Daily takeaway and slobby lifestyle

[TheTakeawayDilemma]

I know I’m BU, I just need some serious help and I’ve name changed for this because I’m horrified at how big this issue has become.

DH and I started using a delivery app a lot over the first lockdown as it was easier than trying to get a food delivery slot. This escalated and even when we could get food shopping again, we continued to get takeaways. We now spend £30-60 a day on takeaways and even if we do promise ourselves we’ll be good (and get proper food shopping/delete all the delivery apps) it only lasts a couple of days. The stupid thing is, we can’t even afford to live like this. A lot of it goes on credit cards.

On top of this, our house has become unbearable. Laundry everywhere, boxes of stuff piled high everywhere, it’s just slowly becoming a hoarders paradise.

The issue is, I just don’t know how to correct this slobby path we have fallen down. We both have respectable jobs and work long hours, sometimes 6 days a week, and you’d never think we lived like slobs if you worked with us.

I cry every night just not knowing where to start making changes. We want children soon and there’s no way I could bring DCs into this kind of life.

Please help, I’m at my wits end

I’ve completely overhauled my diet recently and am feeling a lot more energetic, if you make some small changes your energy levels may rise enough to tackle the other changes,

I’ve had stuff going on over lockdown as well as lockdown that made me just give up a bit, I can see where you’re coming from, it’s easy to slip into bad habits during stressful times. Don’t beat yourself up, bet loads of people have lost a lot of motivation.

I’ll admit I’m definitely ‘house manager’ despite working us both having stressful jobs. DH and I have spoken about it before and he promises to do some house management (food shops or whatever else) but then never does. I think I’ve kind of given up waiting for him to do it and this is where we have ended up.

I'm glad you've found some motivation on this thread to make some changes for your own sake. But I think this is a very telling paragraph that you gloss over. If you're living with someone it has to be a partnership on the big things or you will find it much harder to live a life you love and, most likely, grow resentful over time. Do not have kids with him, you'll end up skivvying after them all.

As pp said, don't be too hard on yourself as it's been a very difficult 18 MTHS. Better to focus on the here and now.

I agree that the way to tackle this is small steps. Try Flylady or TOMM. They are methods of house management that break your house up in to zones or tasks on specific days of the week and the idea is that you follow consistent, focused routines so you get time off too! Eg do one load of laundry a day. Meal prep is definitely included in the Flylady system (not sure about TOMM) but have a look at both and see which would suit you best. Good luck

Also, for the evening meals, what you need to do is meal plan. There are loads of threads on here about it. Decide on your basic dinners for the week, say one roast, two vegetarian, one pasta, one fakeaway, one fish dish, one snacky sort of easy meal so you get a balance of meals across the week.

Then order the ingredients on line and stick to the plan. If you are too tired to cook then adapt your menus so that you batch cook during the weekend using your freezer and microwave. Or try and be organised enough to prep a meal before work in the morning. (Working parents have to get DC up and dressed and fed and off to school before work so you definitely have time to do this.)

Examples:
-Try marinading chicken thighs in an oven proof dish and maybe peeling some root veg and potatoes and put them in the fridge while you are at work. Then when you get home, oven goes on, and prepped dishes go from fridge to oven, no hassle.

• Put some frozen salmon steaks in a foil parcel with some butter, herbs, maybe some finely sliced onions and peppers and splosh of white wine, put in fridge alongside baking parchment parcel of par boiled tiny new potatoes. Again, bung in oven when you get home.

• Batch cook a good thick lentil soup or chick pea curry and freeze in portions and one weekend. One weekday night, come home and microwave.

How is the dynamic between you and your dh btw? When you cry every night does he make an effort to step up and do his share? Is he dragging the standards down or is it both of you equally? Does the mess bother him as much as you?? Are you both waiting for the other to take control? It's worth having a clear discussion about shared roles and housework, how it worked in your respective homes when you were DC, and what you both want and expect your home together to be like now.

Are you at your wit's end because you feel alone in tackling this?

Your dh should be a partner not a hindrance. Are you motivating each other or is he bringing you down?

Up to £60 a day on takeaways, for two of you?!

I am so sorry you feel overwhelmed. I once got the advise to just start every day with making my bed. It takes two minutes, but sets you up well, as you have completed a tiny thing for that day already, before even having breakfast.

Moreover, it gives you a clean 2x2 meters in your bedroom, which you can then use as a basis to put your clothes from the floordrobe on to tidy away or throw into the washing machine, etc. Perhaps a low-key way to start slowly turning things around on the home front?

