Food bill out of control!!
July 28, 2017 3:02 PM Subscribe
Please help me. We spend way too much on food. This habit has gotten out of hand. Deep dive into the numbers and how they stack up against our favor.
We are a couple in our early 30's. We spend way too much on food. Please help me - even if I spend half what we currently do, it'll still be a generous budget. We've been trying to improve for several months with limited progress. So I did a crazy deep dive with the help of mint.com into how we managed to sink this low. Here's the breakdown for the month of July through today:
Groceries: 363
Person A eating out (usually lunch during working day): 155
Person B eating out (usually lunch during working day): 59
Person B eating out and treating a friend: 41
Person A & B eating out together: $318
Person A & B eating out together and treating a friend: 182
TOTAL 1118
WOULD BE HAPPY ENOUGH IF WE CAN BRING THIS DOWN TO 800 although I realize even this is over-indulgent
To be clear, we about $100 of this total is money spent on other people.
71 meals total were eaten out this month, for about 1.2 meals out per day per person (if we both ate out, I counted that as two meals). This includes snacks and coffees out. We've been trying to go out for just coffee more often as it's still a nice trip out without paying as much. We also have stopped going out to more expensive restaurants, and now we go to restaurants that cost less than $20/meal per person.
Eating out is our primary form of entertainment and enjoyable time spent together. It's also the primary thing we do when we meet with our friends. Wow just writing that I feel like new shared hobbies is a start. Not surprisingly, we could each stand to lose 20 pounds.
We live in Washington DC. I do cook a lot - and try to cook enough for a few miles at a time. I mostly buy and cook good quality meats (costing about $5-6/pound) and vegetables though. We buy about 15 pounds of meat a month (10 pounds chicken, 5 pounds beef), some cheese and milk, some hummus, lots of frozen vegetables, some fruit, and some bread or pasta. I have blood sugar issues so adding lots of cheap bread and pasta to my diet is something I do sometimes to try to bring our bill down but then I always end up gaining weight and feeling bad.
Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk).
I realize we spoil ourselves, and are privileged losers in this respect. Please help me reform, while still keeping an overabundance of carbs off our plates.
We are a couple in our early 30's. We spend way too much on food. Please help me - even if I spend half what we currently do, it'll still be a generous budget. We've been trying to improve for several months with limited progress. So I did a crazy deep dive with the help of mint.com into how we managed to sink this low. Here's the breakdown for the month of July through today:
Groceries: 363
Person A eating out (usually lunch during working day): 155
Person B eating out (usually lunch during working day): 59
Person B eating out and treating a friend: 41
Person A & B eating out together: $318
Person A & B eating out together and treating a friend: 182
TOTAL 1118
WOULD BE HAPPY ENOUGH IF WE CAN BRING THIS DOWN TO 800 although I realize even this is over-indulgent
To be clear, we about $100 of this total is money spent on other people.
71 meals total were eaten out this month, for about 1.2 meals out per day per person (if we both ate out, I counted that as two meals). This includes snacks and coffees out. We've been trying to go out for just coffee more often as it's still a nice trip out without paying as much. We also have stopped going out to more expensive restaurants, and now we go to restaurants that cost less than $20/meal per person.
Eating out is our primary form of entertainment and enjoyable time spent together. It's also the primary thing we do when we meet with our friends. Wow just writing that I feel like new shared hobbies is a start. Not surprisingly, we could each stand to lose 20 pounds.
We live in Washington DC. I do cook a lot - and try to cook enough for a few miles at a time. I mostly buy and cook good quality meats (costing about $5-6/pound) and vegetables though. We buy about 15 pounds of meat a month (10 pounds chicken, 5 pounds beef), some cheese and milk, some hummus, lots of frozen vegetables, some fruit, and some bread or pasta. I have blood sugar issues so adding lots of cheap bread and pasta to my diet is something I do sometimes to try to bring our bill down but then I always end up gaining weight and feeling bad.
Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk).
I realize we spoil ourselves, and are privileged losers in this respect. Please help me reform, while still keeping an overabundance of carbs off our plates.
I'll let others weigh in on ways to cut costs but before you beat yourself up too much, that amount seems about right for two working professionals in D.C. I suspect most people I know who are into cooking and/or eating out spend about that much (if not more). It's an expensive part of the country and meals/groceries aren't cheap here.
posted by whitewall at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by whitewall at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
Stop paying for food/meals/snacks/coffee by credit card, and start paying in cash. It's so easy to just put it on a card and not think about the numbers, but counting out cash and change make you think more about what you're paying for what, and what you really need/want to get; it's much more "real."
If $800/month is your goal, take out that cash. You each get $100/week. You can borrow or cover each other (if you go out to eat/drink together), but you *only* get your weekly allotment.
posted by raztaj at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [16 favorites]
If $800/month is your goal, take out that cash. You each get $100/week. You can borrow or cover each other (if you go out to eat/drink together), but you *only* get your weekly allotment.
posted by raztaj at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [16 favorites]
I give myself one lunch a week to eat out at work. No take out on weeknights (not including Friday, but including Sunday).
Buying work lunch really adds up over time.
posted by smoke at 3:26 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Buying work lunch really adds up over time.
posted by smoke at 3:26 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I suggest two things: 1) Cook the lunches in advance on weekends and take with on weekdays. Farewell to your first two items! 2) Cut the dinners out down to once a week -- still get to go! still a treat! -- and start inviting friends over for dinner/making dinner at home an occasion for the two of you. That will put a big reduction on the next three items.
Also, taking control over your food by making it yourself is going to make it healthier.
posted by bearwife at 3:30 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also, taking control over your food by making it yourself is going to make it healthier.
posted by bearwife at 3:30 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
My local Safeway has meat marked down significantly, usually but not always on the best by date. It can either be cooked that day, which is what we usually do, frozen, which we almost never do (except when we scored that 10lb ham for $3), or cooked in the next two days, which we usually do as long as we've picked meat that looks good when we buy it. It's possible to buy grass-fed steak, lamb, pork chops, fresh-never-frozen fish, most cuts of chicken, and almost anything else the butcher touches this way.
On the weekends, try lunch (not brunch!) out as opposed to dinner. You can experiment with new places and have fun at a much lower price.
posted by Night_owl at 3:40 PM on July 28, 2017
On the weekends, try lunch (not brunch!) out as opposed to dinner. You can experiment with new places and have fun at a much lower price.
posted by Night_owl at 3:40 PM on July 28, 2017
Do you ever waste groceries because they go bad before you get to them? I think part of your problem here is that you're trying to eat "well but on budget" in two different categories, but together they add up to a lot. If you want to keep eating out very frequently, you need to drastically cut back on groceries; likewise in the other direction if you want to prioritize buying organic produce, free-range meat, etc.
For comparison, my average food budget over the last 6 months for 2 people, minimal cooking, but free lunches at work, is consistently around $600 eating out and $200 groceries. We buy a lot of Trader Joe's frozen food. We almost never buy raw meat (too much effort to cook) or dairy (I'm lactose intolerant and not in the habit), which reduces grocery cost by a lot. Basically just frozen entrees to keep us from eating out every single night, fresh fruit to snack on, occasionally one meal's worth of vegetables to combine with frozen tofu and pasta or something if I feel like cooking. When I didn't have free work lunches, I would stock very simple sandwich fixings.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you eat like me; it's not that healthy, for one thing. But I think there are several ways you can reduce your expenditures, some of which will seem easier to you than others, and you should do the easy ones first:
1) Cut out coffees and snacks out. During the day, go to the park for a walk or something active; during the evening, invite friends over to socialize at home.
2) Get into a habit of making and packing your own work lunches.
3) Try to avoid buying foods that you know you'll regret eating, like pasta and bread. Start by limiting yourself to pasta OR bread on any given week, and if you use up the one loaf of bread that you bought, don't buy more.
4) Be price-conscious when you shop for groceries. Don't go to the farmer's market; I know it's paradoxical, but the prices for produce are usually quite high. Find your local Asian or Mexican or European-style "open air" grocery store--I have found ethnic grocery stores in even tiny rural towns--and get as much fresh produce and meat as you can from there first before hitting the regular grocery store. I don't know much about meat, but $5-6/lb sounds expensive; look for the cheapest per-pound cut of meat that's available in any given week and just buy that, then plan meals around it. Cheese can also get expensive; save it for a treat, or get a large hunk of cheddar or brie that's cost-effective (at my local open-air market, brie is only $3-4/lb). Lots of resources online for how to buy groceries on the cheap.
posted by serelliya at 3:57 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
For comparison, my average food budget over the last 6 months for 2 people, minimal cooking, but free lunches at work, is consistently around $600 eating out and $200 groceries. We buy a lot of Trader Joe's frozen food. We almost never buy raw meat (too much effort to cook) or dairy (I'm lactose intolerant and not in the habit), which reduces grocery cost by a lot. Basically just frozen entrees to keep us from eating out every single night, fresh fruit to snack on, occasionally one meal's worth of vegetables to combine with frozen tofu and pasta or something if I feel like cooking. When I didn't have free work lunches, I would stock very simple sandwich fixings.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you eat like me; it's not that healthy, for one thing. But I think there are several ways you can reduce your expenditures, some of which will seem easier to you than others, and you should do the easy ones first:
1) Cut out coffees and snacks out. During the day, go to the park for a walk or something active; during the evening, invite friends over to socialize at home.
2) Get into a habit of making and packing your own work lunches.
3) Try to avoid buying foods that you know you'll regret eating, like pasta and bread. Start by limiting yourself to pasta OR bread on any given week, and if you use up the one loaf of bread that you bought, don't buy more.
4) Be price-conscious when you shop for groceries. Don't go to the farmer's market; I know it's paradoxical, but the prices for produce are usually quite high. Find your local Asian or Mexican or European-style "open air" grocery store--I have found ethnic grocery stores in even tiny rural towns--and get as much fresh produce and meat as you can from there first before hitting the regular grocery store. I don't know much about meat, but $5-6/lb sounds expensive; look for the cheapest per-pound cut of meat that's available in any given week and just buy that, then plan meals around it. Cheese can also get expensive; save it for a treat, or get a large hunk of cheddar or brie that's cost-effective (at my local open-air market, brie is only $3-4/lb). Lots of resources online for how to buy groceries on the cheap.
posted by serelliya at 3:57 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I feel like you're judging yourself pretty harshly, here? Are you going broke paying for food, or you just feel like you should be spending less on food and you feel lazy/guilty/indulgent not reining it in?
I ask because--I read recently that your budget should reflect your values. The example given was someone who prioritizes eating high quality and organic food; naturally their food budget is going to be high, and that's ok because it aligns with their values. I've struggled with this myself and ultimately I feel like--my value is socializing with my partner and friends, and valuing my time over money. So for me, I don't sweat our food budget too much, because it aligns with my/our values.
It does get out of hand sometimes, though, for us too--if that's what you're talking about, the strategies above are great and I second OrangeDisk--when I don't have a plan things really fall apart.
posted by stellaluna at 4:06 PM on July 28, 2017 [5 favorites]
I ask because--I read recently that your budget should reflect your values. The example given was someone who prioritizes eating high quality and organic food; naturally their food budget is going to be high, and that's ok because it aligns with their values. I've struggled with this myself and ultimately I feel like--my value is socializing with my partner and friends, and valuing my time over money. So for me, I don't sweat our food budget too much, because it aligns with my/our values.
