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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At the beginning of June I resolved to reduce our food costs but eating out less and cooking dinner at home using fresh ingredients every day.  For the first month we dramatically reduced our eating out costs.  BUT even though it seemed like the grocery bills were modest (individually), overall our monthly food cost is about the same because the total grocery bill more than made up for the reduced eating out bill.  We are vegetarian so don't buy expensive meats, and generally don't buy anything extravagant (shop at Harris teeter and occasionally Trader Joe's).  Even though I've been watching the weekly grocery bill carefully and it seems reasonable, there are always expensive extras that add up to another $10-15 here and there e.g. toilet paper, kitchen rolls, olive oil, cat litter etc. so a $70 a week bill will turn into a $120 a week, plus an extra trip here and there which adds another $100 or so.  Somehow we don't seem to be saving money.  Sure, we're eating a lot better and wasting less food, but does it make sense to just go back to eating out regularly if the costs are the same?  What would you do?[/quote]

The question though is when you are comparing to your previous spending, were  you including the extra groceries (e.g. TP, cat litter, kitchen rolls) separately from the food?  You should be comparing food costs before and after without including the household supplies.  Olive oil counts, but the rest are household supplies that you would/should be buying either way.  I've found that when our family of four goes out, we spend between $25-40 for a single meal.  When we eat at home, $75 of groceries will last us 2-3 days (average 2 meals a day, so 4 meals).  So for $75 for two meals or four meals?  I can definitely see the difference.[/quote]

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