If this is your first time visiting last year I hosted my very own No Restaurants in November challenge. The point was to save some money and hopefully curb some bad eating out habits while being transparent about all of it. I revealed how much we spent in October of 2010 and our savings at the end of November. The challenger was a huge success in terms of popularity so I decided to bring it back every year. If you want to know more about it read No Restaurants in November 2011 – for the rules of the road. It’s not too late to save some money if you’re interested in starting late. 😀
Six days of No Restaurants in November! Whew! 😀
There will be two parts to this post. I am going to do it a little different than last year. This year I want to share with you my experience more than my numbers although I plan on sharing my numbers at the end of the month to wrap things up. I want to share with you my experience, what it cost me (and my family), but then I want to share a very special “quick and easy” recipe resource to give those of you who are short on time a little better chance of sticking to this for the long haul.
Week One Recap
This is usually the hardest week for me especially the first few days. Ever had a conversation (or an argument) with yourself? I had a few close calls but nothing I couldn’t handle. Most of my struggle was because of the habit I’ve developed for eating out. (JUST SAYING NO) I may have had to yell at myself a few times to snap back to reality. The other part was simply (or not so simply) planning ahead by having a solid eating plan for the week.
This week my wife was my hero because it was her that held it together by making sure we were prepared for the week. I wouldn’t say we had an actual plan, but it was she who started putting stuff together, quick, fast, and in a hurry to make things a little easier. Normally I am the cook and really love that role, but I’d be lying if I said there aren’t a few too many times where I become lazy and start coaxing the family out for a meal instead of cooking something up.
Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously plan our errands around meal time so it can be an excuse to eat out. Instead of planning our errands around our meals it always seems to be the other way around.
What Can I Do Better
For starters, my short term goal is to obviously not eat out this month, but my long term goal goes much deeper. For 14 months straight (now thru 2012), I would like to have a more responsible eating plan that allows a few restaurants here and there but only as a date or novelty experience. I want to learn to eat more healthy more often and right now eating out is more of a temptation to have everything I shouldn’t. I would like to eat healthy when I do eat out and as most of you know I truly struggle with my weight.
I want to more closely track and record “food costs” for 2012, but more importantly I want to pay extra special attention to the money we save in the process.What can we accomplish in 2012 if we simply eat out less?
What Our Bad Habit Potentially Costs Us?
Last year in October, we spent almost $500 on JUST EATING OUT, and another $500 on groceries. (TRANSLATION: a lot of wasted food because we weren’t home to eat it!) If we did that for 12 months straight, that’s approximately $6,000 (give-or-take) that could go into our emergency fund.
In my opinion we weren’t short of our savings goal because nearly $20k in emergencies and irregular expenses, we didn’t even come close because we spent close to $6,000 just eating out. It makes me wonder where else we’re wasteful.
If every month looked like October 2010 for us, we’d be spending approximately $12,000 just on food and groceries!! I’m all for stimulating the economy but that’s ridiculous.
What does my financial plan think of that?
Not very happy about it I assure you. That’s why I’m hoping to enter back into our “RADICALLY KILL YOUR DEBT” mode to enable us to reach our goals a little bit faster. At this rate, we’ll never reach our goal of saving and paying for our next house with NO MORTGAGE. We’ve got work to do but we’ve been working against ourselves and our plan. After we got out of debt we became complacent and definitely lost some of the intensity and focus we had when paying it off.
The point I hope to make with this post is to get you to think about how much money you waste each year by showing you MY STRUGGLE. “Look how much Brad wasted! Hmm, I wonder how much we wasted?” How much could you have saved if you had a more responsible eating plan?
This is what I want you to do. In the comments section of this post I want you to think about, then list, what you could have possibly accomplished had you simply eaten out less so far in 2011. If you have no idea take a guess. If you eat out 6 times a month multiply that by how much it costs each time, THEN multiply that by 12 and you’ll have your guesstimate. 😉
- Could you have paid off more debt?
