Help us cut our food/dining expenses
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Anonymous
A family of 3 can do all of their shopping a whole foods for the month and come in under $2K. This is not an Aldi / Costco problem - it is a eating at restaurant / eating home problem. Question for the OP: Why do you need to cut your food/dining expenses? Does $2K just sound too high? Are you not funding your retirement / college savings? You need to more clearly define why you want the change for your family. |
Anonymous
+1 Came here to write this. My DH and I cut down a lot by going to happy hours and limiting it to 1-2 times a month. |
Anonymous
| It's the alcohol and eating out. DH and I spend a little more than $2k/month and we pack lunches and eat in most of the week. We eat out at a nice restaurant maybe once or twice a week, add a couple (or more) of drinks and a takeout meal and you're at around $1350 right there for eating out. |
Anonymous
Agreed, this is a restaurant issue. We spend $500/month on groceries for a family of four and we do shop mostly at Whole Food and Trader Joe's. But we budget $50 a week for takeout and $150 a month for all other food out (coffee, nice dinner, lunches depending on month). That does mean that if we had dinner out last week, we don't then get drinks this week. Self-discipline is a huge part of it. When we first did our food budget, we allocated a dollar amount per meal per person--$3 for breakfast, for instance. If I know I want to get breakfast out once a week for $7, I need a meal plan for the rest of the week that will keep the overall average at $3. Same for other meals. That may mean some spaghetti and peanut butter to make the rest work out. Also, meal planning helps a lot, especially for lunches. |
Anonymous
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I think you need to do a weekly review. So you can see and adjust each week as opposed to being reactive to the month.
On Sunday -what is the plan for times you are going to eat out / get take out? On Friday review where you were vs plan and use Sat as an opportunity to adjust. When you review what you spent - you are reactive. You need a leading indicator. Pretend you were trying to lose weight. You measure how many times you exercise as a leading indicator. The lagging indicator (result) is stepping on the scale to see your weight. |
Anonymous
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As crazy as it sounds, I found using a meal plan like HelloFresh helped us save money. It got to be too easy to just get delivery on days I didn't feel like cooking. Having those meals in the fridge forced me to cook on nights I didn't feel like it.
My BIL has a 5 day menu that they eat every week. On monday it's Turkey Burgers, Tues- chicken stir fry, etc. They do delivery on fri and go out on Sat. For you, I would try to come up with a 5 day menu and try it for 1 month. |
Anonymous
| Meal planning will solve your problems |
Anonymous
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OP, how old is your kid?
I think people here are right that you need to stop eating out and going to bars. Do you not know how to cook or do you just not like to cook? Come up with a meal plan, buy those foods and cook them. Include some snacks. Buy some wine or beer for the week and drink it at home! Come up with something to do that doesn't involve eating out -- even going to the movies will be cheaper than a restaurant meal! (Skip the popcorn.) Bring your lunches to work and skip the coffee shops. Most offices have some coffee available for free anyway. Drink that instead. And now that your child is presumably heading back to school, kid can pack a lunch. |
Anonymous
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Limit the takeout dramatically. We never get takeout. We either go out (once a week for dinner max) or make something simple like ravioli or breakfast for diner at home.
We also try not to drink with dinner out since that adds up. A glass of wine or beer each is an easy extra $20 on top of the meal. |
Anonymous
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OP here and I am so grateful for the suggestions and reality check.
Yes, I agree that meal planning and discipline regarding restaurants and carryout would make all the difference. Our grocery bills are reasonable, mostly from Trader Joes and Safeway. We make coffee and drink wine and beer at home, mostly. We could certainly drink less, but I don't think that's the problem. For us, eating out is entertainment (we don't take fancy vacations, go to movies, etc.) Carryout is the result of poor planning - it seems every mealtime is a surprise. Lunches out at work is escape for my DH and laziness for me. Beers out once a week is social for DH. But I am ready to change, and I think DH is ready too. Our HHI is around $200K. We are on track for retirement and college savings. We own a rental property that is cash positive. DC is in public school with tutoring and lots of extracurricular expenses. We have no school debt and drive very old cars. We don't spend much on clothes or toys. We do like to spend money fixing up our old house. But our greatest need right now is to build an emergency fund so we are not living at our edge month to month. I know we have the power to change our behavior, but have struggled with willpower. I guess it's time to grow up and become responsible adults. |
Anonymous
| In your shoes I'd start with menu planning to eliminate the poor planning takeout meals--see how far that gets you. If your income supports it, it's fine to have dining out be an entertainment expense (and thus spend more than other families might spend). But not at the expense of your emergency fund, and it should be an active choice in your budget, not something you don't feel in control of. |
Anonymous
| OP, your post was a wake-up call for me. I just went through our two credit card statements from last month and for a family of four, we spent $2,600 on groceries and eating out. I suspect we live the same way you do. So many bad habits. I'm making a promise to myself to fix this and many of the posts here are very helpful. Thank you all for posting! |
Anonymous
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Good for you, OP.
In addition to meal planning, Come up with a few meals that you always have on hand so you can still make dinner at home when things get off track. We can always pull out beans and rice or toss an easy quiche into the oven. Breakfast for dinner! When I make spaghetti and meatballs, I always make extra meatballs to freeze. Same with chili and any leftover taco meat. (Those are quick to defrost.) If you’re a Costco shopper, buy a bag of their frozen salmon. It defrosts in 30 minutes and cooks in 8. Add a vegetable or salad and you have a meal! |
Anonymous
There is nothing inherently wrong with your choices - but the issue is they need to be planned choices. This what the "weekly review" can help you with. You need to start with something where you can find a win so you get some momentum. Is it 2 dinners a night + 2 lunches (I find Monday and Tuesday easiest). Having a great lunch bag helps so make sure you have the tools to do this. I was able to help my husband change from eating out daily to now he makes his own lunch b/c he realized he preferred the food he was taking from home. His lunch downtown was nothing special but he was dropping $12 a day. It adds up. Congrats on identifying that you needed to make some changes. Best of luck with your journey. |
Anonymous
This Friday night, go out to Whole Foods for dinner. Eat there. Have a drink from the bar. During dinner, plan meals for next week. After dinner, shop for groceries. Even thou its whole paycheck, I guarantee you will end up spending less next week than you normally would spend under your current operating procedure. Once you run this experiment and see the results, commit to it weekly. |