Evolving Personal Finance » food
Grocery Challenge Update for February 2013
I was considering not posting about our grocery challenge this week because I don’t have a complete report, but then I decided that this blog is supposed to reflect real life and sometimes real life just doesn’t leave room for tracking receipts! I know how much money we spent on groceries last month thanks to Mint – $458.50 – but at some point in the month we lost track of our receipts for the mega pie … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
Grocery Challenge Update for January 2013
Late last fall we realized that our grocery spending had really gotten out of hand, even though we increased our budget from $360 to $400 per month. In November we spent $484 and set ourselves a grocery challenge – several goals that we thought would help us reduce our grocery spending to under our budget. The first month of our challenge, December 2012, was not successful – we spent $502 – but I was feeling … Read entire article »
Grocery Challenge Update for December 2012
This is our December review for our attempt to take control of our grocery spending through seven goals and a new grocery budget cap. In December we spent $502.54 on groceries, about 25% above our budget of $400. I don’t feel terrible about this overage because there were a few unusual circumstances, and I think we’re on track to meet our budget next month. We did pretty well accomplishing our goals aside from the time we … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
Taking Control of Our Grocery Spending
Last month we were way over our grocery spending and this month we are way, way over! Two months in a row is real red flag. This is such a big chunk of our budget that these large overages are affecting our bottom line – the only reason we’ve been in the black the last two month has been our yet-unincorporated cost-of-living raises from September. Looking back in Mint, it seems that our grocery spending … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
Petty Customer Service Rant
Driving back from my conference, I had an unpleasant interaction with two employees of a certain extremely fat-phobic national sandwich chain. These employees had apparently never heard “The customer is always right.” or even “The customer is right when the evidence is staring you in the face.” I ordered a double chicken chopped salad, which was the featured menu item, advertised as $6.25, and added a cup of soup for $1.00. My food was prepared and … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
How to Cut Your Food Spending – Scaling Back on Eating Out
For those looking to cut back on their spending, eating out is a prime target. While there are some people for whom eating out has become a lifestyle, we all know that it is totally optional! This post will help you find ways to cut back on how much money you spend on eating out as well as get more for the money you do spend. Planning in this area will pay off big time … Read entire article »
How to Cut Your Food Spending – Reducing Grocery Costs
Very early in your spending-tracking or budgeting lifestyle, you will realize that food spending is one of the most highly variable and easily manipulated expenditure categories. If you’re looking to reduct your spending, food is often the primary target of budget slashing, and for good reason! There are lots of ways to cut back on food spending, from temporary fasts from certain products to long-term lifestyle changes like cooking. Take a moment to look up your … Read entire article »
How to Cut Your Food Spending – What’s Your Personality?
This is the start of a short series on spending less money on food (here are part 2 and part 3). In considering various strategies I realized that people will likely fall into two camps in terms of how they like to incorporate change: some people prefer abrupt, drastic change and others prefer gradual change. While I tend to shy away from comparisons between financial management and diet/weight management, this is one area where I can’t … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, food, frugality, personal, psychology
Double Check that Your Meal Plan Isn’t Screwing You
When I finally sat down and did the math before my senior year of college, I realized that I had been wasting money on my meal plan nearly every week for three years. I don’t mean that the meals were overpriced for their quality, though they probably were, but that the meal plans were set up to take advantage of the limited options available to the students. I discovered that the meal plan price was calculated … Read entire article »
Sometimes I Don’t Eat. Is that Rude?
On Sunday, Kyle and I were invited to go out to dinner with about a dozen other people to celebrate a friend’s birthday on Monday. Kyle had a volleyball game scheduled near the start of the dinner so we RSVP’d that we would be coming late. Kyle stayed at school to be there for the game and I went home to have dinner. Because of a torrential rainstorm, his game was canceled, so we were … Read entire article »
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