- Could you have saved more for retirement?
- Could you have saved more for your emergency fund? (6 months of expenses)
- Could you have saved your children from the financial choke-hold of Sallie Mae?
- Could you have helped someone in need?
The list could go on. Only you know what your financial goals are and what opportunity you might have lost because of eating out.
Ready, Set, Go – Your Recipe Resource for a Healthy “Cooking-on-the-Go” Lifestyle!
Many of you asked for it and here it is. Thanks to my good buddies over at Fit Marriage (Dustin and Tony), you’ll have access to Ready, Set, Go, an ebook created by these two guys to help busy couples eat healthier in much less time. Actually,they allowed me to be a part of this project by submitting a few of my own recipes. 😀
Click this link to download your very own free copy of Ready, Set, Go!
Also, please connect with Fit Marriage on Facebook by liking their page or just say thanks! They would love to hear from you. For even more access to other awesome resources (also FREE) sign up for their Fit Marriage Newsletter straight to your inbox.
Enjoy and good luck in completing your goals during week 2!! 😀
P.S. What if you SAVED $500 and WON $500 for the month of October? That would be pretty awesome so don’t forget to enter my $500 cash prize giveaway. A winner will be chosen on November 21st! Enter NOW!
I like what you said:
“Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously plan our errands around meal time so it can be an excuse to eat out. Instead of planning our errands around our meals it always seems to be the other way around.”
It really made me wonder that about myself too, and I think I have a tendency to do that a lot.
At the beginning of this year I decided I wasn’t going to put up with credit card debt or unnecessary spending anymore. I had started in the past, but this time I was determined. I stopped paying for cable TV, paid off all my credit cards (and cut them up), and cut way back on my eating out/entertainment.
Thankfully, I have gotten my “eating out” food budget to $120 a month, down from $320 at the beginning of the year. Now this month I have a $0 eating out spending plan, and I’m LOVING it! It’s made me feel more in control and I will be putting a good dent paying down my car loan (the last debt I have).
Thanks for the update Brad…keep it up!
Yeah the whole subconscious thing had me wondering because we often find ourselves out and about at meal time. This week that became more apparent to me for some reason. LOL Maybe it was because at least four times this past week we found ourselves out during meal time. haha!
That awesome that you have gained some real control over your food budget. I like how much progress you’ve made. Keep it up! 😀
Day 7, and I’m lovin’ the Restaurant Free challenge. Tonight I grilled burgers…just seasoned for the rest of the family, but mine had some buffalo wing sauce, onion and jalapenos mixed in. Throw some cheddar cheese on top and make the bun crispy and I’m ready to eat!
Just because you don’t go out to eat doesn’t mean you can’t eat really good food. I plan on surprising Vonnie with crab legs at some point this month….as soon as they go on sale. 🙂
That sounds delicious Travis especially the part about the jalapenos, onions, and buffalo sauce!! 🙂
Keep it up my friend! November is going to be a great month. I can’t wait until you get your new computer. I know you can do it! 😀
I’m loving this challenge, Brad! (And thanks for the “weird” comment you made about me when I was talking to you last week regarding my friend that didn’t want to discuss money, LOL). Anyhow, I’ve gone the WHOLE WEEK without spending at restaurants, at lunch, etc. I did, however, get hit by the Girl Scout cookies on Sunday while coming out of Lowe’s–and I totally bought a box, FORGETTING that that is considered “outside food.” I ended up buying a box ($4.00), and enjoyed them with the kids, but I also realized that I can’t forget the rules again!
Thank you Serena! I’m glad you are enjoying it! I can’t help but wonder how the money group is holding up now that you’ve made it clear you want to take it seriously. 🙂 Is your friend still pretending or has she opted out? Just curious. 😀
As for the girl scout cookies, don’t we all fall victim to girl scout cookies? LOL At least it was just one box and more importantly you were thinking about how it would affect your plan.
