Whelp, it finally happened. After a weekend of eating
out (we went out three times), my husband and I sat down (at a restaurant) and
decided to try the ’30 day no restaurant challenge’. Many of you may remember when Brittany did
this a few months back. Using her blogs as a guide, we will also attempt no
eating out from this last week of June until the end of July.
While my husband and I are the Groupon king and
queen, we found ourselves going out more and more. When we thought about it we
realized that it wasn’t so much the dinners that were getting out of control,
but the meals and coffee and snacks we were buying during the day for
ourselves. We both drive around a great deal for work and everyone can agree,
simply running into a Chinese place or through a drive through is much more convenient
than worrying about packing, keeping cold, and carrying a lunch around with you
all day. However, if you spend on average $6 on a lunch three times a week, you
are spending $18 a week/$72 a month! Since we were both eating lunches out
about three times a week (sometimes more) for the two of us it would be $144 a
month! Remember that is not including any additional days we ate out or any
additional stops (like coffee stops I was making a few times a week, oops).
My husband and I decided if we were going to do it,
we were going to go all the way. So while our spending during the day was the
major problem, we decided to also cut going out to dinners as well and come up
with new and fun things to do instead. Here were some ground rules we set:
1. Any
previously planned meals were still ok to do (there was only 1). We have been planning
on going to brunch and window shopping Saturday morning a week from now in the
Strip District in Pittsburgh. That’s still ok to do. Lunches and stops during
the day are the big focus!
2. My
husband’s work does not count. As an advisor, much of his work revolves around
meetings for lunch or coffee. Obviously, he can’t not go to a meeting simply
because he is not supposed to buy coffee for a month, so that will not count
either.
3. Traveling
has some leeway as well. We both have trips coming up in July in which we will
be flying different places. If you are in an airport and have not had anything
to eat or drink for ten hours, then it’s ok to buy something.
4. We
will pack lunches and bring snacks when on the road! We still stock up at
Costco and buy the smaller items at the local supermarket so we will be more
lunch and snack conscious when making any purchases.
5. We
will make dinners at home. I’ve started looking up some fun new recipes to try
and we will work together and take turns so not one person feels overwhelmed.
We also decided it was ok for people to buy us dinner, lunch, etc. but it is
not ok to ask people to do it!
6. I
will update you all with the recipes we come up with, ideas we have and,
of course, the money we save!
Here we go!
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