February Results

Well we are at the end of the first official challenge so thoughts of successfulness are coming to mind.  Whether or not you are successful is up to you.  After all this was about cutting a category from the budget not about saving a certain dollar amount.  For those with a budget, your savings will be fixed.  For those without a budget, your savings are more obscure.  If you usually eat out 4 times a week, but cut down to once a week, were you successful?  If you usually spend $200 per month on dining out, but only managed to spend $50 this month, were you successful?

Here's our outcome:
Jack went out of town on business for a week and bought food at a local grocery store.  However the last day there he made some sandwiches for lunch and the trip home, but accidently grabbed the bag of trash and left the sandwiches in the hotel room.  Just a bit of advice, don't put your lunch in the same type of bag that the hotel uses for trash.  He ended up buying fast food for lunch ($8.38) and stopped at a restaurant in the airport ($31.00 Yikes!).  All of this will be paid with per diem from the trip, but we would have otherwise pocketed the money so they deserve to be added to the list.  While Jack was gone, I went to the store to get groceries.  On the way home I had a splitting headache, a screaming baby in the car who wouldn't eat, two other stops to make and the thought that dinner still had to made.  So I caved in and went to Wal-Mart to get something from the deli.  At this point we hadn't decided whether hot-and-ready food was allowed but I knew in the back of my head I shouldn't buy it, especially since I'd just come from the grocery store.  While there I also picked up a candy bar, 6-pack of hard cider, and a tub of frosting ($16.47).  All in all we spent $55.85.

Lessons learned this month:  We normally eat out 6 times a month on average, however this month Jack ate out twice while I ate out only once and neither of us felt deprived for having done so (though we wanted to a few times).  In fact, our home cooked meals were far tastier than anything we could have bought from a restaurant for a similar price.  Now we can easily cut down our eating out habit and be much happier for it.  We will save more money each month and be healthier too.  Even though we spent $56 this month eating out, we spent 30% less on groceries this month than the average over the last three months.  We feel we were successful due to the long term benefits this challenge will provide, but there is still room for improvement.

How did you do? Share your own story below in the comments.