Girl Scout cookies put a magic spell on anyone who is within 2 feet of them. Just last week, my wife was put under the same spell and probably would have bought them too. She decided to ask what I thought (she knows I like to help boy/girl scouts when they come around) and since I wasn’t close enough to be under the spell, I was able to say no. HAHA! Saying no to girl scout cookies doesn’t happen often. LOL
Keep rocking it Serena!
Hey, Brad! The money group…..Thanks for asking! In fact, I couldn’t wait to give you an update, because there has been some developments. Okay, well, here’s the update! (And I should be careful what I say because I just subscribed her to your blog last week–although doubtful she’s read it!!). Anyhow, we met on Friday night (her, myself, and our other member). It was a brief meeting because of time constraints. It was basically just an update on what we’ve been doing financially since we’d last met. I happened to find out some things my friend had done (i.e. bad financial decisions), and I sort of laid in to her her decisions. I didn’t mean to take a “I told you so!” and “Why didn’t you listen to me?” approach regarding her decisions. I could tell she was upset–although not sure if it was because I let her know her choices weren’t good (albeit gently) or because she knew she had made bad decisions. I think it was both.
Fast forward several days…..we went to lunch with a mutual friend, and again, my friend bought lunch (!!!!). Of course, I wasn’t going to let it slide and I pointed it out to her 🙂 She later told me via email that she enjoys the money club and that its purpose is to inspire and motivate, not to “pick-apart and judge.” She said that she knows that she needs a kick in the butt every now and then, but that she doesn’t want to talk about money all day, and she pointed out that I could talk about it all day (I guess I can be annoying with it?? LOL).
I just feel super motivated, Brad! I feel in control of my money and I am using self-control to make good decisions with the cash I have in my pocket. And I like to talk to other people about it, and to share the excitement and good news. But I guess others just aren’t on the same page, huh?
It does make me question my involvement in the money group, because although I understand that just because someone isn’t tackling their finances in MY way (i.e. cutting out restaurants), doesn’t mean they aren’t trying in other ways, like switching car insurance for a less expensive company. However, I still can’t help but feel that if talking about money is more of a headache than a pep rally, then I’m sorry–you’re just not that motivated. And it makes me feel that taking part in a money group that isn’t in it 100% might be a waste of my time. Besides, I am motivated on my own, as well as getting additional motivation from this blog, and from other PF sites I subscribe to.
Any thoughts on this? Am I being unreasonable with my friend, expecting too much from her? Am I walking a thin line between motivating her and judging/criticizing her? Or is she just perceiving me to be judgemental because I am holding her accountable?
(Sorry to be so long-winded, LOL).
Thanks for the update Serena. Here are my thoughts about your encounter. There are so many ways a situation like that can go wrong but I’m going to base my answer on my own experiences with this sort of thing.
Obviously there are details I don’t have but from the sound of it, both of you were definitely coming from two very different places. Whether or not your reaction came off as motivating or judgmental really depends on where she is in her own financial journey. I like the word journey because that’s what it is. Over the course of any PF journey there are many stages and changes that take place. It sounds like she is in the VERY beginning of that journey if she’s even started it at all. Which is okay because we all have to start somewhere right? And sometimes it takes us a while to implement what we know to be right. With that said I think that while you may not have meant for it to sound the way it probably did to her that’s the way she took it.
I think it’s possible that she simply didn’t want the sort of accountability you were thinking about when you all decided to start the group. Let’s face it, people have a hard time transitioning from doing absolutely nothing to actually paying attention. You could have handled it perfectly and she still may have reacted and felt the same — defensive and judged.
BUT I also know from experience how negative the impact can be if you try too hard to get someone on the same page. I have talked about my experience many times here on Enemy of Debt and how my excitement and motivation to KICK ASS may have blocked out any desire for my wife to listen or even try. People have to feel like they are the ones making the decisions so if we come off as a parental figure (and bossy) then that just increases the possibility that the other party will rebel. Your friend bringing lunch the final time may have just been her rebelling even though she knew it wasn’t best for financially. Ego is a BEAST!
