How often does your family sit down to eat together?  I’m not talking about getting a bite to eat at your favorite fast food restaurant. When was the last time you sat down in your own home and ate together, without the distractions of television, iPads, and cell phones? When was the last time you used meal time to really connect with your kids or spouse?

Our fast paced society has turned cooking into a chore to be endured rather than an event to unite and nourish the family’s soul.

Today, cooking has become a lost art, and in the process we’ve lost something. Our fast paced society has turned cooking into a chore to be endured rather than an event to unite and nourish the family’s soul. It’s become something to be dispensed with quickly, so we can get on to more important tasks.

We stop by “fast food” restaurants, have food delivered right to our door step, and in a pinch, reach for the freezer to take out frozen dinners. But missing in this instant, gotta have it now culture, are the strengthened bonds when we cook and eat as a family.

It seems we’d much rather rush through dinner, to get to our favorite episode of Scandal or Housewives of Atlanta. Fix it, eat it, and wash it down in fifteen minutes flat.

It’s estimated that the average American spends nearly five hours a day watching television.

Yet, the average parent spends only seven to twenty minutes a day engaged in meaningful conversation with their children.

This may explain why a National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse study found family dining to be associated with lower rates of teen smoking, drinking, illegal drug use and prescription drug abuse.

In fact, teens from families that frequently dine together are three and a half times less likely to engage in illegal and prescription drug abuse.

It seems that family dinners provide quality time together that is so often absent in today’s on the run society.

And I still haven’t mentioned the financial benefits.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, we spend nearly 44% of our food dollars outside the home. This is insane when you consider the average restaurant soda can have a 500% mark-up and a typical fast food meal can have a 200% mark-up or more. This is valuable money we could use to pay down debt or put into our savings accounts.

A typical dinner at McDonald’s will easily set a family back $24 or more. A more nutritious meal can be made at home with less than half that price. In fact, many websites and books like Erin Chase’s the $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook show you how to create meals for $5 or less.

Over the course of a year, eating more dinners at home will easily save you one to two thousand dollars. That’s cold hard cash.

So how can you create a great family dining experience while keeping more of your hard earned money in your pocket?

Get everyone involved

One reason family dinner is viewed as a chore is that too often the task falls on the shoulders of one person. Making cooking dinner a family affair turns it from a burden for one into a time spent bonding for all.

Yes, it may require busting out of old tired gender roles, but teaching young girls and boys how to cook will save them serious cash as young adults.

You don’t have to be the Bradys.

Finding time to get together as a family to make dinner can be difficult. We live in hectic times and all family members, even young children, face demands and pressures unseen by generations before.

In today’s world, it’s nearly impossible to imitate the families that graced our televisions sets. Families like the Brady Bunch and the Evans of Good Times, sat down for a family meal every night.

While we might not have it like the Evans, we can aim to cook together one or two nights a week, even with the demands of today’s society.

Cook twice as much

It doesn’t take much extra effort to cook twice as much food as you’ll need for the night. Freeze the extra for home made frozen dinners. In short order you’ll have a nice selection of dinners in your freezer. When you’re tempted after a long day’s work to take the family to a fast food restaurant, you can instead turn to one of the home cooked meals in your very own freezer.

Don’t make dinner night a chore. Turn it into the main event.

BMWK,  how often does your family sit down for dinner together?