Anonymous wrote:My husband goes out to lunch with colleagues a couple times a week. In itself, not a big deal. However, we are both trying to improve our diets and spend less money by meal planning, and these impromptu lunches out then impact what we have planned for the week.
So this week, we went shopping on Sunday and purchased food for 5 lunches and 4 dinners, and planned to eat out tonight as our "cheat" night. But he went out to lunch on Tuesday, and again today, so that's two lunches that got thrown out, and he just emailed me to say that I'm on my own for dinner because he won't be hungry because he ate too much at lunch. This is a common scenario.
I get that these lunches are social and he doesn't want to miss out, but when I ask him if he can just order a salad or something lighter so that it won't ruin dinner he says he'd rather not go out at all (so basically it's all or nothing). He also insists on buying enough lunch and dinner food for the whole week because he always intend to stick with the plan.
Any solutions here? Just let it go?
Rigidity often leads to failure. Tell him he's wasting more $$ by buying 5 days worth of food and NOT sticking with the plan, then he would be if he anticipated going off-course.
just buy enough food for him for 2 or 3 packed lunches. That's probably a good compromise. But what are you buying that has to be thrown out if it's not eaten that day? I assume he isn't taking raw oysters in his lunch. Buy something less perishable, so that if he packs and then bails to hang with work friends, he can just eat it the next day.
He's clearly not ready/doesn't want to make this commitment to changing his diet and spending. I say that without judgement, as we are a non-lunch-packing family.
The dinner thing is annoying, but what can you do? DH and I have done the same thing to one another.