Here's a recap of my experiment: I generally spend about $200 a week on food. But when I decided to cook all of my meals for a week, I only spent $94. That's $106 in savings. I spent half as much money than I usually do during the week I decided to make my meals.
Throughout the week, I definitely had a couple of moments where I needed to motivate myself to cook. With as much that I stress about money nowadays, however, it was a lot easier than I anticipated.
Ultimately, it came down to how much money I actually saved. Because I saved a lot, I think it was easier to motivate myself to continue cooking as the week went on. Finding some delicious new recipes also helped!
Although I expected to save some money while completing this experiment, I didn't expect to save this much. I've learned a lot about myself and my spending habits throughout this process. It's forced me to evaluate how I spend my money, especially when it comes to eating out.
Knowing now how much money I could have been saving all this time definitely hurts, but it also inspires me to actually make a change now. Ultimately this experience has been positive, and I have confidence it will help make a more permanent change in how I choose to spend my money in the future.