$5101.23

Its a new year and I know we all have many financial challenges ahead of us.  Here at our house, I'm always thinking of ways to try and save a few bucks.  I've read enough finance blogs, money saving blogs, thrifting and frugality blogs to make your head spin.  One common theme is that you need to track your expenses.  I have a general running idea of how much I'm spending and I've always considered that enough.  If we have a particularly tough month, I go ahead and write everything down and move on (I'm a total list maker and that adds to my pack rat problem, btw, since I don't ever want to toss the lists).

This morning, while it was still dark, I was wondering about how much money we actually spend on eating out.  Thinking about it pretty much killed any idea of going back to sleep.  I decided I'd log on to my checking account and go back to January 1, 2012 and start there.  One years worth of eating out, to include fast food, casual dining and Starbucks runs.  My bank has a nice tracking system (which I've never used, remember, not organized!) so I sat down in my dim kitchen and got to work.  I categorized all dining out expenses for the past 12 months.  Then I decided I wanted to know all of my food costs overall, so I went back and did all of my grocery bills as well.

The title of this post is $5101.23.  That is the sum total of my family's dining out purchases.  Can you believe it?  As it started to add up, I got a pit in my stomach.  I really didn't think we ate out that much, but the proof is in the pudding, eh?  That's roughly $425 dollars a month.  Where in the world is that money coming from?!  I know we don't have it to spare!  What isn't getting taken care of as a result of that spending?  Now, I know some of it likely comes from money we feel was "free" (even if it wasn't), like birthday/holiday gifts, taxes, etc., but come on!  *sigh*

Now, my goal, for my family of 4, in terms of groceries is $250 twice a month.  $500 a month for a total of $6000 dollars a year.  This does NOT take into account holiday and birthday meals and goodies.  Are you ready for my grocery total for the year?  Are you scared?  Maybe you should be.  $7419.  Just over $1400 more than I intended to spend.

This is a grand total of $12, 521.21.  On food.  FOOD.  Per person that's over $3100 dollars a year.

It's got me wondering, are my grocery goals unrealistic?  Is $6000 a year too small a budget for my family?  I shop the commissary, but I also use local grocery stores every now and then.  If I increase my grocery budget and bought a greater variety of things, would my dining out bill go down?   I'm going to be thinking about this all day.  Probably longer.  Today is the 5th of January.  I shopped yesterday and missed a few items on my list, so I know I'll be heading back out soon...I'm going to be very aware of my purchases.  I have no choice.  This is clearly an area that needs to be pared down.  It seems to me that it likely can be done with a little discipline.  Even if we still wound up spending $100 a month dining out we'd be saving $3900 over last year.  Maybe that should be the goal.  Increase the grocery budget but reduce the eating out budget.

Makes my head spin!

Meatless Meals to Save ?

A while ago the hubs and I watched a Ted Talk that had to do with going meatless during the week. We talked about it a few times, wondered if it was something we could do, wanted to do, etc.

Last night, after discussing a few things, our current situation, our future (his military retirement is so close!), money and our health, the idea of being meatless during the week came up again. We've decided to give it a whirl. We'll aim for 5 meatless dinners a week (I'm not ready to do 5 meatless days, I'm already struggling with menu planning, tyvm!) and if we miss our mark, no big deal, we just try again.

Part of the reason is that meat can get expensive, another part is we'd like to eat better overall (we eat pretty healthily most of the time, but we've noticed an eating out trend recently.. not very thrifty!). I have some concerns though...mostly one. How do I make creative, tasty meals that are not one gigantic carb-fest? I'm not interested in meat replacements either. Once in a while would be okay, I suppose, but really those can be as pricy as the meat. I was searching the web for meals that moved me and I found some. Lots, actually, but so many had such a high concentration of carbs that I felt a bit worried. Should I not worry? I mean, I can just make sure breakfast and lunch are lower in carbs and higher in proteins I guess.

My only other concern is that my 10 year old isn't a huge fan of beans and I found lots of great recipes that take advantage of beans. I mean, he likes some beans, but I can't see him being thrilled about beans 5 nights a week. ;)

If you have any recipes, tips, tricks, hints or general ideas on this, I'm all ears!