When we were first starting out I was literally saying this is what we’re doing….PERIOD! There was no room for debate it was decided…by me. The problem I ran into was that my wife didn’t feel she had a voice and certainly hadn’t had a chance to reach my level of excitement with regard to “my” new plan. She was in Nursing school and I had just ROCKED OUT an entire FPU-3 month course in two weeks. I was pumped and my wife was…well…focused on school. I never allowed for my wife to get on the same page. Instead I assumed that because my new plan for us was the most logical path I never considered that she wouldn’t want to do it.
One day my wife said Dave Ramsey (our Total Money Makeover) was going to ruin our marriage. I believe this was just said to get my attention (and it did) because my wife has very strong principles and would never have given up so easily, BUT had I continued to not listen and force her into my way of thinking without any feedback whatsoever, I have no doubt that our marriage would have suffered severe stress, much like what I was trying to avoid due to our bad financial behaviors of the past. The thing I was trying to make better, I made them worse, even though my intentions were nothing but good.
What did I learn? I learned that no one will jump on board the best of plans if they feel forced into hard changes. Hard changes are just that, hard to change, so even though your intentions were grand, you may need to give your friend more room to become used to the changes it will take to make the changes she needs to make. One of the best ways to do that is to be the example and let her see how your situation improves. It might take a month, maybe even six, and who knows, she may never be on the same page. That will be her choice. You can’t change anyone. They have to be ready and willing to make the hard choices.
When I gave my wife more room to feel we were doing this together it wasn’t long before she was on the same page. We had the same goals I just didn’t take the right approach. Soon my wife was selling things she wouldn’t let go of months prior to help us pay off our debt faster! That was one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. 😀
If I were you I would simply talk to your friend and apologize to her for coming on a little strong. You thought you were holding her accountable and didn’t mean to sound judgmental. Tell her how excited you are about the changes you’ve made and explain to her why you’re so excited. Just don’t expect anything significant from her for a while if ever. If she’s going to come around she will.
On the other hand let me tell you CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! You have to know and understand that I KNOW EXACTLY where you are right now. I was there too! It feels magnificent doesn’t it? It feels like waking up to a beautiful sunshine and birds chirping every single day!! LOL The light at the end of the tunnel has been seen and you are on a serious mission towards the light. This is a critical time for you because this is when you are going to have the biggest impact on your finances. Take advantage of it! Your intensity will pay off big time!
You are on your way!!! 😀 I LOVE IT!
Sounds like you’ve had one helluva journey, Brad!! Everything you said above resonates with me. I can come off a little….uh….pressing and strong at times, and expect everyone to jump on my bandwagon, because, after all, “It’s the right thing to do!” and “Why wouldn’t you want to make such a positive change?!” But you’re right in that that manner will only force people to rebel, even if they know you are right. So, I’m going to back off a bit, but still support my friend. The good news is that I do tend to inspire her easily through our conversations about ending procrastination, improving our lives, etc. And maybe she just needs to see me making gains, and then again, maybe it will never happen for her. But as her friend, I will continue to support her, while keeping the judgemental opinions to myself, and whatever decisions she makes, it is on her.
Great talking to you, and I look forward to the rest of the challenge! 🙂
Bad grammar! I meant to say “there HAVE been” not “there HAS been”….UGH…. lol
I think we need to recommit to our debt freedom plan.. I’m sure we could have paid off more this year had we been a little more intense and stuck with it, but it was a challenging year for us. I started a new job on the other side of the country, and I think around the time of our move we kind of lost the will and discipline we had built up before. Our eating out budget is only about $40 bucks a month, so we’ve tightened up quite a bit, but getting there and staying there after our move was definitely tough; we’re still working out all the kinks in our budget that we somehow picked up along our trip.
