Debt Hater

Working on Taming the Food Budget

I wrote a post pondering how to save money on food.

Fabulously Broke heard my plea and wrote a post on whether to cook at home or to eat out.It's clear the consensus is that it's cheaper to dine in than dine out, and I know that it is, but since groceries are more expensive here (D.C.) than I had been paying where I used to live, I felt like I was spending as much cooking as I was eating  out.

FB had some suggestions, which I have adapted as follows:

Method #1: Track it by the total amount

   1. Try eating at home and buying groceries for the whole week.
   2. The next week, try only eating out for the whole week.
   3. Compare the two totaled amounts.

Notes:
Buy what you think you need for the week and then eat the food until it’s completely gone, even if it goes over a week (7 days).

If it goes over an entire week, and ends up being 9 days for example, then take the grocery bill, divide it by the 9 days, and multiply it by 7 days to get an approximation for a week.

This week I will eat all meals and snacks at home. I went grocery shopping Sunday and spent $26.

I ate a big, fat dinner of roasted winter vegetables, polenta and sun-dried tomato chicken sausage I bought last week. I have already made my lunch for tomorrow with the leftovers.

We'll see how this goes this week.

I'm The Grinch Who Poo Poo'ed Christmas

I love Christmas.

Everyone does I guess, but I'm the type of person who hunts for that radio station that plays Christmas songs all day from Thanksgiving to Christmas and a little after. Heck, I'll listen to my favorite carols in the middle of the summer.

I plan trips home to New York City in December so I can see all the street decorations and the big window displays of high end department stores. I'll watch a Christmas Story three times in a row and laugh at all the same parts. I get mad when I miss How the Grinch Stole Christmas, even though it will be on again, again and again.

I pretty much do everything but wear holiday-themed sweaters (which should be banned like Agent Orange). But I HATE Christmas shopping. When Black Friday rolls around, I want to move into a bunker. I get mad when stores have their Christmas stuff out BEFORE HALLOWEEN.

I hate it. I hate it. HATE IT.

The older I get, the more I hate it. Why? Because I am a Grinch and I don't like feeling obligated to spend money on other people. I'm not that wild about spending money on other people, period.

There. I said it.

I also don't want most people to spend money on me. I am 32 years old. My family still thinks I'm into Disney characters and the Transformers. They know they don't know what I like, so they just get me random stuff. Random ugly stuff. Random useless ugly stuff.

And no, I don't think it's the thought that counts. Because all I can think is, "I'd rather you kept the $30 you spent on me and bought something for yourself. Or saved it."

You know what I want for Christmas? Quality time. Experiences. I'm over stuff.

I like decorating. I like to go to holiday parties. I like to take someone out to dinner or go out with my family. I like going home and talking to my 94-year-old grandmother. I like baking cookies with my little cousins.

I don't need gifts. Not any more. I'm not a kid. I like new pretty things. But I can buy myself those things. For Christmas, I'd rather spend time with the people I like and the people I love. Don't get me wrong, when the proverbial thought hits me, or when I am inspired, I like to give a nice gift. I have some in mind for a few folks, but other than that, I would like to skip the gifts this year. Every year.

Maybe if I had my own children I'd be singing a different tune, but I guess we'll find out when that day comes :-) Until then, I want to spread holiday cheer and enjoy the festivities, but not by buying stuff.

Without A Financial Foe, I've Been A Spendthrift.

If you read my blog enough, you know I'm not thrifty. Or frugal or however you want to describe it.

But I am pretty good at keeping track of my spending, working toward my financial goals and saving money.I have gotten comfortable.

That's good! Because I want to be able to get what I want and go where I please without biting my nails or hoping I didn't just drain my checking account.

But it's also not so good. With comfort comes complacency, which can mean sliding back into bad habits that got me in trouble with credit card debt.

I have noticed that without a financial nemesis, I have been awfully slack with my dough.

I used to think "Do I need this or want this?" I used to avoid spots that caused me to spend on impulse (Target, I'm giving you the side eye).

But now... now I just wander through Target when I don't need anything, just looking. On my lunch break I'll wander through the cosmetics aisle of CVS to see if there are any new colors of anything, just in case. In case what? And let's not talk about my constant perusal of the sales pages of my favorite retailers (J. Crew, Banana Republic, Zappos... you mutha frackas).

I make lots of impulse buys. I don't manage my food budget well and don't really try.
These aren't huge obnoxious expenses, no. But every little one seems to make it easier to make bigger purchases, budget be damned.

For example, I flipped through my latest J. Crew catalog and picked out three separate outfits, complete with shoes and jewelry and ALMOST clicked "Submit" online, to the tune of $1,500.

What the H E Double Hockey Sticks?

I guess the difference is, I DIDN'T make those big purchases precisely because I didn't want a balance on my credit card or I knew there wasn't enough money left in my budget. So maybe I shouldn't beat myself up so much -- thinking is not doing.

But it sure is the first step.

When I was in debt, all I wanted was to be out of debt. When I took a step backward in debt repayment, I got depressed, then angry, then even more determined to pay it off. Every payment was a victory. Watching the grand total fall was thrilling. I could see the finish line.

