My husband and I both make decent money. We're not rich by any means, but we shouldn't ever find ourselves running out of money. In fact, we've had the same fight too many times. "Honey, where did all of our money go?" Last night, we decided we're sick of having this same fight over and over again. We need to really sit down and analyze what's happening and where our money is going. We both commute an hour to work, so we spend a ridiculous chunk of change on gas and tolls. Unless either of us decides to quit our jobs and work closer to home, that's not going to be something we can cut out.
I'm almost embarrassed to say, when we sat down and analyzed our money, most of it goes to food. Since we both commute, we don't really ever feel like spending another hour cooking or preparing lunches during the week. I told my husband I bet we spend $200 a month on restaurants and eating out alone. Here comes the cringe worthy part. I totaled it up and found that in the month of May we spent $515 on eating out (this number doesn't include groceries.) That is an INSANE amount of money that included frequent Starbucks/Dunkin Donut runs, breakfast on the weekends, Subway/Chipotle/Jimmy Johns lunches, Chinese food takeout/pizza for dinner.
So I proposed this idea to my husband last night and it wasn't met with as much hesitation as I assumed it would. "Honey, how about we make a conscious decision to not eat out for the next 30 days? Do you think we could do that?" He immediately said he could do it (without cheating) and I said I think I could do it too (and only cheat once or twice.)
I woke up in a good mood today. My husband made us tuna sandwiches for lunch but he forgot to pack anything besides a sandwich, which is making me a little antsy thinking that I have to survive all day on just a sandwich. (Where's the chips and cookie I would get if this was a Subway order?) The first email of the day that I got was asking me if I wanted some Jamba Juice. Oh my--Jamba is my weakness...this is going to be harder than I thought.
Followers--give me some moral support here! Tell me something that you know you spend too much money on, how you deal with cooking meals in the midst of business or a time when you made a challenge for yourself.
Good blog as usual. Can't wait for the next one.
ReplyDeleteWe stopped eating out a long time ago, saves thousands per year and much healthier to boot. You can do it, the hardest part is learning how to cook all over again and make sure the meals don't get boring.
ReplyDeleteAnd keep the meals simple but interesting to begin with. You don't want to shoot for gourmet and end up tired and with a kitchen full of dishes. Just make good simple dishes and use some conveniences from the store.
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