It does get out of hand sometimes, though, for us too--if that's what you're talking about, the strategies above are great and I second OrangeDisk--when I don't have a plan things really fall apart.
posted by stellaluna at 4:06 PM on July 28, 2017 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: Great advice so far! Serelliya, I almost NEVER throw out food. Definitely not more than $5 worth a month, but usually nothing. I realize there are lots of reaources on-line and I've read a lot of them, but am SUPER grateful for all the situation specific guidance everyone's giving me.
Almost everything we eat at home is from scratch. Even make half of our bread from scratch. I'm actually food obsessed.
Ok no more thread sitting.
posted by cacao at 4:09 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Almost everything we eat at home is from scratch. Even make half of our bread from scratch. I'm actually food obsessed.
Ok no more thread sitting.
posted by cacao at 4:09 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The way I handle this – and I live in D.C. too – is to have grocery budget and a general ‘fun money’ budget that I can use to eat out. You can divide that up any way you like, but going by USDA guidelines you should be spending $490.50 per month on groceries in a low-cost plan, $609.90 in a moderate plan, or $763.40 for a liberal plan for two people.
So, in that sense, you’re not spending ENOUGH on groceries. You’re also spending too much on eating out.
Setting your own budget guidelines for groceries and eating out will get you most of the way to where you want to be. The rest can be achieved through meal planning.
posted by tooloudinhere at 4:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [5 favorites]
So, in that sense, you’re not spending ENOUGH on groceries. You’re also spending too much on eating out.
Setting your own budget guidelines for groceries and eating out will get you most of the way to where you want to be. The rest can be achieved through meal planning.
posted by tooloudinhere at 4:25 PM on July 28, 2017 [5 favorites]
Restaurants are terribly expensive. They just are.
A small thing you may already be doing: never order drinks in a restaurant (unless it's something you specifically want, like a beer without which the meal won't be enjoyable.) Otherwise, just water. It adds up like you wouldn't believe.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:30 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
A small thing you may already be doing: never order drinks in a restaurant (unless it's something you specifically want, like a beer without which the meal won't be enjoyable.) Otherwise, just water. It adds up like you wouldn't believe.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:30 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
I agree strongly with stellaluna.
I think your real issue is hiding here: Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk). To my family, this happens if someone gets home from work and is hungry, but dinner won't be ready for a while, so they end up eating junk and later a full meal. This is prevented by always eating a snack high in fat and/or protein right when getting home if dinner is not almost ready. It helps you to not be too hungry and overeat when dinner comes. Ensure you always have mixed nuts, refried beans and cheese, whole milk, leftover chunks of meat, antipasto, or whatever other low-carb foods available. The harder part for us is remembering to eat before getting too hungry; there's almost always something sufficiently low-carb to snack on.
I'm harping on the low-carb because it reduces your appetite, making it easier to control your portion sizes.
posted by flimflam at 4:45 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think your real issue is hiding here: Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk). To my family, this happens if someone gets home from work and is hungry, but dinner won't be ready for a while, so they end up eating junk and later a full meal. This is prevented by always eating a snack high in fat and/or protein right when getting home if dinner is not almost ready. It helps you to not be too hungry and overeat when dinner comes. Ensure you always have mixed nuts, refried beans and cheese, whole milk, leftover chunks of meat, antipasto, or whatever other low-carb foods available. The harder part for us is remembering to eat before getting too hungry; there's almost always something sufficiently low-carb to snack on.
I'm harping on the low-carb because it reduces your appetite, making it easier to control your portion sizes.
posted by flimflam at 4:45 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
My two cents: That amount is low for a couple living in a major metropolitan area, especially if you're eating out more than you think you should.
posted by humboldt32 at 4:56 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by humboldt32 at 4:56 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Almost everything we eat at home is from scratch. Even make half of our bread from scratch.
You may have to make trade-offs on that, because everything-cooked-from-scratch takes up too much time for working people and then you have to eat half your meals out to make up for it. I'm not saying you have to eat Spaghettios and frozen pizza, but you need to look to streamline and optimize, and that probably means some of your meals need to be a) simpler b) assisted by canned or frozen vegetables/legumes that can be quickly prepared and served simply alongside a protein. Microwaved broccoli isn't going to win any food awards, but drizzled with a little soy sauce, sriracha, and sesame oil it's a perfectly good Tuesday night vegetable.
Part of the problem when you eat out a lot is that you become much higher novelty-seeking in your sensory input, and that's a time suck at home and expensive outside the house. You won't die from eating sandwiches for lunch multiple days a week, though at first you will have to tamp down the urge to make 9-ingredient gourmet sandwiches instead of turkey and swiss. Also resist the urge to turn "brown bagging" into "photo-ready bento boxes" at least until you get the hang of brown-bagging first. If you find yourself making excuses because lunches are boring, try making them spicier, saltier, and more vinegary, as that will ping the same pleasure circuits that restaurant food often does.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [20 favorites]
You may have to make trade-offs on that, because everything-cooked-from-scratch takes up too much time for working people and then you have to eat half your meals out to make up for it. I'm not saying you have to eat Spaghettios and frozen pizza, but you need to look to streamline and optimize, and that probably means some of your meals need to be a) simpler b) assisted by canned or frozen vegetables/legumes that can be quickly prepared and served simply alongside a protein. Microwaved broccoli isn't going to win any food awards, but drizzled with a little soy sauce, sriracha, and sesame oil it's a perfectly good Tuesday night vegetable.
Part of the problem when you eat out a lot is that you become much higher novelty-seeking in your sensory input, and that's a time suck at home and expensive outside the house. You won't die from eating sandwiches for lunch multiple days a week, though at first you will have to tamp down the urge to make 9-ingredient gourmet sandwiches instead of turkey and swiss. Also resist the urge to turn "brown bagging" into "photo-ready bento boxes" at least until you get the hang of brown-bagging first. If you find yourself making excuses because lunches are boring, try making them spicier, saltier, and more vinegary, as that will ping the same pleasure circuits that restaurant food often does.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [20 favorites]
Maybe you need some new gadgets in your life that would make you excited to bring a pre-made lunch!
-- Have you considered getting an Instant Pot and cooking a big hunk of meat on a Sunday? Brisket? Carnitas? Or a big pot of soup? (Of course you don't need the Instant Pot for that...0
-- Or making a big batch of a favorite pasta sauce and putting that over spiralized zucchini noodles?
-- Or have breakfast for lunch? My favorite is couscous made in a thermos, greeks yogurt and berries
I would try to cut down on eating lunch out if I were you and finding some system that works for you to bring lunch. For me sometimes it's making extra dinner and bringing that for lunch. I bought some nice glass pyrex containers and pre-cut veggies and have this ready to go when I pack a lunch. My lunches tend to look more like a snack plate--homemade hummus, whole grain crackers, cheese, grapes, cut red peppers.
You could also cut down on coffee out. I was spending 3 bucks a day on my iced coffee until I found this iced coffee cup, an Aero Press and my glass cup with a stainless straw.
Also, there are some good deals to be had at farmer's markets sometimes. At my market, fruit is expensive but veggies from certain sellers are not. Sometimes if I go at the last hour, I get some good deals!
Good luck!
posted by biscuits at 5:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
-- Have you considered getting an Instant Pot and cooking a big hunk of meat on a Sunday? Brisket? Carnitas? Or a big pot of soup? (Of course you don't need the Instant Pot for that...0
-- Or making a big batch of a favorite pasta sauce and putting that over spiralized zucchini noodles?
-- Or have breakfast for lunch? My favorite is couscous made in a thermos, greeks yogurt and berries
I would try to cut down on eating lunch out if I were you and finding some system that works for you to bring lunch. For me sometimes it's making extra dinner and bringing that for lunch. I bought some nice glass pyrex containers and pre-cut veggies and have this ready to go when I pack a lunch. My lunches tend to look more like a snack plate--homemade hummus, whole grain crackers, cheese, grapes, cut red peppers.
You could also cut down on coffee out. I was spending 3 bucks a day on my iced coffee until I found this iced coffee cup, an Aero Press and my glass cup with a stainless straw.
Also, there are some good deals to be had at farmer's markets sometimes. At my market, fruit is expensive but veggies from certain sellers are not. Sometimes if I go at the last hour, I get some good deals!
Good luck!
posted by biscuits at 5:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Honestly both your grocery bill and your eating out together bill seem totally normal to me, as a fellow big-city denizen and food eater. As for the rest, treating friends is really nice if you can afford it! The work lunches seem like the obvious place to cut – I bring leftovers to work most days and have a stash of cheapo frozen meals in the freezer at work for emergencies.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 5:17 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by goodbyewaffles at 5:17 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
My husband and I used to eat out a lot and it was our hobby and...now we don't. We had kids which helps but we also just decided, one year at a time basically, that eating lunch out at work especially but in restaurants in general wasn't aligning with out personal goals.
Once we really decided that, it actually got easy. It isn't that hard to have scrambled eggs + toast + salad + edamame pods for dinner, or put a can of tuna over pre-washed greens and diced veggies for a lunch salad plus a roll (homemade in your case!) It *does* take effort to form the habit.
Where I'm at now is...generally I don't eat out unless it's really going to be An Occasion. Sometimes that's trying the new poke place with a friend or going out for a date night. But after I broke the habit I realized a *lot* of the meals out I was having weren't that great they were just my relaxation or reconnection routine couched in foodie language. I now kind of prefer my own food because it tastes like food...baguette with goat cheese and fig...and not butter/salt/fat/menu description...service. I feel like I am relating to food and seasons and my body, not to trends.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:18 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Once we really decided that, it actually got easy. It isn't that hard to have scrambled eggs + toast + salad + edamame pods for dinner, or put a can of tuna over pre-washed greens and diced veggies for a lunch salad plus a roll (homemade in your case!) It *does* take effort to form the habit.
Where I'm at now is...generally I don't eat out unless it's really going to be An Occasion. Sometimes that's trying the new poke place with a friend or going out for a date night. But after I broke the habit I realized a *lot* of the meals out I was having weren't that great they were just my relaxation or reconnection routine couched in foodie language. I now kind of prefer my own food because it tastes like food...baguette with goat cheese and fig...and not butter/salt/fat/menu description...service. I feel like I am relating to food and seasons and my body, not to trends.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:18 PM on July 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: OK. I'm going to preface this with the fact that this is, ahem, "from one food over-spender to another." I also live in the DC metro area, so I'm working with similar grocery/cost of living prices.
Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk).
Take a look at that sentence.
We can talk all day about how restaurants are expensive, how food expenses (whether groceries, or at a restaurant) are 'out of control', and how maybe you should do more meal planning and bulk pre-cooking food. "Stop eating out for lunch" is easier said than done- and doesn't get to the root of the problem.
