Money Matters
sparklerose
member
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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.
Eating out
How often do you eat out? How much do you budget each month for it? Its something we have always struggled with.
We eat out at a sit down place about 4x per month...take out and fast food is higher. Last month we spent about $300. 
Re: Eating out
We typically eat out every Sunday after church, which amounts to about $20 if we do Subway or $45 if we go to a sit-down place.
We never do delivery or carry out (maybe 1 time per month, I will order a small delivery item when DH is traveling for the night).
But, other than Sundays we probably eat out 3-4 times (total per month) on other days of the week.
This actually used to be a big problem for us and we were probably, like you, spending multiple hundreds of dollars on restaurants. Then, I began meal planning (for dinner only) and we have cut way back.
I have two binders in my pantry.
The first binder holds all my recipes, which are divided with tabs into salads, soups, sandwiches, and entrees.
The second binder holds 12 tabs, one for each month. Each tab has the months' calendar taped to it. When I get my husband's work schedule, I mark off the nights he will be home (I only make an offical dinner when he is home).
Then, a few days prior to the start of each stretch of days he is home, I sit down and go through my recipes and figure out what I want to make for the 3-4 nights he will be home.
I made myself a sheet (and photocopied about 100 copies of it) that has the days listed and then lines for "Main Dish, "Side 1," "Side 2," Salad." I don't always fill in each category. For example, I will always do a main dish and maybe a salad. Or a main dish and two sides or even one side.
Once I have this filled out (it takes maybe 10 minutes), I pull out another sheet I created, which is my shopping list sheet.
It is divided into boxes that are labeled: Produce, Deli, Dairy, Meat & Seafood, Snacks, Canned Goods, Condiments & Spices, and other things like Pets, Cleaning Supplies, etc. Ihave it broken down by the "path" I take in the grocery store.
With this sheet, I review my recipes, and anything not already in my pantry or prestocked on my basement non-perishable food shelf, gets added to the sheet (it is usually only dairy, fresh produce, and non-edible items because we have worked to stock up our pantry pretty well by becoming CostCo members).
I take the sheet to the store and buy exactly what I need for the upcoming 3-4 dinners (plus the non-edibles and random things for lunches, snacks, etc.).
I have to say it was a big undertaking for me to implement. It challenged my way of operation and forced me to be more organized each week.
But I have been doing it now for about 7 months and honestly, we have cut down spending, spend way more quality family time around our own table, and we are eating healthier.
If you are in need of recipes to begin somethng like this - strive for about 12 that you like that you can rotate around so you don't eat the same things all the time. Once you get 12 keep adding in more as you find them.
One magazine, either online or in the store, I have found helpful for good recipes, is Cooking Light. In my expereince, they are tasty, pretty simple, and don't require a huge amount of kitchen tools or appliances to create.
We eat out a lot. H loves eating out. I think he equates dinner/date night to romance. But it's something he really doesn't want cut out. We try to budget $300 for it. I know this amount might get flamed, but it's in our budget and I meal plan every week for the other meals.
We have been going over, so this month I decided we are having a set amount of times we can go out to meet our budget. This will help H too. Sometimes he wants to meet for lunch, and go to dinner and get breakfast, and then we go over. This month, we can go out to dinner 4 times (est $50 each, it's usually more like $30), and 4 breakfast/lunches (est at $25 each, but sometimes it's less too). I usually make him choose, if we get take out tonight, no sunday morning breakfast... but this way it's set already. We will probably be way under budget, but all H will know is we stayed in our budget hehehe. I made a postit on in our kitchen with Dinner: 4 boxes, Breakfast/Lunch: 4 boxes. Then I check when we used it up. When it's done it's done. So far so good!
$50 is about average for 2 take out meals a month. When we have a different month it might include 1-3 meals out (a dinner and a lunch) at a modest amount.
We socialze more at home with potlucks than going out to eat.
What is motivating your eating out? What can you change to make cutting back easier? Preplan your meals, get a crock pot, make dinner together /take turns etc.
Mommyliberty - I like your organization! I may have to try and do that! I've been trying to meal plan a lot more lately, and it is helping. Did you make your sheets yourself, or did you find them on pinterest or something?
To answer OP's question - we eat out too much. I don't do our budget down to $0.00 each month. I have in our budget the bills, what's going into savings, etc. Then if it's $500 - then that's what we have left for groceries, eating out, misc. items. We usually spend about $200 a month - I would like that to get down to about $125-$150.
TTC since June 2012
Thanks! I made them myself in Microsoft Publisher. Really, they are just a series of text boxes and lines with some descriptive headings. You could probably create the same in Excel or by using Word with some tables.
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I've been working on meal planning lately (we have a large whiteboard calendar, and I write in meals for the week ahead each weekend) to cut back on eating out. It's usually in the $100-$200/mo range, so I'm trying to keep it closer to the $100 mark.
