eat at home more often

This is ridiculous. We spent more than $400 eating out last month. $400!!! That’s enough to replace my now-dead iPod and get at least one pair of nice vegan sandals online, including shipping! We have to get this eating out thing under control. I don’t consider myself materialistic, but there are certain things I’d really like to have right now:

• a new iPod ($250)
• a couple pairs of nice, comfortable, non-leather shoes, including sandals so I can start wearing skirts and dresses ($200?)
• pants that fit me now that I’ve lost some weight ($100?)
• new bras (the elasticity is rapidly going out of them… after 3 years) ($100?)
• a couple pairs of running shorts that don’t chafe (only have one pair) ($60?)
• some new clothes for Chris (???)

I’m not saying I’d run out and buy all of this at once. Obviously, we’d be in bigger trouble than we are now. But if we weren’t blowing $400/month eating out, we could certainly start on this list, not to mention paying down more of our debt, working on the house, and setting some money aside for the move. Grrr! I’m so frustrated by my own lack of willpower!

On Sunday evening, I realized I’d neglected to enter two transaction into our check register, which left us a lot shorter than I would’ve liked for the week. Even if I’d known, there isn’t much I could’ve done about it. We hadn’t exactly gone on a crazy spending spree or anything, just our usual trips to Target and the grocery store for essentials. Anyway, because we were really broke, we had no choice but to pack lunches and eat dinners at home this week. We both got paid today, so I know we’re going to be tempted to blow all our money on food this weekend, but we really need to be good and continue to limit the eating out.

This goal is so hard for us. Just when I think we’re making real progress, we slip back into a week of eating out every meal. My goal is to limit our meals out for next week to 3, including lunches.

I think I jinxed myself when I wrote my last entry for this goal. Ever since, we’ve been horrible about eating out again, despite the fact that we’re supposed to be saving all our extra cash to pay our taxes (grrr!). I’ve been so stressed about my mom coming to peruse our house that I’ve crumbled and gone out to eat the last 5 days. Isn’t that horrible?

So I’m rededicating myself to this goal for the rest of the week, as much as I’d really like to go out to lunch again today. (grumble, grumble, grumble…)

Okay, so it’s a pretty small measure of success, but The Hubby and I didn’t eat out at all this past weekend. That may be the first weekend in YEARS that we haven’t eaten out at least once, even when we’ve supposedly been on a strict budget. We haven’t experimented with many new recipes like we wanted to, but I’m THRILLED that we’ve cut back so much on eating out. Not only are we saving money by eating at home, but we also have greater control over what goes into our bodies. It’s just possible that we may meet our goals of paying off our debt and losing “hibernation weight” before the Big Move. YEA!!!

Well, maybe this isn’t really Week One. The Hubby and I have been eating at home a lot more lately. Also, since we’re now working in the same office, we’ve been taking our lunches. It’s been tough. Eating out is really our biggest weakness, which is why it’s so important to our other goals (getting out of debt, moving out of IL, etc.). I love to cook, but we’ve never really gotten into the habit of sitting down at the table and eating dinner every night. It’s always been one of those “when we have kids” kind of things, but I don’t want it to become one of those things that just never happens. So we’ve been making an effort to eat dinner at the table instead of in front of the TV, and it’s great.