The reality is, you're probably doing the best you can with the energy and time that you have. Meal planning is exhausting. Not to go off-topic - stick with me here, this will only seem like a tangent at first - but if you're familiar with the emotional labor thread(s) on MetaFilter, you'll note that meal planning comes up often as an example of emotional labor because it expends a lot of emotional labor. I'll have to find the source, but I think someone recently linked, in another thread, to an article that discussed how 'household management' alone (drawing up a budget, deciding what meals will be cooked that week, writing the grocery list, figuring out who will do the cooking each night, deciding if household members should rotate on who cooks versus who cleans up---nevermind oversight of scheduling home repairs, figuring out when you'll have time to mow the lawn, what you need to buy for the garden/landscaping, et cetera) is a 40 hour a week emotional labor-based job. And that job, by virtue of being limited to just the managerial aspects alone, therefore does not even include the act of driving to the store, finding the groceries, buying the groceries, lugging them to the car, then lugging them out of the car and into the house, putting the groceries away, making sure dishes and cleaned and put away, then reading through a recipe, spending time on food prep, then the act of cooking itself, plating the food... I could go on.
What I'm getting at is that with the pre-cooking and meal planning that you already do, you may already be at your emotional limit. (Really. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, at least.) So when you don't have around enough pre-cooked food to rely on, you turn to dining out.
This isn't shameful, or a bad-person thing, or a lazy-person thing. Don't look at it as a failure, or a sign that you're a "privileged loser." You've said yourself you do a good bit of cooking and rarely waste the food you buy. If you were buying groceries and then throwing out 80% of them because they spoiled while you were off eating breakfast lunch and dinner at Chez Overpriced, we'd be having a different type of discussion.
One of the biggest problems I face, when it comes to food over-spending tendencies, is the realization that I have a lot of "raw food ingredients" but nothing "ready to eat." My personal reality is that sometimes work is rough, my mind is numb, I had a long commute, and my give-a-shit meter is on E. Very tempting to order Chinese or Pizza, or use the drive-thru at Panera, or order Chipotle on the app so I can just run in and grab my burrito that's already made and waiting for me.
You can plan all you want, and buy all the right ingredients for the right prices. But it's not going to matter if you don't have the energy to ensure that you'll always be in the mood and frame-of-mind to put those ingredients into action at a moment's notice.
I know, get to the point, already!
You need to figure out how to create easy, 'low-hanging fruit' type food luxuries for yourself.
Honestly, I think the biggest challenge is just going to be finding a way to do it without carbs.
So, I'm not going to recommend any meal planning or bulk food prep extravanzas. Use the ones you have in place currently, but let's not add to it. To hell with it- you're doing what you can with those things already. Let's instead talk about what you can do to achieve your cost-cutting goals while expending the minimal amount of additional labor.
Right now, you spend ~$363.00 on groceries alone. The other ~$755.00 you're spending is used for dining out in all its various forms.
For two people, if you were to spend $363.00 on groceries, alone, in the span of one month - and then have the two of you live entirely off those groceries, without any eating out, ever! - you'd be a superstar. Because it means that you're spending about $45 per person, per week, on food. That's like ninja-level spending discipline!
You need to spend more money on ready-to-eat groceries.
My partner and I rarely dine out anymore, but we spend about $363.00 (maybe a bit less) every TWO weeks - meaning $726 a month, or double what you're spending each each month on groceries. And we're both very exhausted people with jobs and job-hours that make us go "Ugggggggh I don't wanna cook" a lot. And we waste very little food.
Look at the $755.00 you're spending on dining out. Now, take $350 of that money, and reallocate it to your grocery budget. Now you've got $363 + $350, or $713, to spend on groceries.
What to do with all of that grocery money? Well, you like luxuries, and you also like not having to deal with too much bullshit. Thanks to this increased grocery budget, you've got some money to play with. (And you're still coming in below that $800 spending target you're seeking.)
With $350, you could buy (these are examples, alter as needed based on any food preferences/tastes, food allergies, or the need to mitigate carbohydrates- though I tried my best to keep carbohydrates from dominating):
- A gigantic bulk container of quality mixed nuts- $30
- 4 packs of (6) hardboiled eggs- one pack each week - at $3-4 a pack (less depending on where you shop) - $24
- 10 cans of Amy's Organic Soups- you know, the delicious ones- which at an average of $3.50 each is $35
- More hummus- maybe those 18oz 'family size' Sabra containers, 2-4 a month, totaling $14-28
- 4 packages of Organic Aidell's Chicken Sausages, pre-cooked - $5-6 each, which is $24
- A few bags of Roasted Chickpeas - like "The Good Bean" brand ones - about $15
- A few bags of Kale Chips - about $15
- Those miniature Babybel cheeses (the 'light' kind) - maybe $21-25 for a few bags of those
- A bunch of fancy, individual sized greek yogurts, like Fage- $2 each x 20 = $40
- Avocados, bought as needed, maybe about $12-15 for eight of them over a month
...So far, that's only $251.00 (maybe like $265 once you factor in sales tax) out of the extra $350 you're reallocating from your dining-out expenses, so you've still got almost another $100 you can spend before you tap out. You could get some really tasty stuff that is easy to just, well, pick up and immediately eat. And what I've described (tastes/preferences aside- just think in terms of 'convenience' and 'not too carb-y') is a pretty decent haul on top of what you probably already buy with that other $363.
You could take the above and make all kinds of little tapa-style things. Which are fun, not unlike dining out! Mixed nuts/almonds with a babybel cheese or two, warmed chicken sausages sliced and served on toothpicks with a side of chutney, sliced avocados (perhaps with a drizzle of olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, and a sprinkling of sea salt and sesame seeds).
Maybe make it a goal to use that extra $350 in grocery money for making all kinds of fun new tapas to graze on when you're tempted to eat out.
Not a complete solution- just a suggestion for a new way of thinking and approaching it. If food and dining are one of your preferred luxuries, I'd encourage you to look into more of these yummy, ready-to-go foods when grocery shopping.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:03 PM on July 28, 2017 [37 favorites]
Our biggest source of eating too much is when we are hungry and don't have food already ready to go (from precooking a few meals in bulk).
Take a look at that sentence.
We can talk all day about how restaurants are expensive, how food expenses (whether groceries, or at a restaurant) are 'out of control', and how maybe you should do more meal planning and bulk pre-cooking food. "Stop eating out for lunch" is easier said than done- and doesn't get to the root of the problem.
The reality is, you're probably doing the best you can with the energy and time that you have. Meal planning is exhausting. Not to go off-topic - stick with me here, this will only seem like a tangent at first - but if you're familiar with the emotional labor thread(s) on MetaFilter, you'll note that meal planning comes up often as an example of emotional labor because it expends a lot of emotional labor. I'll have to find the source, but I think someone recently linked, in another thread, to an article that discussed how 'household management' alone (drawing up a budget, deciding what meals will be cooked that week, writing the grocery list, figuring out who will do the cooking each night, deciding if household members should rotate on who cooks versus who cleans up---nevermind oversight of scheduling home repairs, figuring out when you'll have time to mow the lawn, what you need to buy for the garden/landscaping, et cetera) is a 40 hour a week emotional labor-based job. And that job, by virtue of being limited to just the managerial aspects alone, therefore does not even include the act of driving to the store, finding the groceries, buying the groceries, lugging them to the car, then lugging them out of the car and into the house, putting the groceries away, making sure dishes and cleaned and put away, then reading through a recipe, spending time on food prep, then the act of cooking itself, plating the food... I could go on.
What I'm getting at is that with the pre-cooking and meal planning that you already do, you may already be at your emotional limit. (Really. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, at least.) So when you don't have around enough pre-cooked food to rely on, you turn to dining out.
This isn't shameful, or a bad-person thing, or a lazy-person thing. Don't look at it as a failure, or a sign that you're a "privileged loser." You've said yourself you do a good bit of cooking and rarely waste the food you buy. If you were buying groceries and then throwing out 80% of them because they spoiled while you were off eating breakfast lunch and dinner at Chez Overpriced, we'd be having a different type of discussion.
One of the biggest problems I face, when it comes to food over-spending tendencies, is the realization that I have a lot of "raw food ingredients" but nothing "ready to eat." My personal reality is that sometimes work is rough, my mind is numb, I had a long commute, and my give-a-shit meter is on E. Very tempting to order Chinese or Pizza, or use the drive-thru at Panera, or order Chipotle on the app so I can just run in and grab my burrito that's already made and waiting for me.
You can plan all you want, and buy all the right ingredients for the right prices. But it's not going to matter if you don't have the energy to ensure that you'll always be in the mood and frame-of-mind to put those ingredients into action at a moment's notice.
I know, get to the point, already!
You need to figure out how to create easy, 'low-hanging fruit' type food luxuries for yourself.
Honestly, I think the biggest challenge is just going to be finding a way to do it without carbs.
So, I'm not going to recommend any meal planning or bulk food prep extravanzas. Use the ones you have in place currently, but let's not add to it. To hell with it- you're doing what you can with those things already. Let's instead talk about what you can do to achieve your cost-cutting goals while expending the minimal amount of additional labor.
Right now, you spend ~$363.00 on groceries alone. The other ~$755.00 you're spending is used for dining out in all its various forms.
For two people, if you were to spend $363.00 on groceries, alone, in the span of one month - and then have the two of you live entirely off those groceries, without any eating out, ever! - you'd be a superstar. Because it means that you're spending about $45 per person, per week, on food. That's like ninja-level spending discipline!
You need to spend more money on ready-to-eat groceries.
My partner and I rarely dine out anymore, but we spend about $363.00 (maybe a bit less) every TWO weeks - meaning $726 a month, or double what you're spending each each month on groceries. And we're both very exhausted people with jobs and job-hours that make us go "Ugggggggh I don't wanna cook" a lot. And we waste very little food.
Look at the $755.00 you're spending on dining out. Now, take $350 of that money, and reallocate it to your grocery budget. Now you've got $363 + $350, or $713, to spend on groceries.
What to do with all of that grocery money? Well, you like luxuries, and you also like not having to deal with too much bullshit. Thanks to this increased grocery budget, you've got some money to play with. (And you're still coming in below that $800 spending target you're seeking.)
With $350, you could buy (these are examples, alter as needed based on any food preferences/tastes, food allergies, or the need to mitigate carbohydrates- though I tried my best to keep carbohydrates from dominating):
- A gigantic bulk container of quality mixed nuts- $30
- 4 packs of (6) hardboiled eggs- one pack each week - at $3-4 a pack (less depending on where you shop) - $24
- 10 cans of Amy's Organic Soups- you know, the delicious ones- which at an average of $3.50 each is $35
- More hummus- maybe those 18oz 'family size' Sabra containers, 2-4 a month, totaling $14-28
- 4 packages of Organic Aidell's Chicken Sausages, pre-cooked - $5-6 each, which is $24
- A few bags of Roasted Chickpeas - like "The Good Bean" brand ones - about $15
- A few bags of Kale Chips - about $15
- Those miniature Babybel cheeses (the 'light' kind) - maybe $21-25 for a few bags of those
- A bunch of fancy, individual sized greek yogurts, like Fage- $2 each x 20 = $40
- Avocados, bought as needed, maybe about $12-15 for eight of them over a month
...So far, that's only $251.00 (maybe like $265 once you factor in sales tax) out of the extra $350 you're reallocating from your dining-out expenses, so you've still got almost another $100 you can spend before you tap out. You could get some really tasty stuff that is easy to just, well, pick up and immediately eat. And what I've described (tastes/preferences aside- just think in terms of 'convenience' and 'not too carb-y') is a pretty decent haul on top of what you probably already buy with that other $363.
