Eating Out Spending.....May Update

Considering I was on a 2 week trip in May, we didn't do too badly with the Eating Out/Take-Out spending in May.
I have updated the Spending Totals for 2017 on the Eating Out Page located HERE.

May
Regular Eating Out/Take-Out  $84.79
* This constituted a trip to Taco Bell for Hubs and I(using what was left on a gift card + $8.37 in cash), a trip to the nice Chinese Buffet for lunch(Daughter & I)for $17.45 and the family got Whopper meals at BK while I was gone one night for $20.86 total and Hubs got Chinese the night I got home from my trip for $38.11.

Birthday Eating Out  $0
* No birthday's this month and I was not here for Mother's Day so there was no spending in this category this month.

Trip Eating Out  $99.54
* Seeing as it was a 2 week trip I didn't spend very much really.  The trip down I spent $2.32 at Mickey D's for breakfast and $10.47 at Arby's in MD for lunch.
While in VA I got myself a Chick fil-A meal for $7.75 one day, took a friend out to lunch at Applebee's for $17.79 and took my eldest son and fiancee out for dinner one night for $61.21.
At Eldest son's I used Texas Roadhouse gift cards(bought last year)to pay for a meal out for us and Eldest paid anything over that, and Eldest took me out to lunch one day.  I only ate half the sandwich so had the other half for breakfast before I left to come home.  The trip home I didn't stop to eat anywhere and ate when I got home.

TOTAL Spent......$184.33

Year-To-Date Spending....$642.70
Average of $128.54 per month

Looking ahead to June--
This month should be fairly low as we aren't going anywhere.
Maybe 1 or 2 nights of Take-Out this month but otherwise no plans.

Once July hits and A-Hubs is retired and home 24/7, B-We leave on the Mega Road Trip of 2017™, all bets are off. lolz

How much did you spend on Eating Out/Take-Out last month?

Sluggy

May's Eating Out Total

I have posted out Eating Out/Take-Out Totals for May HERE.

Most of our spending on Eating Out was while we were on our 2 week trip to Louisiana, obviously.
I bought 2 Subway subs while Hubs was on a work conference at the beginning of May so I didn't have to cook while he was gone.
Go me.
That $12.72 for the subs was all the non-trip eating out or take-out we bought in May.

Of the 12 nights spend at hotels/motels we only paid for 1 breakfast(Waffle House).  All other hotels supplied Breakfast with the cost of the room.
We only ate Lunch 7 of the 12 days(plus I had a chicken biscuit on a day we didn't have Lunch to tied me over until Dinner that night).
12 Dinners were eaten, 3 of which were treated for us. 8-)  There was also a turkey sandwich consumed one evening when Hubs and shared a pizza and didn't realize until it was too late that the pizza was a single serve type. Oops! lol
We also treated the Daughter to 5 Dinners/Lunches so that boosted the out of pocket paying for an extra person.
There was also 2 trips to breweries where drinks were consumed which gets added to this budget.
And add in the cost of about 40 cups of coffee for Hubs(from various places)while on the road.
Seriously.
40 cups.

Now this doesn't begin to count all the liquid refreshment that was brought home to be consumed later.

All in all we did pretty well keeping this expense down.
Yes, we did splurge and have a few $50+ dinners but most meals came in at around $24.
And compared to our trip in 2015, we spent $168.52 less in 2016 on eating on vacation.

Sluggy

Eating Out/Take-Out in July....YIKES!

Needless to say the months when we are traveling, the Eating Out costs pile up.
Back in May when we road tripped to Louisiana we racked up charges of $545.87 for eating out/take-out.  Add in $105.44 in "non-trip/regular" eating out/take-out that month(1 dinner out when picking up College Boy from school, 2 nights of Chinese take-out and 3 Subway sandwiches another night)and we clocked in at $651.31.

July wasn't much better either.  In fact it was worse!
With 2 short trips to Virginia to help Eldest son relocate the budget took a hit again.
Add in a few nights out while Eldest was home too....hey it was his birthday! lolz......and we ended up forking over $746.35 on Eating Out(including tips).
Gulp

The regular eating out spending came to $95.00 in July.  That was stuff like Chinese take-out and Subway sandwiches brought home.  We did dine out twice last month as part of our regular "normal" routine-1 trip to a Chinese buffet restaurant and 1 lunch out at Red Robin.
$95 is pretty typical for us in a month.  I like to keep it under $100 so this doesn't concern me.

