@Anonymous wrote:
You guys have offered some very good advice. Thank you. One of the areas that you have identified as an area that I could definitely work on was groceries/food/eating out. For the month of August I spent approximately $900 on food. Clearly I can save money in this area. I'm just not sure how. And I say that because even though I am keeping track of all of my expenses I am still spending $900 a month on food. What are some of the ways that you all stay within your food budget each month? I thought of just allowing myself a certain amount each day - but that would require going to the store every day or every other day. (If I limit myself to $10 per day I can't get very much at (or some other fast food place) once a week. So anyway if anyone has a system that works for them I would appreciate it. And again, I am single, live alone, and have a child at college who lives on campus and is only home occassionally.
Honestly, with it just being you, I have a hard time getting my head around how you are spending that much on food even if you go out for every meal. I'm single and I love to cook and eat fancy cheeses and organic fruit and what not, but I don't come anywhere near spending that much. Do you know how to cook? If you do, cook at home more than you eat out. Don't be so restrictive that you feel cheated and miserable, but maybe if you eat out 6 nights a week, you can start off by cutting back to 3 nights, then maybe in a few weeks you can cut back to 2. Obviously, I can't know this for a fact, but I would bet that you end up throwing stuff out that goes bad before you eat it--that may be a source of wasted money as well.
Instead of eating fast food, try having a bowl of cereal, some scrambled eggs or a smoothie (it's basically just yogurt and fruit whizzed in the blender) for breakfast with toast or granola or an English muffin. Make a sandwich for lunch--buy the big bag of chips or pretzels and portion it out into a smaller baggie to take with you. Have a piece of fruit or a candy bar with it if you like sweets, or baby carrots/celery sticks and some Ranch dressing. For dinner, you can bake or broil a pork chop or chicken breast with rice or pasta and a vegetable. Even if you buy some pre-packaged convenience stuff that takes minimal cooking, it would inevitably be much cheaper than eating at a restaurant. If there is a Trader Joe's near you, they have a lot of great stuff portioned for individual servings that take virtually no cooking skill.
If you don't know a lot about cooking and can't think of ways to combine foods that aren't going to bore you to death, try a website like SparkPeople or AllRecipes. SparkPeople will actually give you a week's meal plans, recipes and a shopping list if you need a lot of handholding (it's focused on dieting, but you don't have to use it to lose weight, just track what you eat). AllRecipes is just a recipe website where you can search by the ingredients you have in the house and come up with different ways to use them.
Good luck!
Starting Score: 670 EQ and 674 TU