You could take the above and make all kinds of little tapa-style things. Which are fun, not unlike dining out! Mixed nuts/almonds with a babybel cheese or two, warmed chicken sausages sliced and served on toothpicks with a side of chutney, sliced avocados (perhaps with a drizzle of olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, and a sprinkling of sea salt and sesame seeds).
Maybe make it a goal to use that extra $350 in grocery money for making all kinds of fun new tapas to graze on when you're tempted to eat out.
Not a complete solution- just a suggestion for a new way of thinking and approaching it. If food and dining are one of your preferred luxuries, I'd encourage you to look into more of these yummy, ready-to-go foods when grocery shopping.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:03 PM on July 28, 2017 [37 favorites]
Best answer: So, in that sense, you’re not spending ENOUGH on groceries.
This reframing actually worked really well for me. The feeling that things are stretched thin and I have to tighten my belt is, perversely, a serious trigger for stress-spending. So if I consciously tell myself "I need to eat out less often, I can't afford to eat out this often," it has this paradoxical effect where I end up eating out more to drive the Scarcity Feels away.
If I tell myself "I need to spend more on groceries, I need to stock my pantry better" — if I can actually convince myself to go Oh crap, that's way too low, I need to do better when my grocery bill for the week comes out to less than $100 — then instead of Scarcity Feels I have nice soothing Plenty Feels and everything goes fine. But I also do then end up eating out less and saving money.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:10 PM on July 28, 2017 [9 favorites]
This reframing actually worked really well for me. The feeling that things are stretched thin and I have to tighten my belt is, perversely, a serious trigger for stress-spending. So if I consciously tell myself "I need to eat out less often, I can't afford to eat out this often," it has this paradoxical effect where I end up eating out more to drive the Scarcity Feels away.
If I tell myself "I need to spend more on groceries, I need to stock my pantry better" — if I can actually convince myself to go Oh crap, that's way too low, I need to do better when my grocery bill for the week comes out to less than $100 — then instead of Scarcity Feels I have nice soothing Plenty Feels and everything goes fine. But I also do then end up eating out less and saving money.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:10 PM on July 28, 2017 [9 favorites]
Frozen lunches for work help keep costs down, as do those flavoured single-serving cans of tuna over salad greens. YMMV, though - my partner had an issue with these specific types of processed food in the house even if he wasn't eating them, so using those as a cost-containment option wasn't an easy option for me. I don't mean to go too far off-topic here, but do remember that any changes you suggest might uncover some strong biases that your partner has about how you ought to eat, especially if it leads to you making different meal choices than they naturally would make for themselves.
posted by blerghamot at 6:52 PM on July 28, 2017
posted by blerghamot at 6:52 PM on July 28, 2017
Response by poster: These responses so far are SERIOUSLY HELPFUL. THANK YOU SO MUCH. Especially the stuff about spending more on groceries.
Another thought: I'm the person who spends relatively little on eating lunch out ($59/month). I totally agree that we could save money by cutting lunch but that is the final frontier- because person A is depressed and unhappy, and eating lunch out is a cultural norm for him (he's from another country where lunch is provided for all employees for free as a standard practice) and brings some happiness to his day. I already feel like the Evil Budget Person so.... plus I'd be the one who would make him lunch and I'm already at capacity (I work from home so can eat random scraps from the fridge)
If you have any ideas to get him on board, please do share :-)
posted by cacao at 7:00 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Another thought: I'm the person who spends relatively little on eating lunch out ($59/month). I totally agree that we could save money by cutting lunch but that is the final frontier- because person A is depressed and unhappy, and eating lunch out is a cultural norm for him (he's from another country where lunch is provided for all employees for free as a standard practice) and brings some happiness to his day. I already feel like the Evil Budget Person so.... plus I'd be the one who would make him lunch and I'm already at capacity (I work from home so can eat random scraps from the fridge)
If you have any ideas to get him on board, please do share :-)
posted by cacao at 7:00 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: So okay, trying to rein in your partner's spending is a big can of worms, but one thing that occurs to me — as a fellow mentally ill person — is that in general people won't give up their coping strategies unless they've got another coping strategy that they can switch to. Like, if buying lunch is the thing that makes your depressed partner feel happy and cared-for and worthy, or feel like he has things to look forward to in life, or whatever psychological boost he's getting out of it, then pushing him away from buying lunch is going to work less well than him moving towards other (better?) ways of getting that boost.
(And if it turns out that buying lunch is the absolute best, cheapest, most reliable way he can get that boost, then that's $200 a month well spent tbqh.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:06 PM on July 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
(And if it turns out that buying lunch is the absolute best, cheapest, most reliable way he can get that boost, then that's $200 a month well spent tbqh.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:06 PM on July 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
Best answer: More and more varied groceries. Quick things to cook that add delight and texture and flavor and variety.
I know you mentioned some health concerns, but making like, a batch of coconut macaroons together on the weekend and enjoying, really enjoying, one or two a day with your morning coffee or your after dinner cocktail. Wild rice is so nice with a piece of dish or chicken. And feel no shame about buying frozen fish at Trader Joe's. A package usually has enough for a generous meal for two plus a bonus portion. If you're loading up on veggies then you can have fish again the next night.
Cook together. I cannot say this loudly enough. Even if he's just 'sous chef' for you. Fuck, even if he's just rinsing dishes in the sink and handing you the next ingredient. For your sanity, he needs to be helping take care of your home/relationship in this way. I know you say he does other things, but feeding two people is an enormous task. It can't be overstated.
Get more convenience foods. Frozen entrees, frozen vegetables, boil in bag whole grains,
He can bring lunch once a week from leftovers. The money you save can go toward a joint goal. Alternatively, you can 'match' his monthly lunch budget on some other thing you enjoy/value, and stop the conversation from feeling like you're the budget wet blanket. You working from home does not make you less entitled to enjoy a good lunch. "Scraps" is such an emotionally loaded word, and I wish I could come over and cook you a big pot of soup and coo over you and learn some of the things you do with chicken.
And give you a blop of the nectarine cobbler I made today. I do think the two biggest things will be addi Foods you truly truly love into your home pantry, and wrangling him into helping in the kitchen. First, start by listening to why he isn't helping. (The book difficult conversations is good for this, the listening. The listening is so hard, but I think if you do it, he'll talk and you can move forward from there.)
posted by bilabial at 7:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
I know you mentioned some health concerns, but making like, a batch of coconut macaroons together on the weekend and enjoying, really enjoying, one or two a day with your morning coffee or your after dinner cocktail. Wild rice is so nice with a piece of dish or chicken. And feel no shame about buying frozen fish at Trader Joe's. A package usually has enough for a generous meal for two plus a bonus portion. If you're loading up on veggies then you can have fish again the next night.
Cook together. I cannot say this loudly enough. Even if he's just 'sous chef' for you. Fuck, even if he's just rinsing dishes in the sink and handing you the next ingredient. For your sanity, he needs to be helping take care of your home/relationship in this way. I know you say he does other things, but feeding two people is an enormous task. It can't be overstated.
Get more convenience foods. Frozen entrees, frozen vegetables, boil in bag whole grains,
He can bring lunch once a week from leftovers. The money you save can go toward a joint goal. Alternatively, you can 'match' his monthly lunch budget on some other thing you enjoy/value, and stop the conversation from feeling like you're the budget wet blanket. You working from home does not make you less entitled to enjoy a good lunch. "Scraps" is such an emotionally loaded word, and I wish I could come over and cook you a big pot of soup and coo over you and learn some of the things you do with chicken.
And give you a blop of the nectarine cobbler I made today. I do think the two biggest things will be addi Foods you truly truly love into your home pantry, and wrangling him into helping in the kitchen. First, start by listening to why he isn't helping. (The book difficult conversations is good for this, the listening. The listening is so hard, but I think if you do it, he'll talk and you can move forward from there.)
posted by bilabial at 7:14 PM on July 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Honestly, I don't make a lunch, I bring lunch fixings on Monday, leave them in the fridge and then make sandwiches and stuff all week. I include treats - would treats help your depressed partner? They could also still leave the office with their fixed lunch and find somewhere nice to eat or take a walk.
Your lunch budget is really high, if you can figure a way out of it, that would help a lot.
As for groceries - do you already coupon and buy in bulk? Is there a grocery outlet near you?
posted by Toddles at 7:18 PM on July 28, 2017
Your lunch budget is really high, if you can figure a way out of it, that would help a lot.
As for groceries - do you already coupon and buy in bulk? Is there a grocery outlet near you?
posted by Toddles at 7:18 PM on July 28, 2017
Honestly, I don't make a lunch, I bring lunch fixings on Monday, leave them in the fridge and then make sandwiches and stuff all week.
Some people where I work do this. It's not my preferred approach, but it works for them and sometimes I see them putting together some pretty fine lunches. The point being, don't be afraid to experiment to find out what will work for you.
You may have already done this math, but the fundamental problem here is that you are eating about 40 percent of your meals out, but those are consuming almost 70 percent of your food budget. As someone else noted, you could double your grocery budget and still be under what you are spending eating out.
For the eating out, maybe attack the low hanging fruit first. A lot of people have focused on the lunches, but that's not where the bulk of your spending is happening. Mostly it's you guys eating out together (and sometimes treating a friend). I'd solve that before I worried about the work lunches, honestly.
And for those dinners together, it sounds like you know what the answer is -- to have more ready-to-go food available at home. In addition to the cooking-ahead ideas (which you already do, though maybe not enough to meet your needs), maybe give yourself permission to buy more prepared or easy-to-make food. You can go pretty upmarket on the prepared foods without coming close to the cost of meal out.
Then, once you have dinners under control, take a look at work lunches, but definitely be aware that some workplaces have more of a culture of going out and it can sometimes be the smart thing to go along, and it can be a nice break from sitting at your desk (or being alone at home, if you are the one working from home).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:40 PM on July 28, 2017
Some people where I work do this. It's not my preferred approach, but it works for them and sometimes I see them putting together some pretty fine lunches. The point being, don't be afraid to experiment to find out what will work for you.
You may have already done this math, but the fundamental problem here is that you are eating about 40 percent of your meals out, but those are consuming almost 70 percent of your food budget. As someone else noted, you could double your grocery budget and still be under what you are spending eating out.
For the eating out, maybe attack the low hanging fruit first. A lot of people have focused on the lunches, but that's not where the bulk of your spending is happening. Mostly it's you guys eating out together (and sometimes treating a friend). I'd solve that before I worried about the work lunches, honestly.
And for those dinners together, it sounds like you know what the answer is -- to have more ready-to-go food available at home. In addition to the cooking-ahead ideas (which you already do, though maybe not enough to meet your needs), maybe give yourself permission to buy more prepared or easy-to-make food. You can go pretty upmarket on the prepared foods without coming close to the cost of meal out.
