Photo by thespeak
A few months ago, I noticed that my paycheck didn’t seem to go as far as it normally did – even when I was making less money. I sat down one evening, pulled up my online bank statements and started categorizing every expense for the last 30 days. What I found out was pretty shocking to me. I was spending $650 a month on food – this included buying groceries and eating out. To give you a better idea of my monthly budget, my rent is $640 a month and I was spending almost a quarter of my monthly income on food. It didn’t leave much room for anything else after I had paid my bills for the month.
The reason for this exorbitant amount of food was that I was buying lunch at expensive Manhattan delis and eateries every day at work. I work on the east side of Mid-town, so a turkey sandwich can easily run $8. Add a cup of afternoon coffee and a little side snack and I was racking up a $15 lunch bill five times a week.
Before, I had no recollection of where the majority of my money was going, but now I’ve put myself on a clear path. I have mapped out my food expenses for each week (keeping up with my budget goals by week helps me to more successfully manage them). I decided to lower my costs initially to $400 a month – $100 a week for food. The way I broke this down was as follows:
- $30 a week for “eating lunch out”. I am a HUGE fan of Pret Manger and I will allow myself to eat there three times a week with a $10 limit each time. This way I still get to enjoy the food I like, but I’m keeping it under wraps.
- I shop for groceries once a week and I clip coupons from Coupons.com every Thursday to use on my Monday shopping day. I love Whole Foods, although sometimes it can be ridiculously pricey, I still like to buy my fish and a few other “novelty” items like their churned butter, turkey breasts, dry noodles and rice. I shop at my local supermarket for milk, broccoli, carrots and pasta (they always have 2 for $1 pasta boxes). I limited myself to $50 a week (this includes tax). The items that I buy at Whole Foods are tax-free and at my local supermarket I keep my bill to around $10, so the tax is usually only around a buck.
- Twice a week, I bring lunch from home. I hate preparing meals in the morning, so I designate two days a week (usually Tuesday and Thursday) and Monday and Wednesday nights I make dinner servings for two, throw the excess into Tupperware, and I’m done.
- I purchased a French Press coffee machine and a large thermos to cut out my $1.75 coffee habit each day. Now I brew a cup in the morning and drink the free “French Aroma” tea that my office has in the afternoon – it has a potent, coffee-ish taste to it and when I add a little milk, I can almost fool myself into thinking it’s actually coffee.
- I give myself $20 each weekend to eat with. This is usually just reserved for Saturdays if I want to eat out with friends or order in one night. It’s good to not be too restrictive and to give yourself some leeway, as long as you are controlling what you spend.
I have been on the $400/month Food Budget for about two months now and things are going well. Once you get in the habit of making sure you are within budget, it starts to come naturally. You don’t have to keep adding up the prices in your head – you just start to know automatically. And that extra $200 in my pocket at the end of each month is a good motivation for me to keep going. That’s a $2,600 savings each year!
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