A budget experiment...

Michael and I have always been terrible at eating out. He ate out less than I did before we met, but then while dating we were always eating out somewhere and when you date as long as we did, you spend some serious money on food!

I did try to cook some when we got married, but so many times it was just easier (and maybe tastier) to grab something on the way home from work since we both work. We also had a hard time with buying meat and produce that would disappear in the fridge and go bad before we got to it.

Michael has started doing more of the cooking each year that we've been married and he does pretty much all of it now. (I know, be jealous of me ladies!) Some weeks we do a good job of making a meal plan, going grocery shopping, and more importantly sticking to the meal plan. But more often than not, we end up just grabbing something quick while we are out or on our way home from somewhere.

We have been trying to stick to a budget in the last year or so and I wondered how little we could spend on food if we didn't eat out so much, or (gasp) at all. We've been using coupons and trying to make smarter purchase choices. I figure eating at home should end up being healthier too for the most part. In July we decided we'd try to make the month of August and "no eating out" month. I was nervous to post about this earlier in the month in case we didn't do so well, but we have managed to do it so far! Our one exception is our company lunches on Fridays. We have really enjoyed those since that has been our only "out" meals. I'll give an end of the month report when we get there.

Happy eating!