The food budget

My whole adult life I’ve struggled to live within my means. The main challenge to my success seems to be my love of eating out.

Eating out affords me many luxuries: a variety of foods can be bought and consumed without having to think too far ahead; on any given day I can decide that I want Mexican or Chinese or Thai or sushi, a hamburger or a hummus plate, salad or french fries; I can buy foods that I haven’t the first idea how to make in addition to pretty much anything I do know how to make (with the exception, perhaps, of a few dishes no one outside my family has heard of).

But eating out tends to be expensive and less healthy. The going rate for a dinner entrée in my town is around $12, whereas I can feed myself at home for as little as $3 a meal. I also tend to eat richer, more fattening foods when I go out. I mean, what’s the point in spending all that money if I just get something healthy and don’t really enjoy it? I’m sure that one can find reasonably priced, healthy food in restaurants, but I haven’t had a habit of doing so.

Historically, then, every time I go over budget and have to find a way to cut back, one of the first things I look at is the money I spend on eating out. As my fellow blogger Jackie notes, meal planning and eating at home can save a lot of money. “I just have to be more disciplined,” I tell myself. “I’ll just have to buckle down, do the grocery shopping, pack my lunches every day, and get my spending under control.” And you know what? I always fail.

Even though I have the best intentions and feel ultra-determined, I always fall off the wagon. Maybe the first week I’ll do okay, but the second week I’ll forget to go grocery shopping and end up buying lunches and eating snack food and pasta for dinner. The third week I’ll try to get back on track and go grocery shopping again, buying a bunch of food that ends up sitting in the fridge until it rots because I don't leave time in the morning to pack a lunch and I don’t have the energy to cook when I get home. The result: $300 a month on groceries that rotted and $400 a month on eating out, for a ridiculous grand total of about $700 a month on food. Outrageous.

The reason I keep failing, I’ve realized, is because the difference between eating out and cooking at home is a lot more than just money. Yeah, I can save money by making my meals at home, but you know what I lose? Loads of time and energy: spent planning my meals for the week, going grocery shopping, getting up early to pack a lunch, cooking and—worst of all—cleaning up after myself. That stuff takes hours! By the time I get home from work, cook, eat, and clean up, it’s pretty much time for bed, and I’ve spent most of my time at home doing things I consider to be chores.

So the last time I got serious about cutting back on spending I tried to think of something different. Something that would be cheaper, but which also didn't take up too much time or energy. Because although money is essential to my idea of quality of life, it’s certainly not the only factor, and I don’t want it to always be the deciding one. I came up with a new idea, a brilliant idea! All this time I’d been trying to cut back on eating out and do more cooking at home. But what if I stopped grocery shopping and only ate out?

I did some quick calculations and discovered, much to my joy and amazement, that allowing myself $15 a day would result in spending far less money per month on food than I had been spending when trying to be good. And $15 a day, while modest as a restaurant budget, actually seemed do-able. Since I usually just have coffee with creamer for breakfast (one of the few things I’d still go to the grocery store for) my breakfast budget wouldn’t need to be big, say $3, which would leave $6 for lunch and $6 for dinner.

If I splurged and bought a dinner that cost $12 or $13, I would exercise restraint and just eat half, leaving the other half for another meal. This would encourage me not to overeat in the first place, thereby contributing to my health goal, while keeping me on target financially.

After thinking about it a little more, I decided I wouldn’t forbid myself from grocery shopping either. I’d allow myself to buy food at the grocery store, so long as I didn’t overspend my weekly food allowance. In order to make sure that was the case, I’d use cash rather than debit so I could keep a closer eye on how much I was spending.

I’ve been trying this out since September and I am delighted to say that for the first time in my adult life I’m actually spending less on food than what I’ve budgeted for. In terms of time, money, and energy saved, it’s working out beautifully.

The down side, of course, is that there are only so many options for $6 a meal that aren’t junk food. I’m not eating many fruits or veggies, and I’ve taken to eating fast food more often, facts which are not in alignment with my health goals. These, however, do not seem like insurmountable obstacles, especially since there’s a fancy grocery store close to my work where I can hit the salad bar for a little under $4, and since it has meat, kidney beans and bleu cheese dressing, it’s filling too.

It's an experiment-in-progress. I'll let you know how it goes.