<prompt> Human: 30-day challengesWe are pleased to continue our 30-day challenge series. Past challenges can be found hereThis months 30-day challenge is to Cook more often! Two of the biggest budget-killers we see in this subreddit are lots of wasted money on eating out and spending too much on groceries. While everyones situation is different, we want to highlight some steps to help you get started: Planning is half the battle. It is easier to cook at home if you make a plan for the week. Just getting takeout becomes much more tempting if you have to figure everything out after a long day. Things are more efficient when done in bulk. Consider making enough to have leftovers. Cooking several meals on the same day is also a great technique. Make use of your freezer to ensure food doesnt go to waste. Try to shop the sales. If you watch ads, you will learn that often grocery stores have a cycle for what is on sale. It might be meat one week, cheese the next, etc. So figure out the cycle in your area and stock up! Walmart and off-brand are not curse words. This can be one way to stretch your meal planning budget and Walmarts price matching policy can make buying all your ingredients in one place easier. If youre just getting started with cooking and tend to eat out a lot, dont feel the need to jump straight to planning an entire week of meals at once. Leave a few days unplanned. Those days can be used for leftovers, gasp eating out, or breaking something out of the freezer. rMealPrepSunday and rEatCheapAndHealthy are two great resources on Reddit to help keep you motivated and inspired. Challenge success criteriaYouve successfully completed this challenge once youve done one or more of the following things: Gone out to eat or ordered takeout zero times for an entire week. Learned to cook or tried to cook at least three new recipes. Shared one of your favorite meal recipes in this thread.  <response>: I love this challenge. Five years ago, I made a list of things I wanted to change and one was to learn how to cook. Honestly, I could only make pasta and grilled cheese. Not even eggs. So I started with eggs. I made breakfast every day for a few weeks. Then I added in dinners, make every other day because leftovers, starting with a chicken breast and steamed veggies. Added in something different every meal to make it interesting: new spice rub or marinade or different prep. Once I got bored, expanded proteins and new veggies, but still simple preparations: pan fry or oven or steamed. I went longer than 30 days, but after a few months and an awesome omelette for a friend who stayed over and an awesome salmon fillet for a friend who stayed over, I had it: confidence. At the end of the first year, I was grilling and trying recipes from other countries. Now, my friends who didnt know me before I did this challenge talk about what a chef I am and ask what Im bringing to the next party. If they only knew! Do this for your health, your bank account and your self worth 