Then, once you have dinners under control, take a look at work lunches, but definitely be aware that some workplaces have more of a culture of going out and it can sometimes be the smart thing to go along, and it can be a nice break from sitting at your desk (or being alone at home, if you are the one working from home).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:40 PM on July 28, 2017
Best answer: Stop treating people. Really, there's no need.
I found that in my household budgeting, it was important to distinguish between money spent "dining out" - which is an intentional, fun, entertainment/hobby activity for me and my husband and/or freinds - and "meals away from home," to use the IRS language, which mostly represents lunches and dinners eaten out only because we were too lazy or unorganized to plan ahead and pack something or prepare something.
This distinction is meaningful. Obviously Dining Out is important to you and can legitimately occupy a lot of your disposable budget. But Meals Away From Home? UNless they're working lunches/dinners and thus deductible, that amount should represent something you can cut dramatically. Consider every non-deductible dollar that shows up in your expense reccord under Meals Away as a mark of shame, and start focusing on how to reduce it. But leave Dining Out alone. It's your hobby.
posted by Miko at 8:07 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
I found that in my household budgeting, it was important to distinguish between money spent "dining out" - which is an intentional, fun, entertainment/hobby activity for me and my husband and/or freinds - and "meals away from home," to use the IRS language, which mostly represents lunches and dinners eaten out only because we were too lazy or unorganized to plan ahead and pack something or prepare something.
This distinction is meaningful. Obviously Dining Out is important to you and can legitimately occupy a lot of your disposable budget. But Meals Away From Home? UNless they're working lunches/dinners and thus deductible, that amount should represent something you can cut dramatically. Consider every non-deductible dollar that shows up in your expense reccord under Meals Away as a mark of shame, and start focusing on how to reduce it. But leave Dining Out alone. It's your hobby.
posted by Miko at 8:07 PM on July 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
we live in a much lower cost of living area, but so far this month we've spent 571 on groceries, 165 on restaurants. it seems like way too much to me too. the main thing i do to avoid restaurants is to pack a lunch before going to bed at night, and if i don't bring a lunch i sometimes run to the grocery store and get a few frozen dinners so that way i have one for today, and for next time i forget my lunch. similarly, if we get home from work and there's no dinner and no dinner plans it's something like premade grocery store deli dinner, rotisserie chicken, pizza. i try to think in terms of something we can buy premade, that will make more than one meal, so then there are leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. i keep frozen edamame and bowl of hard boiled eggs in the fridge for snacks that can be a meal if i want them to be. crackers, lunchmeat, good cheese. basically i know that coming home from work, maybe going to the grocery store, and then cooking is not happening, so dinner is cooked at home on nights my husband is home earlier, or sundays, or after we eat takeout dinner/snack dinner i cook something that can be tomorrow's lunches. i basically don't cook anything that will just be one meal for the two of us. i'm the meal planner and i try to think about tomorrow's dinner today so meat moved from freezer to fridge the night before. i have a two week calendar where i try to fill in when would be good evenings for cooking at home, and what we can make on those days, and then we use the ourgroceries app to keep a joint list so whoever goes to the store gets those things. some weeks nothing gets put on the calendar, but i try.
anyway, we don't do a lot of eating out with friends. if that's something you do for fun, it should go in your entertainment budget in my opinion. and if it really makes your husband happy to eat lunch out, i don't think that's a problem. i guess i would just look at the spending in terms of what meals are making you happy, and what ones are just keeping you from being hungry, and try to economize on the latter meals. but also if you can afford it and it's healthier just go for it! that is what i tell myself when i buy the precut tub of pineapple.
posted by katieanne at 8:29 PM on July 28, 2017
anyway, we don't do a lot of eating out with friends. if that's something you do for fun, it should go in your entertainment budget in my opinion. and if it really makes your husband happy to eat lunch out, i don't think that's a problem. i guess i would just look at the spending in terms of what meals are making you happy, and what ones are just keeping you from being hungry, and try to economize on the latter meals. but also if you can afford it and it's healthier just go for it! that is what i tell myself when i buy the precut tub of pineapple.
posted by katieanne at 8:29 PM on July 28, 2017
Sounds like I might be kind of like your partner. If he's amenable to changing his lunch habits, I would implement the strategy you mentioned of going out for coffee/snacks instead of a whole meal. I like to bring a packed lunch to work (perhaps a smaller portion than a full lunch), eat that, then step outside and pick up a coffee or a cookie or something. Still satisfies my urge to get out of the office and find something tasty, but for maybe $3-4 instead of $10-15. Another thing I enjoy is getting some sort of fancy grocery/farmers' market snacks to stash at work, like yogurt and super artisanal granola so I can feel deluxe but still be relatively cheap. I do basically subscribe to nebulawindphone's theory above though--if getting lunch out keeps me sane, it's a bargain. (This week I couldn't leave the office for lunch at all and I was so miserable, so I definitely think doing so benefits me.)*
Also on the note of changing your partner's behavior: has he had his job for long? I find that my desire to spend money on lunch has diminished a bit as time has gone by since it's just the same overpriced stuff day in and day out. (When I worked in Chinatown, that was a different story; but lunch was also generally substantially cheaper.)
Good luck and good eating!
*Please note, my partner makes lunches for me, which helps. Also, it doesn't sound that unreasonable to this urban dweller that your partner's spending ~$100 more than you on lunch if you're at home and have the cost advantage of snacking from your fridge, though of course cutting costs is always good.
posted by ferret branca at 8:59 PM on July 28, 2017
Also on the note of changing your partner's behavior: has he had his job for long? I find that my desire to spend money on lunch has diminished a bit as time has gone by since it's just the same overpriced stuff day in and day out. (When I worked in Chinatown, that was a different story; but lunch was also generally substantially cheaper.)
Good luck and good eating!
*Please note, my partner makes lunches for me, which helps. Also, it doesn't sound that unreasonable to this urban dweller that your partner's spending ~$100 more than you on lunch if you're at home and have the cost advantage of snacking from your fridge, though of course cutting costs is always good.
posted by ferret branca at 8:59 PM on July 28, 2017
A few things that have helped us a lot. Some of these needed a month or two to fully get in the habit, but I can tell you that I never thought I could do some of them and did manage to do it:
- plan out 4 easy, relatively healthy weeknight meals. One night a week is our restaurant dinner night. On weekends we will cook something a little more intensive or comfort-foody (like pot roast) so we can eat Saturday/Sunday.
- figure out a pre-set list of SUPER easy items you can make/pack for work lunch and stick to it. This was the hardest for me. I am too lazy to pack a lunch even the night before. I never will. So in the morning I take less than ten minutes to pack a sandwich, fruit, yogurt, nuts, cheese, crackers or chips. I pick from a small list. If there are leftovers I eat them, but I don't rely on making enough dinner for that. Agreed 1000% that buying pre-packaged chips, nuts, etc at the store is TOTALLY worth the cost if that keeps you from eating takeout every day.
- on the weekend, decide on and make a batch of work breakfasts for the week. Lots of grab and go baked eggs in a muffin cup recipes online. Or healthy muffins. Again, something you can make in an hour or less and have breakfast all week. I highly recommend the egg cups if you don't want to eat carb-heavy breakfasts.
-re dinners, we very often will only make an entree. I grew up thinking you had to have one, maybe even two side dishes with meals. You really don't if that's not your thing. If it's easier to make a big, healthy entree and just eat enough to make you full, that's fine! We make delicious veg sandwiches sometimes and make three to split. 1.5 each is enough for a full meal and then we don't have to bother thinking what else to make with them.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:07 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
- plan out 4 easy, relatively healthy weeknight meals. One night a week is our restaurant dinner night. On weekends we will cook something a little more intensive or comfort-foody (like pot roast) so we can eat Saturday/Sunday.
- figure out a pre-set list of SUPER easy items you can make/pack for work lunch and stick to it. This was the hardest for me. I am too lazy to pack a lunch even the night before. I never will. So in the morning I take less than ten minutes to pack a sandwich, fruit, yogurt, nuts, cheese, crackers or chips. I pick from a small list. If there are leftovers I eat them, but I don't rely on making enough dinner for that. Agreed 1000% that buying pre-packaged chips, nuts, etc at the store is TOTALLY worth the cost if that keeps you from eating takeout every day.
- on the weekend, decide on and make a batch of work breakfasts for the week. Lots of grab and go baked eggs in a muffin cup recipes online. Or healthy muffins. Again, something you can make in an hour or less and have breakfast all week. I highly recommend the egg cups if you don't want to eat carb-heavy breakfasts.
-re dinners, we very often will only make an entree. I grew up thinking you had to have one, maybe even two side dishes with meals. You really don't if that's not your thing. If it's easier to make a big, healthy entree and just eat enough to make you full, that's fine! We make delicious veg sandwiches sometimes and make three to split. 1.5 each is enough for a full meal and then we don't have to bother thinking what else to make with them.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:07 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Another line of attack could be cheaper meats. In addition to the nicest cuts for $5-$6 per pound, it struck me that you could incorporate more stuff in the $.99-$3.99 range. It may not be free range and organic, but neither is the meat you're eating in restaurants if you think about it, so eh, maybe worth a compromise.
posted by benadryl at 10:31 PM on July 28, 2017
posted by benadryl at 10:31 PM on July 28, 2017
Best answer: Think hard about your priorities.
You say A comes from a culture where lunch is a normal daily expense. Is that a priority or can you move it down on the list?
You treat friends sometimes. Do you like being the friend who's happy to treat? Do you need to step back and let them treat you sometimes? Do you need to treat a little bit less, not because it's a competition but because you're treating more often than your guest?
If buying lunch isn't important to B can they bring lunch from home?
In my experience living in a big city with foodie tendencies and a partner who shared them, food was one of our shared priorities whether we mixed our money or not.
Eating out is our primary form of entertainment and enjoyable time spent together.
That sounds like it's a top priority!
posted by bendy at 10:34 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
You say A comes from a culture where lunch is a normal daily expense. Is that a priority or can you move it down on the list?
You treat friends sometimes. Do you like being the friend who's happy to treat? Do you need to step back and let them treat you sometimes? Do you need to treat a little bit less, not because it's a competition but because you're treating more often than your guest?
If buying lunch isn't important to B can they bring lunch from home?
In my experience living in a big city with foodie tendencies and a partner who shared them, food was one of our shared priorities whether we mixed our money or not.
Eating out is our primary form of entertainment and enjoyable time spent together.
That sounds like it's a top priority!
posted by bendy at 10:34 PM on July 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I agree with OrangeDisk in suggestions and the advice about incremental changes. Go big. Dive right in to the change. If you're both truly committed that is. Maybe try the Whole30. We did this in June and it wasn't nearly as difficult as it may sound. In a nutshell: no dairy, no grains, no sugar, no alcohol, no legumes, no preservatives. The approach is worth reading about. The effects too, are impressive. It wasn't nearly as difficult as we imagined. A big thing that it did was make mealtimes more deliberate. We had to plan or we'd struggle. We always had meats and nuts and produce on hand. Avocados figured prominently. It's amazing how many super greens you go through when you aren't eating grains. We each also happened to lose about 10 pounds, which was not the point, but welcome! We felt more even energy throughout the days, skin softer, sleep more sound. Snacked less. Anyway, off topic! Point is: having to be deliberate about every meal forces planning. It also means you're really limited if you eat out...so you just tend not to. You focus on lots more veggies and variety and expanding your repertoire.
