Tough Choices: Eating Out
Every day we are faced with choices. Sometimes your choices are just trying to decide what coffee mug you should drink out of. While other days, it seems like your choices are much more difficult. Some seem so small and insignificant, while others are tough and can have a major impact on our lives. Most Americans live in debt and are stressed about their financial situation, but too many of them will never make the choice to do anything about it. Yes, getting out of debt is hard. Yes, changing your lifestyle is hard. Yes, finding ways to save money is not fun. These are tough choices that have to be made if you are going to be financially free.
I have already written a post about the importance of choosing to be debt free, so I won't repeat myself. However, every once in a while, I am going to write a post on Tough Choices. Brooke and I had to make tons of tough choices along our financial journey. I will be completely honest: you may not like some things I write about when talking about Tough Choices. Why? Because no one likes hearing that they need to change certain behaviors or give up certain luxuries. However, my goal is not to tell you what you want to hear; my goal is to tell you how to fix your mess.
The definition of insanity is, "doing the same thing and expecting different results." If you're in debt, my guess is you have gotten yourself there by making some questionable choices. So many people want to get out of debt, but they will continue to make the same questionable decisions. If you are in debt and want to get out of debt, but haven't made any choices and steps of actually doing it; then by definition you are insane. You are making the same bad choices and expecting your financial mess to fix itself. NEWS FLASH...it's not going to get fixed unless you start making some tough choices.
When Brooke and I finally realized that we had to make some changes, we sat down, rolled up our sleeves, and made some seriously tough choices. If you follow this blog by subscribing to it or if you follow it on social media, I will be sharing several of our tough choices along the way. For today, I want to look at our first, and probably toughest choice, we had to make: eating out.
You will learn several things about me while reading my blog...one thing that you should know is that I love food. My family loves eating out. While we were living an "insane" lifestyle, we would eat out several times a week. Maybe 5-7 times per week. We would eat out 1-2 times for dinner, another 1-2 times for lunch (we liked taking the boys out to Chick-fil-A after school because who doesn't like Chick-fil-A?), we might wake up and want to grab breakfast at a local diner, and then we would always eat out after church on Sunday afternoon...and who am I kidding? We would probably grab some fast food Sunday night after Bible study because it was too late to cook anything. In all, for a family of four, we would spend about $150-$250 per week on eating out. That's $1000 per month, just on eating out. Talk about insane.
This goes right along with what research says the average American family does. The average American family will eat out 5 times a week and spend an average of $12.75 per person each meal. For a family of four to eat out 5 times a week, it would cost $255. Multiply that by 4 weeks in the month and you are looking at over $1000 a month just on eating out! I just described most Americans. When Brooke and I saw how much money we were wasting on going out to eat, we realized we had to stop! This was our tough choice.
Every person and every family is different, but for our family, we decided to cut our eating out by 75%. Instead of spending $1000 a month on eating out, we budgeted $250 a month. This is good enough for 1-2 times per week. It was a fair balance between cutting way back and still being able to enjoy life a little bit. We decided we would "eat in" for every meal except one per week. That left a little extra money in our eating out budget for certain things like going out for birthdays, date nights, etc. Yes, this made our grocery bill a little higher, but groceries are actually cheaper than eating out. So, through the course of the month, we actually saved money. Guess where all the extra money went now that we weren't eating out? Debt!!! Which was another tough choice (it's easier to spend saved money on fun things than put it towards something boring like debt), but we will cover that choice in a future post.
We had to make the tough choice to be better with eating out and that meant more eating at home. Here are a few things we did to change our bad habit of eating out, but also not break the bank while eating in:
Have a plan - Every week, Brooke sat down and made a list of every day of the week. She then penciled in a meal for each day. She then made a grocery list for all the ingredients we would need. Having a list not only held us to a meal plan for the week, but it also held us in check at the grocery store. We learned to save money on groceries by following our list.
Find alternatives - Like I mentioned previously, we like going out to breakfast every once in a while. Instead of going to a local diner where we would spend almost $25 plus tip, we decided to go get donuts. Donuts are cheaper...and better (not for you, just the taste). Being from California, we also love Mexican food. Instead of going to a "sit down" restaurant, we found a local hole in the wall. Instead of spending $30-$35 plus tip, we now spend less than $20 (plus the food is better). Get online and see what your city has to offer in cheaper dining...you might just find a new favorite. Also, you will find you can eat out more often and still stay within your budgeted amount...win, win.
Have a themed night - we have two theme nights at our house (we don't do this every week, but it makes it fun to eat in). First, we have movie night. We will choose a family movie from Hulu or Netflix, get a frozen pizza (cheaper than delivery) and we will all sit around the TV and eat our dinner. The kids especially love movie night because we set out a blanket and have a picnic in the living room. It's also good family bonding time and a memory your kids will never forget. Second, we have breakfast night. Our family loves breakfast for dinner. On those nights when there's not a lot of time (Sunday's for us), we would just scramble some eggs, cut up some fruit, and have breakfast. We would also get creative with it. My wife would make homemade biscuits and gravy, sometimes we make egg scrambles or omelets, and of course...coffee. Breakfast is cheap, quick, and easy.
You will read some financial experts that say if you are serious about getting out of debt, then you should stop eating out entirely (talk about insane). Listen, I am all for doing whatever you can to get out of debt. If not eating out is easy for you, than make that choice. However, for my family, that wasn't going to work. For starters, my wife stays home all day with my two boys and rarely gets a break. When we decided to eat in for every meal, that meant she was cooking more, which means more work for her. Eating out became a break. Brooke deserves a break and she deserves a meal that is cooked for her (not to mention it saves us a night of cleanup).
Second, I am a first believer that one reason Brooke and I have been successful on our financial journey is because we had an "out." An "out" is a tiny splurge that keeps you sane during this process. There have been some people who have started their financial journey and get burnt out before they reach their goals. That's because they are too intense and they have not allowed any room in the budget to have some fun. For my family, eating out is a splurge. It's our out. I'm not saying we go to a fancy restaurant and splurge on the expensive steak, I'm just saying that going to a restaurant was a nice break from our weekly grind and it made us feel like we were able to have a little fun.
Tough choices are not fun, but that doesn't mean you need to be miserable. Remember, your goal is to live a better financial life. The tough choice my family made was the right thing to do for my family. It may not work for yours. You have to choose what will work for you, but my guess is you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't need some help. Try this plan for one month and see how it changes your finances, your health, and your attitude. I think when you see how much money you save, but still leave a little room for a splurge, you will see that these tough choices aren't that tough after all. Kevin