Well lookie what we have here… I’m actually talking about The Cheap Eats Poll. Take a guess when was the last time this was changed out. That’s right - more than ONE YEAR ago. As such, the poll has had time to garner a huge number of votes (3095). Well, that’s huge for my site anyhow.

Several people had asked when I was going to change this darn thing out, and I just kept putting it off over and over again until it became almost a joke. But today, I decided to take a short break from food reviews to force myself to do it.

I have to say I’m pretty surprised with the results. According to the poll, today’s cooks are much more resourceful than I had thought. There’s hope for us after all. Maybe.

I had thought there was no way that the majority of people who answered would have cooked more than 2-3 times a week. Instead, nearly half the people (46%, 1429 votes) actually said that they cook dinner EVERY DAY. This is an astounding number to me, when you consider how busy modern workers today are and how easy it is to just pick up food on the way home. Sure, if this was the 60s I wouldn’t be surprised.

I have to admit myself that we fall into the category of only cooking dinner 2-3 times a week - there were 1211 other people who also responded this way, which is about 39%. If you add up the two categories, you come out with 85% of the people responding to the poll cooking dinner more two or more times a week. That’s awesome. Of course, you might also say that the people who visit my site, being the saavy Cheap Eaters that they are, would be more likely to cook their own food. I think there might be some truth to that.

In any case, it’s great: I keep saying it, but cooking your own meals instead of eating out is probably one of the greatest ways to save money on the food budget. If I get around to the Manifesto (and you know I won’t) then that’s probably rule #2 or 3.

The “once-a-week” chefs came out around 9% (265 votes). Hey, cooking once a week is better than none at all. Only six percent (190 votes) said they eat out all the time. I seriously thought there would be many more votes for those two categories.

At this point, I have to mention something nearly as important as cooking your own food: just because you don’t cook it yourself doesn’t mean that it’s eating out. My advice: creatively leech off of mom’s (or dad’s) home cooking all you can. That is, if you and the folks get along and they live relatively close. Hey, if you feel guilty about it, do the dishes! Or contribute to the cost of the food bill.

Ok, so there is another poll up now. I didn’t have much time to think about the theme for this one, so it’s pretty simple… what’s your favorite cheap eats food staple? I can’t promise that this one won’t be up for a long time like the other one was, but I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t stay up for a year at least!