This flies hard in the face of eating out being priority fun so YMMV.
Maybe in line with your comment about new hobbies, why not make a couple of great cups of coffee and start a tradition of strolling the 'hood with your coffee, rather than going out and paying for it?
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 1:24 AM on July 29, 2017
This flies hard in the face of eating out being priority fun so YMMV.
Maybe in line with your comment about new hobbies, why not make a couple of great cups of coffee and start a tradition of strolling the 'hood with your coffee, rather than going out and paying for it?
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 1:24 AM on July 29, 2017
Another person who is probably like your husband here. I'm in another country, and to me eating something from a bag or box on a park bench or at my desk is not eating, just snacking. I hate packed lunches, and that in spite of the fact that everyone in my family says I make the best (I think those two things are related). I hate the food, but specially I feel it is very necessary to take a break from work in the middle of the day, and do something nice and civilized with my colleagues. At my last job we had a lunchroom which was nicely decorated and friendly with a huge round table, and it was great because that meant I could get some really cheap take-out and bring it to that table on time and we'd all be having a great time there. It wasn't as much about the food as about the atmosphere. Now the lunchroom is more clinical and there is no culture of eating together as a group, so I am more tempted to go to a cafeteria or restaurant with one or two colleagues. For me it would be a huge loss to be "forced" to bring food from home and eat it in a place with less than nice atmosphere.
That aside, a well-stocked pantry is key to saving money on food. Apart from all the other good reasons for a more plant-based diet, legumes are a food that is OK from cans. I always have lots of cans of lentils and chickpeas, because I like those the best, but beans are fine too. With an onion, a carrot and some herbs, you can make a very fine vegan stew with a can of legumes in less than 15 minutes. You can add garlic, chili, tomatoes, or curry or leftover scraps of meat or potatoes or…
Same with your freezer: some store bought organic things freeze well and thaw fast, like spinach, peas, corn, soups and broths, make sure you always have those in there for fast meals when you get home late. I'm not a huge fan of cut vegetables from the freezer, but they work for a strongish curry and curry paste and coconut milk are things I always have ready. Fish and shellfish thaw fast as well and go well in a curry, I prefer turning frozen fish into fishballs/quenelles, but then it is already a bit more of a project. In the fridge, you need butter, cream cheese, citrus fruits, carrots and other basic vegs in the crisper, bacon, some sort of salumi, eggs, maybe milk. (A pantry recipe I haven't tried for a while but used to make very often: in a large pan, put a lot of frozen spinach in the bottom. Add a little water and half a box of cream cheese cut into cubes, some salt, pepper and nutmeg. Meanwhile, put a packet of thawed fish in the food processor with salt and whizz it to the desired consistency, which is sticky; now add a tbsp of flour, an egg and pepper. Add a bit of milk or cream for a smoother dough. Start the pan and stir the spinach, water and cheese till there are no or few lumps of cheese and the spinach is somewhat thawed, now form the fish dough into quenelles and put them on top of the spinach/cheese mix, but a lid on it all and steam it at a low/medium till the quenelles are done and the spinach is creamy. Decorate with halved cherry tomatoes. It is easy and fast but not 15 minutes. The quenelles can be supplemented or substituted with shellfish, scallops are really good in this).
All of the above are cheap products that are available as organic. They are not as good as cooking from fresh produce but they are healthier to eat than going out is and maybe even similar to the quality of food in restaurants, depending on where you dine. This doesn't replace any of your normal cooking from scratch, it replaces maybe half of the times you go out in the evening.
If the reason you invite people out so often is that it seems daunting to entertain at home, remember: you are not my mother who is 80 and who believes guests need multi-course meals and neatly ironed napkins so she has ended up never seeing anyone. There are no such rules. People are there to have a good time and see you. Even though I love to make a lot of food and set a nice table, the same people who come here for splendid dinners are just as happy to come for pizza and beers another day. Put all the mess in the bedroom and close the door. Ask the guests to bring snacks or dessert.
posted by mumimor at 4:29 AM on July 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
That aside, a well-stocked pantry is key to saving money on food. Apart from all the other good reasons for a more plant-based diet, legumes are a food that is OK from cans. I always have lots of cans of lentils and chickpeas, because I like those the best, but beans are fine too. With an onion, a carrot and some herbs, you can make a very fine vegan stew with a can of legumes in less than 15 minutes. You can add garlic, chili, tomatoes, or curry or leftover scraps of meat or potatoes or…
Same with your freezer: some store bought organic things freeze well and thaw fast, like spinach, peas, corn, soups and broths, make sure you always have those in there for fast meals when you get home late. I'm not a huge fan of cut vegetables from the freezer, but they work for a strongish curry and curry paste and coconut milk are things I always have ready. Fish and shellfish thaw fast as well and go well in a curry, I prefer turning frozen fish into fishballs/quenelles, but then it is already a bit more of a project. In the fridge, you need butter, cream cheese, citrus fruits, carrots and other basic vegs in the crisper, bacon, some sort of salumi, eggs, maybe milk. (A pantry recipe I haven't tried for a while but used to make very often: in a large pan, put a lot of frozen spinach in the bottom. Add a little water and half a box of cream cheese cut into cubes, some salt, pepper and nutmeg. Meanwhile, put a packet of thawed fish in the food processor with salt and whizz it to the desired consistency, which is sticky; now add a tbsp of flour, an egg and pepper. Add a bit of milk or cream for a smoother dough. Start the pan and stir the spinach, water and cheese till there are no or few lumps of cheese and the spinach is somewhat thawed, now form the fish dough into quenelles and put them on top of the spinach/cheese mix, but a lid on it all and steam it at a low/medium till the quenelles are done and the spinach is creamy. Decorate with halved cherry tomatoes. It is easy and fast but not 15 minutes. The quenelles can be supplemented or substituted with shellfish, scallops are really good in this).
All of the above are cheap products that are available as organic. They are not as good as cooking from fresh produce but they are healthier to eat than going out is and maybe even similar to the quality of food in restaurants, depending on where you dine. This doesn't replace any of your normal cooking from scratch, it replaces maybe half of the times you go out in the evening.
If the reason you invite people out so often is that it seems daunting to entertain at home, remember: you are not my mother who is 80 and who believes guests need multi-course meals and neatly ironed napkins so she has ended up never seeing anyone. There are no such rules. People are there to have a good time and see you. Even though I love to make a lot of food and set a nice table, the same people who come here for splendid dinners are just as happy to come for pizza and beers another day. Put all the mess in the bedroom and close the door. Ask the guests to bring snacks or dessert.
posted by mumimor at 4:29 AM on July 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I think someone else already said this, but, I note you like cooking and take pride in scratch-cooked meals. That's great, but - at least for me - when I was working a very demanding job, sticking to this ethos meant that there was rarely food ready-to-eat in the house, because it takes a lot of planning and labor to turn scratch ingredients into something tasty that can be grabbed and eaten when you're hungry and tired and maybe stressed. And when you're in that state, you're not going to take an hour to make a home-cooked meal. You're going to go out and blow $50 at least.
What I'm suggesting is to think about how to have stuff at home that is EASY and tasty and nutritious, even if it's not quite as cheap or perfectly healthy as from-scratch. For example, Trader Joe's sells pretty darn good "wraps" with various meaty fillings that come with dipping sauce. They cost, what, $4? Something like that. If you have some of those in the fridge, then on those nights when you'd ordinarily go out because you're too tired to cook, then you have something ready-made and tasty, and you've spent $8 between you instead of $50.
That's just an example. Amy's sells a whole line of prepared foods that people seem to like. Trader Joe's sells a whole bunch of stuff that is designed to fit exactly this niche: home-style, prepared entrees that feed 2 or 3. Again, you may look at the $6 thing of meatloaf and the $5 thing of creamed spinach and think "but it's so much cheaper to make at home!" Theoretically it is, but it's the question of time and energy, and if you can get a meal on the table at home for $11, and spend another $7 on a drinkable bottle of wine, and have a picnic on the living room floor together while watching a show you like together, you've saved a lot of money and calories and still had a nice mealtime together.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:18 AM on July 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
What I'm suggesting is to think about how to have stuff at home that is EASY and tasty and nutritious, even if it's not quite as cheap or perfectly healthy as from-scratch. For example, Trader Joe's sells pretty darn good "wraps" with various meaty fillings that come with dipping sauce. They cost, what, $4? Something like that. If you have some of those in the fridge, then on those nights when you'd ordinarily go out because you're too tired to cook, then you have something ready-made and tasty, and you've spent $8 between you instead of $50.
That's just an example. Amy's sells a whole line of prepared foods that people seem to like. Trader Joe's sells a whole bunch of stuff that is designed to fit exactly this niche: home-style, prepared entrees that feed 2 or 3. Again, you may look at the $6 thing of meatloaf and the $5 thing of creamed spinach and think "but it's so much cheaper to make at home!" Theoretically it is, but it's the question of time and energy, and if you can get a meal on the table at home for $11, and spend another $7 on a drinkable bottle of wine, and have a picnic on the living room floor together while watching a show you like together, you've saved a lot of money and calories and still had a nice mealtime together.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:18 AM on July 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
I completely feel your pain. My budget is smaller than yours, but I have literally spent my last dollar on mediocre sushi or a B+ bagel just because the eating out experience is really important to me and boosts my mood.
Since you have some money to play with, have you tried getting special exciting groceries for lunch only? Baguette, pates, cheeses, whatever turns you on? These are expensive as groceries go, but still cheaper than eating out.
posted by 8603 at 8:05 AM on July 29, 2017
Since you have some money to play with, have you tried getting special exciting groceries for lunch only? Baguette, pates, cheeses, whatever turns you on? These are expensive as groceries go, but still cheaper than eating out.
posted by 8603 at 8:05 AM on July 29, 2017
One MORE comment (can you tell this is a thing I have thought a lot about) -- re the SO's lunches.
So, I had this issue as well, where I looked at the amount my partner was spending on lunch with his work buddies, and was like I SEE FAT, LET'S TRIM IT. But when I started digging into it, I realized that these lunches were actually an important part of my husband's earning.
(1) He works very hard and often long hours at a stressful job, and the pleasure of a delicious lunch with friends, every day, away from the office, is part of what makes him able to stand it long term. (2) The friendships that he's cultivating with other folks in the company who come on these group lunches have a tangible benefit in terms of his network. If my husband got laid off tomorrow, he'd almost certainly be able to find another role at the company, based on the relationships he has with the guys in his lunch buddy group. If he were to pack his lunches and eat by himself, he would be giving up that benefit and it would be a pennywise pound foolish choice.
So that reframed his pricy lunches for me as a sort of insurance, investing both his long term happiness and his employability, and I was able to let go of my "grrr" on that part of the food spend.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:05 AM on July 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
So, I had this issue as well, where I looked at the amount my partner was spending on lunch with his work buddies, and was like I SEE FAT, LET'S TRIM IT. But when I started digging into it, I realized that these lunches were actually an important part of my husband's earning.
