This is an update from my last post. (If you didn't read it, make sure to catch up to speed: http://sore--thumb.blogspot.com/2012/06/money-why-i-have-none-and-how-i-can.html)
It's been over a week into my journey (almost two actually.) To say it's been hard is an understatement. Every radio program, every TV show, every billboard is advertising some kind of fast food. Every email I open is a coupon or an advertisement for some kind of restaurant. It got me to thinking, why as a society are we so addicted to fast food? Is it that we're looking for something convenient and the fact that it's readily available or is the food itself in someway addicting? I think they put some kind of addictive additive in the food to keep us all coming back.
I started this personal challenge as a way to save money. I quoted that we spent over $500 on eating out in May. Today I've been trying to figure out more details about our spending and I found that including groceries, we spent almost $1,000 in groceries throughout the month of May. Maybe this sounds normal for a family that has children, but it's just me and my husband.
We are making a personal goal to cut our food spending down to $200 every 2 weeks (or $400 for the whole month.) Once we make that goal, we are going to try to cut our food bill down to $200 a month. Is this even possible? I'm not sure---but I'm going to try my hardest. My plan to tackle this goal is by couponing, meal planning, and also to make enough food that we can have leftovers. So far, we are at $209 that we've spent on groceries for the month. We have $191 to make it for the rest of the month.
Readers, what do you think? Can we do it? Stay tuned for another update soon!
Monday, June 18, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Money: Why I Have None and How I Can Change It
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.
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.
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