Hi OP, I’m not clear from your initial post quite how bad the housework situation has become but if it’s bordering on horder territory then of course that’s utterly overwhelming for you. Even if it’s not quite that bad there are companies who help with house clearances in these situations if you just don’t know where to begin - it would give you a fresh start & from there cooking & cleaning wouldn’t be overwhelming. I worked with a company professionally in a situation that sounds a million times worse than yours & they were lovely, so professional and non-judgemental. Good luck however you set about it all.

I wouldn’t suggest the recipe food boxes like hello fresh etc, at the moment I would switch to ready meals form somewhere like M&S.,so healthier than takeaway but still a lot cheaper and still kind of instant. Small steps.

Have you struggled with depression before? I can relate to this. It's embarrassing to admit, but before lockdown when I was commuting I would get a shopping delivery with nice food but just feel so drained and exhausted I'd end up in the shop by the tube station buying junk on the way home. I felt so frustrated but utterly stuck in a cycle, and I was always tired from low blood sugar. DH works longer hours so the cooking felt like my responsibility.

What about starting with a nice M&S ready meal, with some pre-prepared veg? I find it helpful to cook 2 meals a week which have 2 servings. So I cook on Mon and Wed and have my own 'ready meals' to heat up the other weeknights when I'm working and tired. Don't aim for perfection and be realistic. An omelette with brown toast and a big side salad takes 10 mins at lunch but is proper protein, veg and good carbs. Bags of frozen chopped onions are a game changer too for starting off meals. And I like some of the higher end curry sauce kits too with diced chicken or paneer. Do you do much exercise? A daily walk with a podcast has really helped me, trite as it sounds.

I've found a counsellor really helpful for accountability and changing habits. My counsellor is £70 per weekly session - or just over a day's takeaways from what you've said.

I would suggest ready meals and hiring someone to help get the house under control. Much easier to keep on top of things than try to dig out from under the overwhelm. Most importantly of all be kind to yourself and your partner if he is feeling the same way. We’ve all been in a similar place.

Unfortunately we don’t get Bank Holidays off and it’s almost impossible to get holiday in our roles at the moment, so on our day off we generally catch up on sleep.

This is the root of it. If you're both working long hours with little time off then you're not going to have the energy to cook food or clean the house.

I think you need to take a week off and use it to get organised. Try Marie Kondo which is a brilliant way to completely declutter your house. Once you have a lot less stuff everything becomes more manageable.

I feel this temptation all the time, it’s so convenient, easy, tasty and no shopping/chopping/meal planning/washing up!

DH and I lived like this in our 20s, and we had a wake up call when we got slapped with expensive health insurance (needed for job as abroad a little) ands we were assessed unfit, fat and with high cholesterol

That snapped us out of it

Now we live in the sticks (nobody delivers here) snd have a veg box.

Things CAN change, one day at a time 💪

I could have written this 2 months ago! We were both struggling a bit mentally, as well as being burnt out, and we were just never on top of anything.

We got Hellofresh, plus easy stuff like pre-made veg and chicken in trays from Tesco, or the £10 meal deals etc. It's helped - now we're making lunches to take to work, having proper breakfast etc. The house is still a tip though!

Oh - my deliveroo habit can get out of control too (and we aren’t alone, or they wouldn’t be doing so well)

3 things - don’t beat yourself up / make it as easy as possible / and get help

• For food use Cook frozen meals (get some microwave ones for when you need to eat fast. Also m and s or Charlie Bingham chilled meals. And deli meals. Ignore all suggestions to batch cook or use recipe boxes - it’s too hard right now, you’ll be setting yourselves up to fail.

• get your food delivered.

• Get a microwave steamer and do your (easy to prep) veg in that. Have peas and spinach in freezer. Use microwave sachets for couscous and five.

• get a dishwasher if you don’t have one. Table top if you don’t have room.

• Book a clutter clearer to help you get the crap out of the house. You will balk at the cost and the loss of privacy - don’t - you will be so glad you did it and you can’t shock them they have seen it all. You will only use them for a day - 2 tops - but it will be amazing. They will also advise on organisation going forward.

• Get a cleaner. 2 hours a week probably enough. Just get one. Life transforming.

• Get a dryer or a heated clothes horse for laundry.

• look at organised mum method / ask clutter clearer and devise a system system you can refund. Give your partner 50% of jobs - thus is really really really important - do not have kids with a man who isn’t going to do 50% of the work, cos you won’t love him in -0 years if you do.

Hire someone from the association of professional declutterers and organisers www.apdo.co.uk/ to tackle your house. It sounds like it’s got too overwhelming to do it alone. I know a friend who did this and said it was life changing.

