Layout:
Home > Dollars and Sense?

Dollars and Sense?

January 31st, 2007 at 05:47 pm

Someone on the forum or on the blogs recorded the cost of one of their meals. That was intriguing to me. I have heard the ole "I can eat out as cheap as I eat in" thing before, and I often wondered just how much it did cost me per meal. A couple of days ago, I started adding it up. I've been buying the grocery sale items almost exclusively. And breaking things down into freezer portions. Cooked meals often last two or three meals. And I've been setting up a price book with pages from the forum that I printed out then copied. So I had an idea of what my cost was for each portion of my meals. It was a total surprise! It was very low. I mean really low. We ate for the whole day, including snacks and drinks for less than one meal out. Each meal was about 2.50 or LESS. Some meals were much lower. I was shocked and tickled. I am doing it! I am using coupons (just learning), sales on meat, a price book, and cooking my own instead of buying it already fixed. I love chicken salad and passed over the store stuff. I made my own from leftover chicken from on sale! Cost was smaller than the store. I feel like I am on a treasure hunt. Finding things that I can make myself that will cost a fraction of what I buy. Now the problem I have is that I don't know when to stop buying on sale for the month. I have plenty of food, but the sales are great. I find myself needing to stop because the grocery money for the month is gone....need to work on this glitch.

8 Responses to “Dollars and Sense?”

  1. crow67 Says:
    1170266240

    congrats and keep up the good work

  2. Frayed Buckeye Card Says:
    1170268166

    You are still on that roll. I do believe that you are really enjoying the journey.

  3. nance Says:
    1170269805

    I have the same problem, resisting a great sale. I am working on it, but it is hard.
    I think people decide they can eat out as cheaply as in, so they can "justify" what they do. If they really enjoy eating out, that is fine, and they don't have to "justify" it, but most of the time, I think they are deceiving themselves.

  4. monkeymama Says:
    1170269827

    Well I can buy a loaf of bread and some lunch meat and make it last for a couple of weeks for lunches.

    I do hear often, oh poor people have to eat fast food because it is cheap, stuff like that. & I am scratching my head because I can feed a pretty good dinner to my entire family for about $2.50. If you want to tell me they don't have the kitchen utensils or resources, fine, but fast food is not the only cheap option in America. Wink

  5. boomeyers Says:
    1170277229

    Great job! That is awesome you are actually keeping track too! Something I need to learn to do!
    Good luck with those coupons!

  6. Ima saver Says:
    1170278253

    I do eat out a lot, but it is much cheaper to eat most meals at home. We just enjoy going on a date every night!

  7. AutumnxButterfly Says:
    1170279139

    That is great! I was actually thinking about this myself this morning. Last night we had Hamburger Helper that I got on sale with a coupon for 0.50. The ground beef was like $3.00 I think. I was thinking that I should have bought ground turkey. Can you tell me what a pricebook is? I keep seeing people mention them but I haven't been able to figure out what it is.

  8. JanH Says:
    1170280651

    Ima: you save so well on so many things that a date night each night sounds great. We just mindlessly ate out.

    Autumn: a price book keeps track of the stores and prices of each item you buy and what stores have what price. You can see then what is a good buy and where. There is a thread on it under Coupons and food on the forum where the others explained to me how to set one up.

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]