<prompt> Human: I live in a high cost of living city. I am in the office 10 hours a day and commute an hour a day so I dont have much free time to myself. I am also very health conscious and vegetarian I eat fish. I dont want to compromise my health while I cut back on expenses. This month has been pretty hectic for me so Ive been eating out more than usual. In October, Ive been getting Deli lunches for 5-7 and deli dinners for 5-7. I eat out on weekends because its part of my social life. My total adds up to be around 400 on food every month for the past six months. Ive tried cooking previous months I make quinoa with tomatoes and beans but I feel its so time consuming and the expenses end up the same as when I eat from the deliThis feels very excessive. How can I cut back without starving myself or turning malnourished?  <response>: Ive been getting Deli lunches for 5-7 and deli dinners for 5-7 I eat out on weekends because its part of my social life.How can I cut back without starving myself or turning malnourished?You are not facing the choice of eating out most meals or starving, you are deciding between eating out and saving money. Lets not present false choices or else you will never get to the root of the problem.Things have been hectic for you and you feel cooking is time consuming. Both of those are understandable. What you can do is meal prep. rMealPrepSunday can show you how to use a few hours once a week to do all the cooking for the rest of the week. That will mean you get healthy meals with much lower cooking time per meal overall, as well as having readily available food for when you are hungry and dont want to cook. You simply bring that days lunch with you to work and when you get home at night, pop the prepped meal for that day into the oven or microwave and voila! Dinner, quickly!That covers your weekly food while still leaving you free to have social time with friends on the weekends with less guilt. 