, easy, delicious recipes is skinnytaste.com and so imagine my surprise when I found that she recently released a companion to her amazing cookbook that was a tool specifically for meal-planning and calorie/activity tracking. Enter The Skinnytaste Meal Planner. It seemed like perfect considering my No Takeout pledge.

Image from Kittsona

It's got a spread at the beginning of each week to plan your meals, which I'm using to establish which nights of the week will be "cooking nights." Since I am still as busy as I ever was, and life doesn't take a back seat to my No Takeout plans, I will try to keep these to 2-3 a week, maximum and try to knock out the bulk of my planning and shopping on Sundays.

Then for each day of the week, there's space to track everything you eat (amazing if you're trying to be cognizant of that) as well as a cute space for activity tracking! Sure hope I manage to do more of that as well, but I also know the importance of focusing on one goal before conquering another.

I'm very excited about this No Takeout November project, and will definitely let you all know how it goes! Wish me luck!