The "extra" because Eldest was home came to $203.73.  This included dinner out at a steak house(4 steaks + drinks + dessert-we don't usually do the whole enchilada like this), a trip to the craft brewery(drinks + pizza)and a lunch out for me and him only.

Then we add in the 10 meals while traveling and it gets ugly.
And adds another $447.62.
Could we have spent less and not eaten at such expensive places?
You bet!
And believe me, some of what we had was NOT worth what it cost(I'm looking at you Poco Loco!)
But it could have been worse if not for "free" breakfasts at motels 3 times last month and that we were treated to lunch in Maryland when Eldest and I stopped to meet a fellow blogger on the way to Virginia. 8-)

So what did I learn from this?
Not much.
lolz
Possibly that I may find it helpful to the budget to keep a running tally during the month on variable spending like this, rather than waiting until the month is over to look at the numbers?
If I had seen how high these costs were running I may have opted for some lower cost meals out at some point.

And that eating out can bust your budget right quick these days if you opt for "real food" out and not just fast food all the time.

August should be a much calmer month in the Eating-Out arena around here.
No trips planned except a one-day "get College Boy back to school" run.  Hubs is doing this alone so I am figuring they'll eat a meal out after the load-in before Hubs comes home.
We've already made a dent in the Eating-Out/Take-Out budget for August as I've been feeling under the weather.  There has been Chinese take-out and a trip to Denny's so far this month.  Tonight might be Subway and then I am back in the kitchen cooking from scratch much to the relief of our budget. ;-)

So how much do you spend on eating out/take-out per month?

Trying to keep it under $100 for August,

Sluggy

April Eating Out

I was reading Cindi's latest post over at Thrifty At Sixty and decided to add up how much we spent at Chez Sluggy on eating out/take-out last month.

                                  Image credit the BarfBlog
Usually our eating out/take-out spending is counted in the Cash Withdrawals category of our monthly spending.  Cash withdraws encompass all small cash spending for the month which usually includes take-out, dining out(but that is sometimes put on the c/c instead), hubs haircuts, dry cleaning, his coffee habit and when he buys lunch at work, any incidental purchases for the home(repair items, tools, when some kid comes to the front door to sell us something for school fundraising, the Sunday newspaper, etc.)

I started this exercise thinking, "Gee, we hardly spent ANYTHING on eating out/take-out this month!".
Well I was wrong, as usual.....lol

April Eating Out/Take-Out Spending
Chinese take-out  $18(we got 2 meals out of this)
Bob Evans eating out  $22(used a coupon)
Popeye chicken take-out  $20(we got 2 meals out of this)
Subway sandwiches take-out  $12
Domino's sandwiches take-out  $12
Total.....$84

Granted 2 of the meals we got 2 meals out of them so 7 meals for $84

I noticed a pattern that ALL of these meals were Weekend(does Friday night count as the weekend? lol)expenditures and all but 2 of them were Lunch meals.  Only 1 of the 7 was eaten away from home.

I was going to start keeping track of this category of spending but we are on vacation in May so I KNOW most of the meals(if not all)eaten while traveling will be eaten out, so this won't be representative of our usual amount of eating out/take-out spending.

Since we can afford this amount easily in our budget, I am not looking to reduce this spending.
But I do like to know what we are spending and where.
If we ever need to cut corners more on monthly expenses, this is the kind of thing I'd target to reduce or cut out altogether.

Our eating out/take-out spending is more about a break from the routine of cooking at home for us, rather than it being about a great tasty and flavorful adventure in dining.  We don't buy fancy foods when eating out, just stuff we don't make at home(fried chicken, Chinese cuisine, etc.) or a quick sandwich.
It helps that we are not paying for a family of 5 any longer when we go out.  Heck even Chinese take-out for 5 use to cost us $40+!

Have you ever kept tracking of your eating out/take-out spending?
Do you have an eating out/take-out category in your budget?
Are you trying to cut down on your eating out/take-out spending?

Sluggy