(1) He works very hard and often long hours at a stressful job, and the pleasure of a delicious lunch with friends, every day, away from the office, is part of what makes him able to stand it long term. (2) The friendships that he's cultivating with other folks in the company who come on these group lunches have a tangible benefit in terms of his network. If my husband got laid off tomorrow, he'd almost certainly be able to find another role at the company, based on the relationships he has with the guys in his lunch buddy group. If he were to pack his lunches and eat by himself, he would be giving up that benefit and it would be a pennywise pound foolish choice.
So that reframed his pricy lunches for me as a sort of insurance, investing both his long term happiness and his employability, and I was able to let go of my "grrr" on that part of the food spend.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:05 AM on July 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Oh man I have so many thoughts and feelings because I spend so much time thinking about food. But I will restrict myself to this:
I mostly buy and cook good quality meats (costing about $5-6/pound) and vegetables though. We buy about 15 pounds of meat a month (10 pounds chicken, 5 pounds beef), some cheese and milk, some hummus, lots of frozen vegetables, some fruit, and some bread or pasta.
For two people, this does not sound like nearly enough groceries. I know it feels horrible to waste food, and you seem to take pride in how little you do, but from a financial perspective it makes sense to take more risk in that area. Like, allocate $20 a month (or whatever amount) to an extra beef roast that you might or might not cook before it goes bad. If it has a 50/50 chance of saving you from eating out just one night, you'll come out ahead. And if you're spending $1100 a month on food, you can probably afford to risk $20 on much worse odds.
I have blood sugar issues so adding lots of cheap bread and pasta to my diet is something I do sometimes to try to bring our bill down but then I always end up gaining weight and feeling bad.
Have you tried pulses? Beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas. They're cheap, shelf-stable, easy to prepare in bulk, and the combination of complex carbs and fiber means they're quite good for diabetic and pre-diabetic people. Try split pea or lentil soup to start, or a kale and white bean soup with Parmesan rinds. Black or pinto beans in a taco bowl? A chopped salad with falafel, hummus, and tzatziki on top? Ful is super easy to load into a slow-cooker in the morning (or night before) and plate at dinner-time.
I realize we spoil ourselves, and are privileged losers in this respect.
This will be easier if you worry about this aspect less. As someone who would budget more like $120 to feed himself for a month, it really didn't occur to me to think of you that way at all. It's not even clear to me from your question why you care about reducing your spending in this regard. You don't say that it's any financial strain, and I don't know of any papal bull setting a dollar-amount threshold beyond which buying food becomes a sin.
posted by d. z. wang at 11:24 AM on July 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
I mostly buy and cook good quality meats (costing about $5-6/pound) and vegetables though. We buy about 15 pounds of meat a month (10 pounds chicken, 5 pounds beef), some cheese and milk, some hummus, lots of frozen vegetables, some fruit, and some bread or pasta.
For two people, this does not sound like nearly enough groceries. I know it feels horrible to waste food, and you seem to take pride in how little you do, but from a financial perspective it makes sense to take more risk in that area. Like, allocate $20 a month (or whatever amount) to an extra beef roast that you might or might not cook before it goes bad. If it has a 50/50 chance of saving you from eating out just one night, you'll come out ahead. And if you're spending $1100 a month on food, you can probably afford to risk $20 on much worse odds.
I have blood sugar issues so adding lots of cheap bread and pasta to my diet is something I do sometimes to try to bring our bill down but then I always end up gaining weight and feeling bad.
Have you tried pulses? Beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas. They're cheap, shelf-stable, easy to prepare in bulk, and the combination of complex carbs and fiber means they're quite good for diabetic and pre-diabetic people. Try split pea or lentil soup to start, or a kale and white bean soup with Parmesan rinds. Black or pinto beans in a taco bowl? A chopped salad with falafel, hummus, and tzatziki on top? Ful is super easy to load into a slow-cooker in the morning (or night before) and plate at dinner-time.
I realize we spoil ourselves, and are privileged losers in this respect.
This will be easier if you worry about this aspect less. As someone who would budget more like $120 to feed himself for a month, it really didn't occur to me to think of you that way at all. It's not even clear to me from your question why you care about reducing your spending in this regard. You don't say that it's any financial strain, and I don't know of any papal bull setting a dollar-amount threshold beyond which buying food becomes a sin.
posted by d. z. wang at 11:24 AM on July 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
What are you looking for in the restaurants you go out for and in treating friends? Is that meal out with friends really part food budget and part entertainment budget? Is there a desire to be able to be generous / extravagant / hospitable when you're hosting a friend, and so putting some more buget toward that is important to you and you need to preserve that over your dinners out together?
The lunches don't seem crazy to me - if I assume he's eating out every work day, that's only $7/day and doesn't consume any groceries.
But even if I assume he's eating out every work day, that's 22 meals out by him and another almost 50 dinners out for the two of you together. So 25 dinners out together, in a 30-day month. Even by your 1.2 meals per person number, you're both eating out once every day on average. So dinner out is absolutely where I'd start looking for low-hanging fruit. If you're eating out because you're tired, can you have a quick list of cheap restaurants that are more like $10/pp than $20 - falafel, cheap Thai, Subway, soup and a roast chicken from the grocery store, salad from Panera?
This is how I would be looking at it, anyway. Also at trying to find more things I could have in the fridge that would satisfy my desire for something nice and delicious and low-effort; the psychological tip to look at it as buying more/better groceries is a good one, in my opinion.
You could also try to find a cheaper place to get some of your groceries. Changing from a mega-mart to buying my groceries at a cheap produce market improved my eating/cooking habits a lot - and buying pounds of cheap fruits and vegetables more or less on impulse (look, organic apples, $0.70 a pound!) leads me to thoughts like, "I can't eat out, I have four pounds of apples and a bunch of chard and half a dozen bell peppers that will go bad if I don't eat them!" And if you're not throwing away lots of groceries, then you just might have a similar mindset.
posted by Lady Li at 11:37 AM on July 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
The lunches don't seem crazy to me - if I assume he's eating out every work day, that's only $7/day and doesn't consume any groceries.
But even if I assume he's eating out every work day, that's 22 meals out by him and another almost 50 dinners out for the two of you together. So 25 dinners out together, in a 30-day month. Even by your 1.2 meals per person number, you're both eating out once every day on average. So dinner out is absolutely where I'd start looking for low-hanging fruit. If you're eating out because you're tired, can you have a quick list of cheap restaurants that are more like $10/pp than $20 - falafel, cheap Thai, Subway, soup and a roast chicken from the grocery store, salad from Panera?
This is how I would be looking at it, anyway. Also at trying to find more things I could have in the fridge that would satisfy my desire for something nice and delicious and low-effort; the psychological tip to look at it as buying more/better groceries is a good one, in my opinion.
You could also try to find a cheaper place to get some of your groceries. Changing from a mega-mart to buying my groceries at a cheap produce market improved my eating/cooking habits a lot - and buying pounds of cheap fruits and vegetables more or less on impulse (look, organic apples, $0.70 a pound!) leads me to thoughts like, "I can't eat out, I have four pounds of apples and a bunch of chard and half a dozen bell peppers that will go bad if I don't eat them!" And if you're not throwing away lots of groceries, then you just might have a similar mindset.
posted by Lady Li at 11:37 AM on July 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh also let me second frozen fish fillets. Those are my favorite thing right now. Frozen fish fillet, butter, lemon juice, capers - stylish and flavorful dinner in fifteen or twenty minutes.
posted by Lady Li at 11:37 AM on July 29, 2017
posted by Lady Li at 11:37 AM on July 29, 2017
Restaurant meals are often quite large. Order 1 entree and 2 salads. Bonus: fewer calories. Make tasty meals and freeze lunch portions. Large pot of chili is 1 dinner and 6 frozen lunches. I do this with soups and stews, esp. in the cooler months. I try to have tortillas and fillings on hand. Make a bowl of tuna salad, then make a lunch of tuna and arugula wraps. Or mashed black beans, cheese, sweet potato, salsa, cabbage (buy pre-shredded). Many fillings also work as sandwiches, but wraps are easy and flexible. Are you motivated by saving money towards a goal? On any day you spend a lot less, write an amount on the calendar, and at the end of the month, put the balance towards the house savings account, or give to a charity. For me, it was all about paying down my credit cards, and about developing a habit of making lunches. In a year and a half, I ate out only a few times. Once when I had no time because I had to do a task at lunch, another time, I forgot the lunch that was in my fridge. After that, I learned to keep a can of Trader Joe's Dolmas in my desk.
posted by theora55 at 12:04 PM on July 29, 2017
posted by theora55 at 12:04 PM on July 29, 2017
People on this site turned me on to Budget Bytes, and it is amazing. Saving me money on food and the recipes are delicious.
posted by poppunkcat at 12:25 PM on July 29, 2017
posted by poppunkcat at 12:25 PM on July 29, 2017
Response by poster: ok, here's the real deep dive into the numbers, inspired by realizing that I need to spend more on groceries. So I have to confess- for the last year or so, I've been getting groceries delivered. I used similar logic to that many of you suggested- that spending a little bit more on delivery at least means that there is non-restaurant food around to eat. But because there's a charge for it, I was doing one large grocery order a month plus walking by a grocery store and picking up a few items a couple of times for the rest of the month. I have a whole system going- lots of meat, vegetables, milk and cheese in the freezer; a couple loaves of store-bought bread but ingredients to make homemade bread, etc. It's been kind of crazy. Basically I don't have weekday access to a car (and on weekends I give in to my extreme driving phobia) and the nearest grocery store is a mile away- so I walk there sometimes, but can't buy from there in bulk.
So I did some analysis to understand how much more I eat out within 1 week after my crazy shopping order, and within 2 weeks after my crazy shopping order. It made me realize that two weeks after my crazy shopping order, my eating out has upticked a lot. However, for the one week after my crazy shopping order, I eat out only half as much. Maybe you'll understand my crazy chart:
Actual 29 days food expenditure; two weeks after buying groceries, % of whole month expenditure, normalized to 29 days, normalized to 29 days / actual 29 days food expenditure; one week after buying groceries, % of whole month expenditure, normalized to 29 days; normalized to 29 days / actual 29 days food expenditure.