One thing that's helped us, besides having a plan for dinner before 5pm the day of, is that we're trying to cut back on cheaper meals out, like Subway, which has always been a go-to for us. I think we've always had the mindset that it's a fairly cheap meal as far as going out, so why not? Well when you do that several times a month, it adds up. So lately we've been going to sit-down places when we do go out, and that way we stick to going out a lot less often.
"You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. SeussWe budget for (roughly) 3 meals out to eat each month. This is actually making plans to go out to a restaurant. So we budget around $100. If I forgot to make plans to cook or am too tired to cook, I will stop and pick up something on my way home from work, but this is taken out of our grocery budget.
As far as going out for breakfast and lunch during the week, I know DH goes out for lunch almost every day (7-10$ per day!!), but that comes out of his "spending" allowance for the month. Same goes for me, but I can squeek by on $10 a week on going out to lunch (there is a place near my office that makes the BEST chicken salad, so I buy a tub of it to last the week, and bring bread and lettuce to make a sandwich out of it, with fruit and/or crackers to make a full meal). Sometimes I will splurge and get a protein shake for breakfast for $5 exactly.
We used to eat out once or twice a week, but when we realized how much that added up to, we are trying harder to be smarter with the foods we buy. We reserve "going out" for getting together with friends and/or family, which we try to do once a month. I think last month we only went out to eat once, so we had an extra $60 at the end of the month- it was awesome!
We are very frugal---I'd even say "cheap." I've driven the same car for more than 15 years, our house will be paid off in 7-8 years at the most (we're in our late 30s), our monthly mortgage payment is around 10-15% of income, and I only buy a few necessary new outfits a year. I don't have a lot of the costs that others do---no kids, no technology habit except an mp-3, etc.
However, I love eating in restaurants. We do so once a week. We don't have a written budget, though we plan purchases carefully in general. I would say that I allot $200 a month for it. That may be high.
I will answer this. I don't like this idea that eating in restaurants has to be a flaw or a sign that you are doing something wrong. I just love the taste. I love the taste of food out, and the food that my husband make is ok but not for every meal.
As the breadwinner and someone with a lot, a ridiculous amount in savings, I feel that I have earned the right to not cook if I do not enjoy it and am not good at it. I don't want to get the shaft both ways: being the breadwinner, and then being forced to be good old 50's Suzy Homemaker, too.
Our meals are relatively low-price. The most I spend on a meal is around $9 for nice comfort food, like grilled chicken and potatoes, in which I buy the bigger portion for a dollar more and take home half. I know the post was not to me, but I think that there have to be some pleasures in life, whether it's cable (no desire to watch on a device the size of my hand, sorry) or eating out.
Mana,
I wouldn't flame you for the money. We all earn it and have the right to spend it the way we see fit. I would never judge the amount. If one wanted to be picky, one could criticize every expenditure that isn't necessary. ex: technology, daily coffee
You and me both
I always want to eat out 1 time a week. I don't want to feel I'm always home cooking and meal prepping. I'm home enough anyways so it's a way to get out for me as well.
I think you have a great idea here. And, it totally makes sense. DH and I do rely on Subway. But I know we are better at limiting the sit-down places. Thanks. It's a new way of looking at the eating out routine!
Four times a month with a floating fifth in case we both had a crappy day and neither wants to cook dinner. That includes sit down, fast food and order in. We budget $90/month and usually are really close if not under that.
My H loves to eat out and I have to "talk him down" a few times a month by pointing out that we also have lots of SL debt, we're saving for a baby & bigger place to live etc etc.
Yeah, usually we go out to a restaurant or takeout once or twice a month, and get fast food maybe once a month when my husband asks for it. It used to be a lot more often at 130-150 combined fast food and restaurants before I started going to the gym and making healthier eating choices, so now I try to avoid that crap. My husband cooks a little bigger portions so I have some leftovers for work lunches, or I'll just bring a can of soup to work for lunch if I don't have anything ready to bring. Usually when we don't feel like cooking, we'll just find something in the house to make-- lord knows we have plenty of food in the pantry and freezer to use up. When I see my friends, usually we just come over and cook dinner instead of meeting up at a restaurant.
Thanks! I'm always afraid to say something if it's not *needs only, Dave Ramsey Approved*.
My H and I really enjoy eating out and sometimes we get a little out of control. We also have an agreement that I cook 4-5 days a week and we eat out 2-3x a week depending on how many days I cook. We currently have no car payments, mortgage or kids so I feel now is the time to enjoy the ability to go out to dinner a few nights a week. We try to have a cheaper dinner on Friday (pizza, hamburger from a sit down restaurant) and eat a more expensive meal on Saturdays. We both work hard all week so I feel eating out 2-3x a week is a reward. Once we have kids, or buy a house we will cut down on eating out, but for now I look forward to my nice meals.
Our monthly budget for eating out is $400 a month. Sometimes we go over sometimes we are under.