Now that I am out of debt (and don't ever plan to go back, thank you very much), I can't say I have a financial goal that really gets my heart pumping. I wanted to save six months of living expenses because it seemed like the responsible thing to do -- one because the economy tanked and I worked for a tech startup and two because I wasn't crazy about my job anyway, but didn't exactly have a bunch of options lined up.

I made saving for this goal automatic because it was easier and, honestly, if I had to think about it and manually make those deposits, I'm not sure I would have done it. I think I might have found some other fun, but not asset-building things to do with that money.

Now I am sitting on the cusp of achieving my goal, in exactly the amount of time I planned to do it in. YAY! But... not as big a Yay as paying off my debt.

As for saving for retirement, um yeah, see, my personal finance gene must be defective, because that DOES NOT excite me. Most smart personal finance bloggers, or any smart person, digs saving for retirement or talking about building their balances. Not me. That talk bores the daylights out of me. My current 401k is doing nicely, to my shock... and to my disinterest.

I have said way back when I started this blog that money and money talk did nothing for me. Freedom was what I wanted. And money, to me, was the freedom to do whatever. If I could eat, have a place to live and move around as I pleased, then everything else would work out.

So, what am I missing here? I need a GOAL, a S.M.A.R.T. goal. I think the part of missing is the RELEVANCE. Right now, I can't think of anything I want so badly that I can focus financially like a laser.

How about you guys? Think I'm nuts? Are you in the same boat? Let me know... unless you think I'm nuts, keep that to yourself :-)

Eating Out or Cooking In: Which One Will Save Me Money?

Once upon a time in the South, I could buy about a week's worth of groceries for $40.

That included breakfast, lunch to take to work, and dinner when I got home. I was adamant about cooking at home because $40 for a week could not be beat. I was also deeply in debt, so I pinched pennies and cut corners everywhere to focus on paying off my debt and saving in my 401k (because I got a company match and didn't want to leave that money on the table!).

As I mentioned in my October monthly report, I got so good at managing my grocery budget, I could eyeball the contents of my cart and tell within $5 how much the whole thing would ring up. I planned meals around coupons and what I already had in the apartment. Now, some months I'd be over budget on food, but I did have it down to a science.

Eating out was rare, but when I did, I almost never ordered drinks (including soda) or dessert. I usually split my entree in half and took the remainder to work the next day for lunch.

When I moved to Washington, D.C., most of that went out the window.

First, I had seriously underestimated the cost of groceries. The first few times I went shopping, I thought I had about $40 worth of stuff in my cart and the clerk would be like, "That'll be $65." For some peanut butter and bread?! For nearly the first YEAR I was in D.C., I had no clue how much my groceries would ring up.

I also started eating out WAY more. And, because I was quickly approaching debt freedom, I'd order a drink. I'd order dessert.And I usually ate the whole thing right there. No seconds for lunch the next day.

For those of you who keep up with my monthly reports, you see that just about EVERY month I go over budget on food. But, honestly, I don't do a lot of the things I used to do. I don't do coupons anymore. The return on investment (i.e., the investment of time) was not worth the pennies I was saving. I also plan my meals based on stuff that sounds good or that I haven't tried before. And because I work later hours then I used to, sometimes I just grab something on the way home. I don't feel like cooking when I walk in my front door.

You'd think that this is the sole reason my food budget is so crazy. But no, actually, some months I do way better when I don't go grocery shopping much and just eat out. It depends on where I eat though -- a $60 meal out and a $15 meal out make a difference. Since I eat at swankier places than I used to, sometimes it's hard to eat just half the meal -- the prices are higher and the portions are smaller (but the food is so much better).

So, here is the question: am I wasting time and money trying to cook at home? Should I just let someone else do the cooking?

Well, I still have no idea. I think I need a deeper analysis on just what sucks up my money without leaving my fridge full by the end of the week. Even though I keep track of every receipt, I think I'm not clear on where my food money goes.

Any suggestions from yall out there? What could I do to get a picture of where this money is going? Any suggestions for getting back control of this part of my budget?

October Monthly Report: In the Black Due to Third Paycheck

Can't pat myself on the back this month for being in the black -- it was a three-paycheck month.

I went $190 over my flex money budget -- that was entirely due to a pair of shoes I bought (I tweeted about it!) and I bought two sweaters on sale at Banana Republic.

Without the third paycheck, I still would have been in the black for October, by about 25 cents. LOL!

I also went nuts on food. Lots and lots of eating out and STILL going over budget on groceries.We all know that the clothing thing is bad planning and my weakness -- sometimes I turn to retail therapy, other times I don't plan well for something I need to buy anyway.

But the food thing, I have been struggling with that since I moved to D.C. In my next post (which I promise will be tomorrow, not two weeks from now), I'll talk about my out of control food spending.

The good news is that I am well on my way to reaching my goal of saving six months of living expenses. Even with the car repairs, I should have that amount saved by the end of December. Happy New Year to me!