First off, I love pampering my girlfriend. She’s more frugal than I am, very low maintenance, and easy to please.
But, we were watching HGTV last night (we’re addicted to ‘Property Virgins!), and there was a couple that was spending $1,000 a MONTH eating out. Yikes! We both judged them pretty harshly (we try not to judge in real life, but we figure judging people on TV is OK).
It made me think…well, I know we don’t spend 1K a month going out…but what do we spend?
So, I ran the numbers.
Here is our food budget for the last 5 full months, and since we began dating.
Food Budget Since We Started Dating
- Jan – $308
- Feb – $462
- March – $393
- April – $400
- May – $386
Average: $390/mo
Now, I pulled a few months from before we started dating….
My Bachelor Food Budget
- Oct (08) – $237
- Nov (08) – $176
Average: $206/mo
Here’s is the graph of the last 5 months from Mint.com, for all food categories.
Conclusions?
There are some pretty clear conclusions:
- Non-grocery food expenses have about doubled since I got a girlfriend
- I’m very happy they did : )
My girl always offer to pickup the tab whenever we eat out, and she does from time to time. And I really appreciate that. But I think she knows that I like feeling like a provider, and so she doesn’t press the issue much.
Overall, I think our food budget is within reason. I’ve actually started cooking more since we start dating than I ever did before (since I work from home, in a desk all day, it makes more sense this way vs. her work which is a bit more physically exhausting).
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Congrats – those monthly numbers still look pretty good, not extravagant. I should run my monthly food numbers again just to double check. I bet they’re higher, since I’m not cooking as much on my own lately.
Wow, suddenly, I feel a lot better about our food numbers. Of course, we don’t make much, so we have to be frugal. I think once our money situation is better — some day — that will definitely be one area we loosen up on. But for us, I try to keep groceries at no more than $200. And up until recently, eating out/delivery at $35/week. So that’s, what, $340? And I feel bad that we spend that much. (I say up until recently because, now that farmer’s market season is upon us, I’m taking $10 from groceries & $10 from eating out so that we can get produce for me and hoity-toity cheeses for him.)
Of course, we also don’t drink coffee and rarely buy or consume alcohol. Because I’m a miser and it’s just too pricey, given how quickly it disappears.
Its really cool that you are able to track your expenses so well. This is the first step to reducing expenses.
One of the things I suggest to people is that if you want to eat out more often, do so – just make corresponding changes to your grocery budget.
Say you want to eat out one more time a week guilt free. Well make the corresponding adjustments to your grocery budget.
Start purchasing 10 new store brand products a week. This can EASILY save you $10 to $12 a week. If you are new to trying store brands start with the simplest grocery items first like store brand milk, butter, sugar, bread, flour, pasta before moving on to more complex items like spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, and cookies.
Stop by an Aldi’s once a week. These are deep discount no frills supermarkets that sell great food at cheap prices. Eggs are 79 cents a dozen compared to $2 at your local supermarket. Bag of baby carrots 99 cents compared to $1.79 at a local supermarket.
Purchasing just a fraction of items here can easily save you another $10 to $15 a week.
Try a bakery outlet. Contrary to popular belief these places carry fresh bread and bakery items at a fraction of of the supermarket price. Typically prices are 50% to 75% off of store prices. Shopping here once a week can save your $7 to $8 a week, EASILY.
By making small changes in your grocery shopping behavior you can offset the cost of eating out more than usual, making eating out a little more guilt free.
Good work, really well done. I think your Restaurant bill is off the hook but I see your alcohol tab is pretty low, so I guess it’s a swings and round a bout situation.
conclusion: too much time on your hands
Paying off your debt won’t matter once the dollar collapses, in fact just pay off the minimum amount and put your money in gold and it’s related shares. women are expensive but you seem to have a pretty good frugal one; good for you.
We also had to really rein in the eating out. I had NO IDEA until we started using Mint how much it was costing us. Likewise, because my hubby and I care for kids at different times of day and different days of the week (even though we all live in the same house) I had no idea how frequently the kids were eating out. It wasn’t that the whole family was eating out, but Dad took kids out after the dentist appt, and I took them out in the rush to get to Girl Scouts on time, etc. In fact, in the month I was laid off (December 08) We had spent $1,100 eating out–and I would have guessed it was closer to $300.
Mint has been a big help in reining this in.
Also, my husband and I (both relative cheapskates despite our December 2008 bout of bad planning) don’t like to spend a lot of money eating out–and we dated for five years. Yes, five–don’t laugh too hard. Needless to say, neither one of us wanted to foot the other’s tab for five years, so we both learned to cook and had dates at one another’s homes.
He learned a lot of ethinic foods and griling. My speciality is soul food. It worked out, and was far cheaper than eating out and it’s fun to learn to cook together–sometimes cooking can be “the date” in and of itself! Bake a cheesecake, learn to make tabouleh, etc.
Rob and I once decided to do a New Orleans theme dinner and invite our friends in college. We made Benigets (like doughnuts) and made a double batch for our combined 20 friends. We doubled the recipe not knowing it was a restraunt size batch (ooops!) we were literally carrying buckets of doughnuts around to other dorms in college and sharing them with racoons on campus. It was a blast and something we still laugh about nearly 10 years later.
Jess
Wow you’re food budget looks much better than mine. Alone I think I spend about $320/month on food with my significant other. I think my better half spends just as much… we just love food too much and don’t cook enough at home.