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How to Break the Habit That's Eating up Your Future

Mary Hunt on

Let's not beat around the bush. Eating out is eating up your future. It's gobbling down your present and keeping you stuck in the past. That heavy debt you're hauling around didn't happen while you were asleep. Chances are pretty good you're eating your way into debt.

Breaking the eating-out habit isn't easy to do, but it can be done. What it takes is motivation, determination and perseverance.


Let this exercise act as a quick-start motivator: For one week, track your spending on every form of eating out including coffee, donuts, restaurants, cafes, diners, street vendors, food trucks, fast food ... all of it.

Once you have that number, multiply by 52. But wait; there's more. Estimate the cost of all of the food that you throw in the garbage every week because you buy it and then eat out instead. You may be looking at the reason you aren't saving for retirement, aren't building an emergency fund or are stuck in debt.



I don't want to get too graphic here describing a negative motivation that might persuade you to eat at home more often, so let me allow the CDC to do that: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 1 in 5 restaurant workers admit to having come to work while sick with diarrhea and vomiting -- two main symptoms of the stubborn norovirus.

The problem lies with these sick workers who take a bathroom break, do not wash their hands with soap and then return to prepare and serve our food. Not only is it expensive to eat out but your chances of getting sick are also increasing.


The best way to break the eating-out habit is to never let yourself get too hungry. This is the big one for me. If I have not planned ahead and then crossed the line into emergency territory where I must eat right that minute, I'm doomed. I can't think straight. I need food, and I need it now.


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Copyright 2019 Creators Syndicate Inc.


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