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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Grocery and Dining Out
I tracked our expenses...all of them..each and every thing for the month of January. We use Mint, but I knew that we were missing transactions that we paid cash for. So we spent $543 on groceries, and $295 on dining out. That $295 was just for when we went out or ordered take out...there is an additional $180 spent by DH on lunches out at work. I also spent an additional $38 on coffee out. Doesn't this seem like a lot for just two people? I was so careful about not buying stuff we didn't need which makes me think that I must have been spending even more in previous months. I have to figure out where I can cut back.
Re: Grocery and Dining Out
That makes me feel better! Ha ha ha. It just seems like a lot of money for two people, but maybe it isn't.
Wow that definitely sounds like a lot. If you didn't go out, I would say the $543 sounds right for food for a month, but then add on the eating out and I think it's a lot.
We never eat out though, so maybe I am biased. My advice is that should be your number one place to cut back if you're serious about saving money.
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I used to spend a lot on food (about $300/month for just me, not including eating out) so I'm trying to be really frugal and picky about what I buy, but I still spend a lot because I love to cook so I buy fancy, expensive stuff more often than my friends who don't cook. For January we've spent about $360 on groceries, and we've spent about $80 this month for eating out/takeout. We've gone out to dinner twice, and my parents treated us both times, so that's not included (an extra $180-ish). On average, I think we've spent about $100-150/month for eating out since living together. I almost always bring my own lunch or the boss buys, and DH works from home, so we don't have to spend extra money on our lunches. I buy coffee just once a week, and never buy breakfast.
So yeah, it seems like you're spending a lot. Do you actually use all the food you buy, or do you throw a lot out? This is one issue I had for a while, I'd see lovely produce and get it, then forget to do anything with it. And I only buy meat when it's on sale.
I think the $295 on dining out, in addition to the $543 on groceries, sounds really high (if you average $30 per eat out meal, that's nearly 10 dining out meals per month = 1/3 of your dinners each month). And then another $180 for lunches on top of that means that if it were my budget I'd be really concerned about my monthly food expenses. That's over $1000 for two people.
If you're trying to save more money, I would consider cutting back on your dining out budget, start taking lunches to work at least half the time, and definitely cut back on the coffee out. Have you read Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach? The "latte factor" section might be really interesting to you.
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We spend an INSANE amount on food every month. It's just ridiculous. So I can't help you there...but I do get it...
Punky's fun money=food.
Ditto. We don't go out that many times per month but when we do, one of our dinners is usally $100-150 incuding drinks and dessert.
haha, yes!
Now that I'm home, I'll elaborate more on our spending:
We don't do much else to spend money (house projects aside), so we tend to eat dinner out once a week and we usually spend upwards of $80 total when we go.
Looking at our grocery bills - I'd say maybe we spend $400/month, so a little less than you. But I don't count what I spend at Target on household goods like cleaning supplies (I don't always need to shop for them every month, so I don't really count them in). We also each tend to buy lunch once or twice a week.
That does sound like a lot to me, but it may vary on location. Also, my DH is a chef, so he gets to eat at work for free, generally (which means less lunch meats/ordering out lunch).
We probably average $325/mo groceries
$5 week/coffee (I've really cut down)
lunches - 60/mo (I only order Thurs and Friday)
going out/take-out $150 -$200/mo
I have not read that...and will have to check it out. We do not average $30 per eat out meal...ha ha ha....that is a problem for us. We like to eat out at nice places...
We spend crazy money on groceries because we both love to cook. I'm a fairly recent vegetarian and I like to find delicious recipes that H will like so he doesn't get frustrated with the way we're eating. (He still eats meat.) This means tracking down a lot of unusual ingredients, which hikes up our grocery bill. Plus we live near that magical Whole Foods in Dedham which sucks me in every time and I wind up desperately wanting very expensive things that we don't really need. PLUS, we're fruit and veggie nuts, which are unfortunately not cheap.
We really should start tracking this, but I estimate we spend about $600 in groceries a month. At least.
Haha, I was thinking of simple take-out meals, not sit-down restaurant meals. Don't get me wrong, I love good food and trying different restaurants; I was just going off your comment of wanting to figure out ways to cut back.
I highly recommend Smart Couples to anyone who's interested in learning more about personal finance--everything from saving to investing to retirement. It's written in a very accessible, plain English style and isn't dry and boring. It's a pretty quick read, actually.