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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Going Out to Eat

I am sitting here trying to figure out what to have for lunch and wishing to go and buy something instead of eating whatever is in my house. I don't know why. We have decent things to eat for lunch. Nothing romantic like the thankgiving salad at the Bus Stop but I will not be hungry eating here. I just like going out to eat. My kids do too and they always ask me if we can go out to lunch or go to the cookie store for an after school treat. But I know it is expensive.

In another instance Cameron swears to me that everyone is his office goes out to eat everyday. He says that he is asked if he wants to go out nearly every day and while he turns it down most of the time he goes out to eat at least once or twice a week. Often it is when he forgets his lunch.

So I decided to tally all the times we went out to eat in the past month. The final count was 142.34 but I am sure there were some cash purchases I have not accounted for. This includes my date night with Cameron as well as our trip purchases that we made while going out to Arizona. It seems a little extreme to be spending so much on food when we are just paying someone else to cook it. But I sure do love it.

I also tallied the food we bought. It came out to 388.82. It seems like we spend too much on food. I wonder what I need to do to spend less?

I wonder.... how much do you spend on your going out to eat budget? Do you go out or your spouse go out most days when you are working? Do you go out if you are a stay at home wife? Also how much do you spend on your grocery budget? Please share if you want.... and if you share be completely honest!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Warning, you're going to be disgusted with our totals. Probably around $600-800 for groceries and food. Skyler goes out to lunch every day because that's part of the work lifestyle. I try to cook dinner but I probably only do it 3 times a week. I'm trying to do better, but I really just need to accept that it's always going to be high.

Jesse said...

I've been tracking all our money for two years now. Our current target for eating out and groceries is $100 and $550 respectively. So far this year we have gone over on the eating out budget every month. (Last month our total was over $300 I'm sorry to say) With groceries we have a month every once in a while where we will go over. It usually has something to do with all the young men we feed around here due to Cori's calling.

I agree with you about going out. I love going somewhere else to eat. It is so nice to sit, be served food, not clean up and come home to a clean kitchen. It has been hard for me to keep our eating out budget while being pregnant (not wanting to cook anything) and having our house for sale (we have to be out in the evenings a lot for showings and it hasn't been warm enough for picnics).

Something that has helped me with the grocery budget, and you probably do this already, is to make a menu for the week, make a shopping list from the menu and then I stick to my list. I try to plan things so that if I buy a bag of spinach for something I'm making Monday, I can use the rest of the spinach in whatever I'm making Thurs. We throw out very little produce, which used to be a problem for me.