Advantages to Eating With Your Parents
We are currently in the process of developing a response to the many heated comments we have received regarding an earlier post on dog food and laundry and cleaning supplies and things of that nature but in the mean time I wanted to stress the importance of eating with your parents on a regular basis.
Before I get to that, I want to talk for a quick minute about the status of our country’s economy and put out a plug on the issue of saving. The definition of a recession is “at least two quarters with negative economic growth.” After looking at the S&P over the course of the past 6 months, it would seem that we are in fact going to be officially in the recession state very soon. I just wanted to be sure that our readers are in fact gearing up for this as we are never sure how long something like this might last. Things are getting more expensive and money is going to be more and more precious as the months go by. While it is becoming more and more of a buying market as the price of stocks decline, the average person is probably thinking more about the price of gas and other everyday items. This is good, but I don’t feel like its enough. Just start saving. That’s it. Make it a goal, a priority, whatever you need to, just do it. It will be the smartest thing you have done for your family, if you are not already doing so. If your already, then redouble your efforts. Hate to be all doom and gloom but this has been going on for a awhile now. Ok on to the milking!
Every Sunday, my girlfriend and I join her parents for dinner. I don’t want to sound like I go just to take advantage the free, delicious flank steak her mother makes, but there are quite a few perks that get grouped into this scenario. The first, and obvious one, is that it is one meal that we don’t have to worry about. When doing meal planning, lunches are a no brainer: I could really care less as long as its cheap quick and somewhat healthy. We get enough loaves of bread, lunch meat and cheese at Costco at a low price, that last us quite a while. Dinner is more of challenge, at least for me. Not so much as eating it, but trying to figure what to eat that is healthy as well as budget friendly. We inevitably have the same conversation every evening after work:
Her: “So what are your thoughts on dinner?”
Me: “Umm, I don’t have any thoughts about it. I am not in the mood for anything in particular. What ever we have is good for me. What about you?”
Her: “I have no idea either.”
Then we sit quietly as we drive home and then agree that there is absolutely nothing to be had for dinner and we might as well starve to death, since I have never really hunted before and there’s no guarantees on eating squirrels. In my old and less frugal days, we would just say, “Let’s go grab something, I am too tired to cook.” Since we have made a more valiant effort to get to the grocery store and plan more, the outcome usually turns to, “Let’ see what we have at home,” which is better.
What I am getting at is I can’t stand planning what to eat for dinner. I am just not picky and don’t have the energy to decide on something anything. So when I see the possibility of getting not only a free meal, but not having to choose it, well let me tell you…its a bargain. If we figure we are on the ball enough to have at least one meal planned a week, which means that 16% of our weekly dinners are taken care of. That’s a significant percentage to me.
Social Capital
Yesterday, Lazy Man wrote an interesting article regarding social capital. This is defined as “connections within and between social networks.” We recommend you check it out. But meeting weekly with her parents is great way to bounce ideas off them and relate how our lives are going. They are obviously older and wiser than us, and have great advice. My mother lives in another state and I unfortunately only get to see her about once a year, so its nice to be able to connect with some sort of parental figure.
It’s a Gas
Although we have to drive 40 minutes each way, it also gives us the opportunity to get gas at a cheaper price. Its actually so much cheaper that its worth driving that far on its own, but the advantage is compounded by the fact that we are in the neighborhood anyway. Check GasBuddy.com and see if this might be the case where you live. Right now its $3.13 where I live and $2.88 where they live. See the difference?
The Flood of Content
Another advantage is that her father gives me his old magazines which is great because it cuts down on the amount of reading material I buy extra as a result of riding the train 2 hours a day to get to and from work. This free reading material allows me to purchase more additional books and magazines already budgeted.
In the end, it’s just a nice thing to do. Our parents in general do more for us than we realize and it’s important to spend time with them. It means more to them than they let on, and unless you are in some sort of freaky, dysfunctional family situation its a great thing to do. Leave a comment and let us know what experiences you have had with this… $
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