Anyone else guilty of over spending on food?

[Bades]

This is usually my single biggest expense every month. I enjoy eating well, but I still feel like I'm paying way too much.

I like to eat out every now and then and have a nice "date night" with my gf maybe once a month. Recently I've been buying lunch at work more than packing. My companies cafeteria offers good and healthy meals for right around $5, so sometimes that just makes things easier.

Yet it seems like I even spend a lot on groceries and I usually almost always buy items that are on sale. Grant it my gf and I buy a lot of fruit and vegs, but we don't throw much away either.

I think our worst month was a combined grocery bill of $600 (a lot of the groceries did transfer over to the next month though) and then I spent about $350 on eating out (work lunches, dinners, pizzas, etc). So basically I spent $650 on myself for one month, I didn't know that was possible!

Anyone else have a problem getting their food bill under-control?

[PauletteGoddard]

I do. I've tried planning meals, making one meatless meal a week, taking advantage of flyer specials and bulk purchase of meats, tracking pantry and freezer inventories, buying seasonings and grains in bulk, coupons, reducing the # of coffees out, cutting down on family eating out nights to one a month, using leftovers and am now using a price book. I cannot make my ideal $750 for three people. We keep only a small amount (3 meals) of frozen prepared foods in the freezer. I don't eat duck, venison and filet mignon every week either.

But then everything is relative. For us, $30 a month on electricity is overspending.

[disneysteve]

I'm guilty. Our problem isn't eating at home. It is eating out. That is just way too expensive no matter where you go or what you get. A simple lunch is $6-8. Dinner easily double that. And that's when we go to the trashy places. When we go anywhere decent, it is over $20/person for dinner.

[riverwed070707]

I do. I've tried planning meals, making one meatless meal a week, taking advantage of flyer specials and bulk purchase of meats, tracking pantry and freezer inventories, buying seasonings and grains in bulk, coupons, reducing the # of coffees out, cutting down on family eating out nights to one a month, using leftovers and am now using a price book. I cannot make my ideal $750 for three people. We keep only a small amount (3 meals) of frozen prepared foods in the freezer. I don't eat duck, venison and filet mignon every week either.

But then everything is relative. For us, $30 a month on electricity is overspending.

Yikes. Where do you live? Some places groceries are just more expensive. Not much you can do about that. Have you looked into joining a CSA or a co-op?

[bjl584]

I splurge here and there but nothing that makes me feel too guilty.

[PauletteGoddard]

Yikes. Where do you live? Some places groceries are just more expensive.

Seattle. I used to belong to a CSA but our food boxes were stolen too often, and some vegetables showed mold. I also shopped farmers' markets but $19/lb for lamb just wasn't within my budget.

[cypher1]

Guilty also. Sun-Fri nights I cook at home, but lunch is still bad eating out. Several months ago a co-worker bet me I couldn't bring a lunch twice a week for a month. I ended up brown bagging it 3 times a week for almost 2 months, just to win a free beer. Bad habits came back, and I stopped. I should've added at my new year's resolution.

[feh]

I allow myself 2 "out" lunches per week. And I keep them cheap; $6-8. My wife cooks home-made meals 4 or 5 times a week. As a family, we only eat out a couple times a month, if that.

For a family of 3, we average $580 per month on groceries.

[GREENBACK]

I deny myself some enjoyable things in life for the sake of being frugal but food isn't one of those things. Fortunately, I enjoy cooking so I will do things like buy cheaper cuts of meat and attempt to make them as good as the choice stuff. I try to be a frugal shopper but don't try to "control" my food bill. I don't eat out a lot nowadays because I feel I can make food better and certainly healthier at home. I'm generally between 4 to 500 for the month.

[kilboy]

I used to be terrible with food. I used to spend 1,600/month on eating out and food...

[ActYourWage]

This thought has been weighing on my mind lately too. I spend too much money eating out. The one thing that helps me is thinking "you got to eat to live, right?" However, for me, if I am motivated to save up money for a purchase or in my current situation, pay down the mortgage, I find it easier to avoid the expensive meals out all the time.

[fe2o3ez]

Guilty, your honor. Our struggle, though, is getting healthy food for ourselves and both healthy and fun food for my son. He has ultra-high metabolism, so he eats lots of stuff and doesn't put on a pound. Plus, teaching a 6-year old to eat what has been served to him is easier said than done, so occasionally he ends up 'trying' a healthy dinner, but ultimately eating chicken nuggets. Gets expensive over time.

And as others have said, that doesn't consider eating out. That's a whole different animal. We try to only eat out occasionally, so when we do, you can bet that it won't be at a fast food or burger joint, so we spend money on the nicer dinners!

[gf1723]

I am guilty as well. I actually eat healthier when I don't eat out because I don't stuff myself. I made it one of my new years resolutions to bring my lunch more. I was actually eating out almost every day of the week. So far this week, I have yet to spend any money during lunch on food.

I did go to Subway once, but that was because I had a gift card.

[Shaabenanizer]

$300/month in groceries and eating out just for myself. Over the holiday I spent extra $150 when my sister was staying with me for 11 days. I know I can do better but, I don't. The sad thing is in the last 6 months I lost 10 pounds I didn't need to lose because for some reason I lost my appetite. So why hasn't my food bill gone down?

[f0rgiv3n]

Guilty!!! It's so hard because we don't have kids and we both work. So you know the story, you get home and are both tired from a long day and don't want to cook. We go out to eat probably 4-5 times a week... However, sometimes it actually IS cheaper to eat out if you're smart about it. For instance, sometimes Arby's has deals where you can get 2 for $5. It's about the same to eat out or in at that rate.