I decided that I should give something a try, just to see if I could make it work. With my plan to try to save money by cutting excess spending in effect, it is forcing me to take a step back and look to see where all of the excess money is leaking from the bucket.
Part of saving money is finding (and plugging) the leaks. Once you do that, you will begin to notice a difference in your bank account.
After a bit of thought, I found that a lot of my extra spending is due to the fact that I like to eat out a lot. Most of the time, it isn’t even necessary, but I’m just too lazy to cook my own stuff. It’s just so much nicer to pull up to a window, hand the cashier some cash, and then they hand you whatever you order (most of the time). It’s good food, it’s fast, and it’s just convenient. The problem is that it is also expensive.
Using myself as an example, we can see how it adds up quickly. If I eat out once per day, and I spend about $5 on it, and if I do this every day that I have to work (which is 5 days per week), that’s $25 per week. The truth is that most of us don’t limit eating out to just once per day. If we go grab dinner at a decently priced restaurant, you’re looking at an additional $12 (or so). Do that just twice a week in addition to the lunches, and that’s $49. If you take a date with you on any of those dinner nights, expect that to be at least twice the amount.
I’ve found a solution that, while not as pleasant, may just do the trick.
Normally, I buy groceries but eat out most of the time. My average grocery bill is about $25/week which does not include fast food. What I did this week was decide to go ahead and spend $37 (which is about what it came to at Kroger) and get enough stuff for light meals for two weeks at once. This has two benefits – first, I have stuff at home, and this includes things that I can take to work with me for lunch, so I will be saving A TON of cash. Second, I will be eating less (this is where the sacrifice and self-control come in), so hopefully I can lose a few pounds as well.
So with all of the money I saved, I picked up some gear for tennis. I figured that if I was going to eat less, I should probably exercise more. I’m tired of being the fat guy that doesn’t ever have enough money. With this plan, eventually I’ll be the not-so-fat guy with a comfortable life. :D
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