Groceries: 363; 136 37% 282 78%; 30 8% 124 34%
Person A eating out (usually lunch during working day): 155; 93 60% 193 125%; 57 37% 236 152%
Person B eating out (usually lunch during working day): 59; 43 73% 89 151%; 18 31% 75 127%
Person B eating out and treating a friend: 41; 28 73% 58 141%; 0 0% 0 0%
Person A & B eating out together: $318; 140 44% 290 91%; 36 11% 149 47%
Person A & B eating out together and treating a friend: 182; 84 46% 174 96%; 30 16% 124 68%
So thank you so much for helping me figure out how to move forward! I'm going to:
-spend a lot more on groceries, and maybe order groceries once a week, but definitely twice a month instead of just once
-Buy a lot more ready made food. I just got some this morning to try out your suggestions, and I found myself getting high carb stuff because it's cheaper- macaroni and cheese, burritos. And the carbs are way too high and the food doesn't taste that great (it was organic, not just the cheapest brand, but in line with the comments on values- really good food is important to me). I think TJ's has some great ready made stuff that is more affordable, so I'll check that out as an alternative
-Do other stuff with him, besides eating out. We've been wanting to try squash lessons, and there are free salsa lessons close by too. Make an entertainment budget of $100 (right now we don't have one outside of the food...LOL)
-Not treat friends anymore at restaurants, but have them over for homemade dinners instead, something a lot of people in the city seem to value more anyway
The reason I'm suddenly spinning out about this is because I tried for many months to reduce the bill with limited success...and we just took on a mortgage that makes my head spin. So yea. City life.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME MOVE FORWARD :-) internet hugs to all
posted by cacao at 2:13 PM on July 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
So I did some analysis to understand how much more I eat out within 1 week after my crazy shopping order, and within 2 weeks after my crazy shopping order. It made me realize that two weeks after my crazy shopping order, my eating out has upticked a lot. However, for the one week after my crazy shopping order, I eat out only half as much. Maybe you'll understand my crazy chart:
Actual 29 days food expenditure; two weeks after buying groceries, % of whole month expenditure, normalized to 29 days, normalized to 29 days / actual 29 days food expenditure; one week after buying groceries, % of whole month expenditure, normalized to 29 days; normalized to 29 days / actual 29 days food expenditure.
Groceries: 363; 136 37% 282 78%; 30 8% 124 34%
Person A eating out (usually lunch during working day): 155; 93 60% 193 125%; 57 37% 236 152%
Person B eating out (usually lunch during working day): 59; 43 73% 89 151%; 18 31% 75 127%
Person B eating out and treating a friend: 41; 28 73% 58 141%; 0 0% 0 0%
Person A & B eating out together: $318; 140 44% 290 91%; 36 11% 149 47%
Person A & B eating out together and treating a friend: 182; 84 46% 174 96%; 30 16% 124 68%
So thank you so much for helping me figure out how to move forward! I'm going to:
-spend a lot more on groceries, and maybe order groceries once a week, but definitely twice a month instead of just once
-Buy a lot more ready made food. I just got some this morning to try out your suggestions, and I found myself getting high carb stuff because it's cheaper- macaroni and cheese, burritos. And the carbs are way too high and the food doesn't taste that great (it was organic, not just the cheapest brand, but in line with the comments on values- really good food is important to me). I think TJ's has some great ready made stuff that is more affordable, so I'll check that out as an alternative
-Do other stuff with him, besides eating out. We've been wanting to try squash lessons, and there are free salsa lessons close by too. Make an entertainment budget of $100 (right now we don't have one outside of the food...LOL)
-Not treat friends anymore at restaurants, but have them over for homemade dinners instead, something a lot of people in the city seem to value more anyway
The reason I'm suddenly spinning out about this is because I tried for many months to reduce the bill with limited success...and we just took on a mortgage that makes my head spin. So yea. City life.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME MOVE FORWARD :-) internet hugs to all
posted by cacao at 2:13 PM on July 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
I don't know if you have other delivery options, but I agree with you that getting more orders in a month is definitely key, plus you really should find a way to shop with a car, whether that's getting your anxiety under control or getting help from your partner.
I use Amazon Fresh sometimes, which has free delivery for orders over $40 for Prime members, but it's the stuff they don't have that really matters. I have one store I specifically go to for pretty much all my proteins because they sell in larger (heavier) quantities than Amazon or my local chain's delivery wants to handle logistics on, and that is the thing that makes everything else work - being able to throw several pounds of meat into the Instant Pot or on the grill in one go so it can be parceled out and staged in the fridge for use over the next few days or freezer for the next week or two.
Stop buying carbs you don't want, though, you're pinching the wrong pennies. One restaurant entree for one person's single meal is $18, and $18 is a decent number of servings of fancy Trader Joe's frozen food, comparatively. It's not a choice between eating out vs a box of shitty mac and cheese, it shouldn't be a decision between $20 and $2. You can spend $4 on a bag salad that'll make three decent-sized side salads, $10 on three fancy chicken breasts, $2 on a steamer bag of green beans, make $1.50 worth of quinoa, and you've spent $17.50 on three servings of food: dinner for two and lunch for one, and half the items were "convenience" food, and that's three $10-20 meals you didn't get from a restaurant.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:44 PM on July 29, 2017
I use Amazon Fresh sometimes, which has free delivery for orders over $40 for Prime members, but it's the stuff they don't have that really matters. I have one store I specifically go to for pretty much all my proteins because they sell in larger (heavier) quantities than Amazon or my local chain's delivery wants to handle logistics on, and that is the thing that makes everything else work - being able to throw several pounds of meat into the Instant Pot or on the grill in one go so it can be parceled out and staged in the fridge for use over the next few days or freezer for the next week or two.
Stop buying carbs you don't want, though, you're pinching the wrong pennies. One restaurant entree for one person's single meal is $18, and $18 is a decent number of servings of fancy Trader Joe's frozen food, comparatively. It's not a choice between eating out vs a box of shitty mac and cheese, it shouldn't be a decision between $20 and $2. You can spend $4 on a bag salad that'll make three decent-sized side salads, $10 on three fancy chicken breasts, $2 on a steamer bag of green beans, make $1.50 worth of quinoa, and you've spent $17.50 on three servings of food: dinner for two and lunch for one, and half the items were "convenience" food, and that's three $10-20 meals you didn't get from a restaurant.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:44 PM on July 29, 2017
You'll find TJs does have decent low carb options, including prepared fish entrees, meatloaf, bagged salad, chicken salad, veg sides, etc. Obviously they won't be the cheapest thing in the store, but get them anyway, they're still a fraction of what it costs to go out.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:53 PM on July 29, 2017
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:53 PM on July 29, 2017
Best answer: Oh! I thought of another brain hack that's worked really well for me, which is to spend my luxury grocery money on things that aren't premade meals but can still be eaten as-is.
So like: A brick of moderately-nice cheese (aged cheddar and aged gouda are favorites here), or a hunk of not-imported-or-anything-but-also-not-Hormel salami, or fresh cherries, or bittersweet chocolate that's packaged as an aspirational baking supply rather than as decadent candy, or snow peas for snacking on raw, or smoked salmon or pickled herring or anchovies if you're into that.
There's a line between "luxury prepared foods," which are often ABSURDLY expensive — almost as expensive as a cheap restaurant meals — and "pretty damn decent store shelf foods," which are often very cheap relative to how delicious they are. It can take some doing to find that line, and it's sometimes drawn in counterintuitive ways. Where I live, marinated olives with feta gets priced as a luxury and marked way the hell up, but you can get a jar of good olives and a pretty okay hunk of feta for moderate prices. Or stuff that's positioned as charcuterie you can spend all your money on, but stuff that's positioned as "a nice reliable no-bullshit-additives brand of summer sausage" is good enough to really thoroughly enjoy snacking on and waaaaaay cheaper. Or a bar of artisanal chocolate with almonds and sea salt is absurdly priced, but nice organic roasted salted nuts and bittersweet chocolate chips from the bulk bins at a hippie food co-op are basically identical and much cheaper. Etcetera.
I guess the thing that makes this a brain hack, rather than just smart shopping, is that you shouldn't think of yourself as switching from Luxury Exotic Food to Austere Poverty Food or you'll end up with stuff in the fridge that you don't like and honestly won't eat — stuff that sure, you would eat if you were really broke, but since you're not you'll just go out instead — and then you'll end up feeling ashamed and deprived both at once. What you want to do is steer your attention from The Latest Trend In Luxury Exotic Food (or, like, Frozen Gourmet Meals For Wealthy Bachelors) to Simple, Well-Made Classics That You've Always Honestly Loved.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:06 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
So like: A brick of moderately-nice cheese (aged cheddar and aged gouda are favorites here), or a hunk of not-imported-or-anything-but-also-not-Hormel salami, or fresh cherries, or bittersweet chocolate that's packaged as an aspirational baking supply rather than as decadent candy, or snow peas for snacking on raw, or smoked salmon or pickled herring or anchovies if you're into that.
There's a line between "luxury prepared foods," which are often ABSURDLY expensive — almost as expensive as a cheap restaurant meals — and "pretty damn decent store shelf foods," which are often very cheap relative to how delicious they are. It can take some doing to find that line, and it's sometimes drawn in counterintuitive ways. Where I live, marinated olives with feta gets priced as a luxury and marked way the hell up, but you can get a jar of good olives and a pretty okay hunk of feta for moderate prices. Or stuff that's positioned as charcuterie you can spend all your money on, but stuff that's positioned as "a nice reliable no-bullshit-additives brand of summer sausage" is good enough to really thoroughly enjoy snacking on and waaaaaay cheaper. Or a bar of artisanal chocolate with almonds and sea salt is absurdly priced, but nice organic roasted salted nuts and bittersweet chocolate chips from the bulk bins at a hippie food co-op are basically identical and much cheaper. Etcetera.
I guess the thing that makes this a brain hack, rather than just smart shopping, is that you shouldn't think of yourself as switching from Luxury Exotic Food to Austere Poverty Food or you'll end up with stuff in the fridge that you don't like and honestly won't eat — stuff that sure, you would eat if you were really broke, but since you're not you'll just go out instead — and then you'll end up feeling ashamed and deprived both at once. What you want to do is steer your attention from The Latest Trend In Luxury Exotic Food (or, like, Frozen Gourmet Meals For Wealthy Bachelors) to Simple, Well-Made Classics That You've Always Honestly Loved.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:06 AM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
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First, figure out which meals out matter to you. For us, it's 1 dinner out on a work night, and breakfast on Saturday morning. So that's when we eat out. Most weeks this is enough for us, and it works out because the dinner is either one meal out with each other OR we go out with friends. Once you have those basics sorted, you kinda have to just commit to them.
Second, figure out a cooking routine that works for you. When our routine breaks down, we eat out ALL the time. My routine is that I plan menus for the upcoming week on Friday afternoon, I shop on Saturday morning, right after breakfast, and I do some prep on Sunday afternoon. Then every weeknight when I cook, I cook that night's dinner and I prep or cook something ahead for the next night's dinner too. That way, I'm never starting a meal from square one.
Third, stop eating lunch out! Unless you have to for socializing or work reasons, make your lunch at home. Every day for lunch, my husband and I eat cut veggies, some kind of fat (olives or salami), a hunk of protein (chicken salad, leftover meat, etc.) and a treat (usually fruit or nuts, sometimes a bit of cheese). I like to do this assembly line style. I've written about how I used to make wraps on Sundays here. You can also do this by getting a bunch of containers and filling them with each thing. Whatever you decide, you just kind of have to stick to it and make it work for you.
Fourth, it seems to me like you aren't eating that much meat, especially if you are trying to eat low carb. I always have cut veggies, nuts, boiled eggs and chicken, tuna or salmon salad in my fridge (that I make ahead on Sundays) so that if we are hungry, we can always eat something without going out. I also cook chicken thighs on Sundays, and some kind of roast OR I prep something for the crockpot. You might just be hungry, which could be leading you to eat out on impulse more often.
Finally, in my experience, this is an area where incremental changes don't help. If you do something like only address your lunches, you won't see that much savings in your budget, so it won't feel like it's worth it. You need a full court press effort here.
posted by OrangeDisk at 3:22 PM on July 28, 2017 [17 favorites]