The trick is to make a plan, step by step. Start with ready meals and treat yourselves then to a better takeaway at the weekend. With the laundry I would seriously suggest bagging it up and taking it to a serviced laundry (assuming in a city) then start on decluttering one room at a time. Make a rewards chart so if you spend Saturday on the house you get a treat etc. I would also suggest HelloFresh etc but start with the ready meals and move onto the Scratch meals (sold in Waitrose meat section) which are simpler than HelloFresh.

I fell into a 3-4 takeaways a week pattern and got out of it by getting divorced, I don't recommend being so drastic! I have HelloFresh most weeks now then cook from scratch the other days except Friday when we eat out now

I’ll admit I’m definitely ‘house manager’ despite working us both having stressful jobs. DH and I have spoken about it before and he promises to do some house management (food shops or whatever else) but then never does. I think I’ve kind of given up waiting for him to do it and this is where we have ended up sad

I strongly, strongly advise you to take the opportunity now to address this with your DH while you both work at changing those habits.
You need to do this before you have kids! Be clear that you are not going to be responsible for an adult child as well as a baby. Otherwise you'll end up as the housemaid and caretaker, responsible for everything, and he can always claim he doesn't know what needs doing or how to do it. This has happened with so many of my friends.

You need very easy meals to cook. So I would go online and do a shop of microwave/oven meals with bags of salad. I know it is not cooking from scratch, but you need to make it as easy as it can be and start improving things.
Every ready-made meal you eat, have a jar and put in the money you saved that day. Or a piece of paper with the amount on it.
In terms of the state of the house, ring up a cleaning agency and ask if they can send someone for a day at the weekend to help. Make up a story of why it has got so bad if you want e.g. you have been working and then spending every evening and weekend helping and visiting your very ill mum.

We do a lot of batch cooking, meal plan etc - but I think in your situation you just need to break the takeaway habit, then baby steps. I agree with pp suggesting nice meals that can just be bunged in the oven, and I also think dropping down to just a weekend “treat” takeaway rather than going cold turkey might be more manageable.

It’s just me and DP here and we often get the M&S “family meal deal” instead of a takeaway. It’s four mains and four sides, for £15, which can be mixed and matched, so it does us both weekend nights - the other week we had lasagne, garlic bread and salad, then a chicken thing with potatoes and veg (there are pudding options you can choose as one of your “sides” instead). Might something like that work? We also get the Chinese or Indian takeaway box which is a LOT of food fir £10 - we are greedy and get either prawn crackers or popadoms on top though!

Is there anyway to cut your hours? How will you cope with those hours if you have DC?

OP, you're not alone, I'm struggling to not live like a slob right now, too.

My suggestions are:

*Order home delivery groceries and buy nice ready meals - I think trying to start cooking is a step for another day. Buy ready chopped salad and fruit so you can just take it out the fridge and eat it, no prep. In time, yes move on to things like Gousto, but for now it's more realistic to just get out of the takeaway habit and into a habit of grabbing something from your fridge or freezer. Baby steps.

*Do short, sharp bursts of getting rid of rubbish and stuff. Get a bin bag, put on a favourite, fast song/piece of music and dedicate the length of the track to cramming as much as you can into the bag and then taking it out to the wheelie bin if it's rubbish or out to the car if it's stuff you could give to charity. Do the same with recycling. Again baby steps, once or twice a week to start.

Over a month the combination of moving to a bit more healthy food, and reducing the stuff will help you feel better. So you can then think about another small change like ready meals 5 days a week and 2 Gousto meals. And 30 mins of tidying 3 times a week. Or something like that.

Having a future reward might be a good idea - get the house into a vaguely decent condition then use money saved on a cleaner once a week.

Tackle one room at a time. One box of stuff at a time, if needs be. have a laundry pile, a bag for charity/donations, and one for rubbish. start your day with a coffee/breakfast, then crack on with the sorting.

you'll feel better once you see the stuff start to disappear. the whole process may take some time, but be kind to yourself. it took a long time to build up, so will take a bit of time to sort out.

Set two or three days for takeaway and stick to them. Buy easy cook meals from the supermarket - you’re not going to jump into cooking or meal planning straight away. Wean yourself off and be proud of every time you throw something in the oven. My downfall was takeaway coffees during lockdown. I make my own now - I bought nice syrup, and ice to make my own iced lattes and it’s been a slow process to get in the habit. Decide you will make breakfast every morning even if it’s just some eggs and toast.

It can be done. I relied on takeaways too heavily during this past year and I’m easing myself out of it. Meal planning is ridiculous I’m not going to stick to it. Try for convience when buying meals you will cook.