It’s good motivation for me to see how dedicated you are to ensuring your future is financially solid. It can be hard these days to stay on top of things and keep yourself and your family disciplined and motivated at the same time. Keep up everything you do here, and good luck on your journey to financial freedom and peace!
Well we are on Day 9 and I’ve been successful thus far! However, I had a previously planned weekend with friends this coming weekend and it wasn’t something I could back out of w/o ruining a friendship and forcing my friend to incurr extra expenses. BUT I’d already put that money aside so, eh? maybe I’m screwing up, I’m not sure.
The part that is killing me is the lack of Coke from McDonald’s. I did not realize how happy they made me. The sugar rush, the caffeine, the little fizzy bubbles, they all made me feel better.
AND THAT IS JUST RIDICULOUS!
I’ve been making sweet tea at home to get my caffeine so definitely saving money. Hopefully by month’s end I’ll have brokenmy Coke addiction.
I don’t think you’re screwing up Jessica. Like you said, this was already in the plans and you’ve already put money aside. Technically it’s not coming out of your November income. Don’t sweat it. 🙂
I wouldn’t say you have to give up your Coke addiction unless you want to. Your McDonald’s coke addiction, now that’s another story. Haha! Seriously though. Just buy some bubbly 2-liters of your Coke plus a big cup you can refill yourself from home. not sure how much you spend each day at McDonald’s on Coke but I’m sure it’s costing you more than if you were to buy a 2-liter. Sometimes 2 liters are on sale for $.99 especially at some convenient stores. that’s a great deal on your favorite drink and my wife and I personally think that soda from a 2-liter taste even more bubbly and delicious than one from a drink machine. 😀
You literally can have your budget, and drink your Coke too! Doesn’t that ROCK? 😀
Hmm, I was spending $1.50 on a normal day but some it was $3. That’s 1 or 2 a day and often times I’d grab something to eat since I was there anyways.
Unfortunately, fountain Coke from McD’s is THE BEST Coke you will ever get. Can’t even compete with bottles or cans. Their “formual” of syrup vs. CO2 is perfect and different than other restaurants and it’s perfect!
But my wallet and my waist need me to break this habit. I’m working on it.
Haha! Well I certainly can’t argue with that! 😉
We are Diet Pepsi lovers so let the soda wars begin. LOL
I say give up the Coke! 🙂 Your budget and body will thank you for it 🙂
I can’t believe I’ve only spent $4.00 on Girl Scout Cookies this month!!! Usually I spend about $150-$200 on eating out/junk food/snacks, etc. The amazing thing is that this is TOTALLY easy; must easier than I thought it would be. I love planning our meals and lunches, and I feel totally in control of my spending.
My question would be– what’s the best way to handle December? 😉 Seems wasteful to go back to frivolous spending at the end of this month. How have you guys handled December? Do you allow yourself, for example, to eat out once a week…?…Once every 2 weeks?….. I almost want to just keep this challenge going!!
Serena you are on fire!! $4.00 and 9 days in! AWESOMENESS!
Well last year I totally regressed and went right back to eating out though it was nowhere near as bad as most months before November. This year I’m going to keep it going through December and I’m trying to talk my wife into doing it for 12 months until the end of 2012. We’ll see how that goes but I think I can probably at least talk her into eating out once per month. fingers crossed!
I want to accomplish three things by doing something so extreme; one, I want to transform the habit and only time is capable of doing that, and two, I want to freaking lose weight and three, I want to have no excuses for not reaching my $15,000 emergency fund goal. I didn’t do so well overall this year on any of those three things so I’m more determined than ever to change my bad eating out habits, lose weight, and save $15,000! If our savings were to be eaten up by emergencies and unexpected expenses like it was in the last 12 months next year we should have at least $6,000 (estimate) but I’m hoping for a not-so-surprising year as far as emergencies. 😀
I am a little late coming into this challenge but I totally love the idea. I think our readers will get a kick out of this and be quick to jump on board.