Part of developing a budget and sticking to it is the food.
As Dave Ramsey likes to put it, eating out is a luxury expense and it's for entertainment.
I'm constantly amazed when people tell me they eat out every night or they make "anyone could have done this....it's a box of macaroni and hamburger" and that's the extent of their cooking skills.
I took Home Economics as an elective back in the 90s in middle and high school. It was one of the most practical lessons I've ever had.
When you apply yourself, you can feed two adult men for half of what the federal government calls the "Thrifty Food Plan", at the regular grocery store, and not be deprived.
Applying yourself means cook in large batches, waste nothing (eat leftovers until they are gone! do not let them spoil!), coupon, shop around sales, base things on pantry staples, and the budget will mostly work itself out.
Even in 2026 when everyone else is screaming about inflation, I've resorted to making meals that last for 2-3 nights.
Jeffrey Eisner and Pressure Luck. Cookbooks from the 1970s. Recently I've been diving into Depression-era baking.
My new boyfriend said why don't we get chocolate chip cookies, and much to my horror they were 'Chips Ahoy!'.
I told him if you like stale cookies with 47 ingredients in them, toss it in the cart, but I can make better cookies at home. The first batch costs more because you need pantry staples, the marginal costs from there are a few dollars a batch for the chocolate chips.
After getting back into cooking again, Depression recipes came to my interest. I want to make "Wacky Pie" which is basically a chocolate cake that leans on vinegar and baking soda and avoids dairy (expensive in the 30s, and rationed during the war).
Right now I have a tomato soup cake in the oven. I'm cheating a bit, I'm going to make a cream cheese frosting for it and frost it after it cools.
My mother said that her aunts and uncles would make cakes and then not frost them and she had no idea why.
I said "Because they had to survive the 1930s when everyone was unemployed and there was no money. In the first wave, people who went bankrupt jumped out of their office windows, then in the second wave, the people who made it past that had to hunker down and live on a shoestring budget for over 10 years until the war heated up the economy so much that everyone had a job again."
That sort of pain sticks with you. The bankruptcy ripped all pretentiousness out of my soul. It made me grateful for no longer having debt, it made me more careful with money than I've been in my life.
The 19 year old version of me from 2003 that once overdrafted a bank account deliberately so he could have pizza and an xbox one weekend is finally laid to rest.
Some people are just naturally good with money, others are horrible and never learn, and go from one frying pan to the fire, and they never learn. They're always in debt. They file bankruptcy and 2 years later they're going "How soon will I have 14 credit cards? Can I barely get approved for a house? Everyone pays 14% on a car loan, right? Maybe I should too!"
I at least learned something. I learned what it's like to not mind your business. They send the car hauler out. You're trying to hide the car for a few more days and stay one step ahead of the repo man, then they get it and you're in a clunker that seems to always have another mechanical failure.
I'm not driving anything right now. And I decided I don't ever want to reek of that particular brand of desperation again.
It's sort of amusing how low your food budget can be when you try. You can even work cakes and cookies into it and not exceed $300 a month if you really want to.
Most of the problem is not income-related. It's covetousness and laziness and lack of thrift.
The rent is very high here and people have perfectly functioning kitchens, and every evening like clockwork, all the doordashers show up with convenience food, which is twice as expensive as going to the restaurant in person.
I will admit that every once in a while I like to eat out, but not often. And I like simple things when I eat out. I found a Jewish deli a few blocks away. That was a pleasant surprise.
