The Eating Out

If you are a longtime reader here you already know that I track the money we spend on groceries and toiletries every year at Chez Sluggy.
I've ben tracking our food budget monies for well over 7 years now here on this blog.  In those years I've fed between 5 and 2 people on our grocery money and if I don't say so myself I've done a bang up job at both the feeding and the money watching.  ;-)

In order to be more transparent on what is spent on food I have started a page(link on the tab at the top of the blog)to track what I spend on "Eating Out" too.
Because unless you are a hermit and never go out and cook every single item you put into your mouth, you are going to have some meals at restaurants or as take-out from a restaurant.
And this spending adds up too!

 

 

While I don't include our Eating Out costs in my Grocery Budget, Eating Out does take a hit on the overall family budget.  I cubbyhole Eating Out in our Entertainment category in the Household Budget.
We enjoy dining out(though not as much as we use to as I find many restaurant foods overly salted)and experiencing new and interesting dishes we don't/can't make ourselves both locally and when we travel.  We also like a good hunk of steak now and again.....

As a category I like to keep the eating out costs around $100 per month, unless we are traveling(in which case eating out is mostly ALL one does!)or there is a special event/occasion(like a birthday meal out, a holiday meal out or company comes to visit).

When all the kids were still living at home, eating out could be very costly.  During any given month, just 1 night of Chinese take-out, 1 night of take-out pizza(2-3 pies required with 3 teens at home) and heaven forbid we all went out to dine that month(ack!) and that $100 limit was blown to bits! lolz
With only 2 of the family eating at home these days(sometimes 3), $100 seems much more ample, even as the cost of restaurant food has risen every year since I started tracking our spending in 2008.

If you take a look at our Eating Out spending for this year we have been pretty good at keeping it under $100 in months where we had no travel/special events happen. 
Unfortunately for our budget we have gone on trips 5 out of the last 10 months so here aren't many under $100 months this year.
Having to eat while living away from home and having no access to cooking facilities(a mini-fridge and a microwave in your motel room don't count in my book as "cooking facilities")isn't very conducive to eating cheaply AND well when traveling.
If you are going to travel(unless you are living in an accommodation with a full kitchen or going in a motor home)you need to account for increased spending on food.

Heck in February we only made one trip to Subway for sammiches to bring home for dinner so our Eating Out totaled $18.  For most people it's totally unrealistic to NOT budget for any eating out whatsoever in a month.
Unless your income is so restricted(in which case you really shouldn't' be splurging on eating out anyway)people are going to be spending money on meals made by someone else, aren't they?

So to all you readers who think I only spend $300 or whatever the spending was that particular month on food, here is the "whole" picture.

Year-to-date spending on Groceries/Toiletries....$3,723.41
Year-to-date spending on Eating Out...................$2,746.57
Total Spending on both Categories......................$6,469.98
Monthly Average Spending on Both Categories....$646.99

Seeing that I "spent" $646.99 a month on all food/toiletries related categories so far this year should make all you folks, who think my food spending was too low and could never be replicate by anyone else, feel better. ;-)
Of course including meals out also includes tips paid at real sit-down restaurants if we eat at those.  Tips while part of the experience of dining out aren't actually spent on "food" technically but on service, they are part of the bill. 

The fact is, if you can't afford eating out on your income level you shouldn't do it.  It is NOT a necessity of life but a luxury.  But if you are human(and who isn't?)it's very difficult to never EVER go out to eat/get take-out food even on a poverty level income.  I'd be hard pressed to find someone in our Modern Society who never eats out, ever.

For us Eating Out is a luxury that we enjoy and/or a hazard of traveling(which we also enjoy). Sure we could eat out less or not at all but if we have a level of income that gives us excess monies in our budget and we are debt-free and saving tons of cash for retirement too, why not use some of that extra income to enjoy ourselves along the journey?

So do you keep track of your Eating Out spending?
When added to your food/grocery spending how does that combined total spending make you feel?

Sluggy




 

$24K Savings Challenge.......October Update

Every year I keep a close eye on our monthly expenses and our monthly income.
Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, health insurance premiums, long term care insurance premiums, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.

Once the automatic savings amounts, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision premiums are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, annual etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, clothing  etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2014 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount slightly to $24,000 this year, $4K more than my goal for last year.

On to the October report.....

I have posted my October End of Month $24K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers HERE.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $2,000.

I have to report that we finished up October with a really large chunk of change.
The extra amount we ended the month of  October with?.......$6,451.86.

Income

We had $6019.72 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
This large amount was mostly due to a third paycheck in October.
 

Other monies received in October totaled $432.14.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts, a refund on our car insurance and a Conference dinner.

This brought us to our gain of $6,451.86.
Since we have no debt, this goes into savings.

Outgo

As for the expenses this October, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  The water bill went down another $5.10 from September.
*  Cable and phone charges were approx. the same as last month.
 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  Car insurance due on my car.
*  The quarterly garbage bill was due.
*  Dental bill due.
*  The credit card bill(paid off each month)was up $295 from last month due to our family reunions trip and the OC mini-vacay.
*  Electric bill was up $24.44 because the heat got turned on.
 

 

The Food Budget costs for October are in another post, which is located HERE.
 

The 2014 GRAND TOTAL.....
With 10 months accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2014 is $23,475.69.
 

Only $524.31 Total left to meet the yearly goal and 2 months left to dig this up out of our income.
That comes out to an average of $262.16 for each of the next 2 months. 
As our Nov. and Dec. overages average about $1000 each month I don't think we'll have any trouble finding a spare $524.31 ;-)

I will be curious to see how much we have leftover for the last 2 months of the year above and beyond the $524.31 we need to reach our goal of $24K.
  

 

Looking ahead for November......

*  I will continue to do this Savings Challenge and report in each month on how it is going.

*  We have no irregular bills due in November.

*  We have 2 trips to #2 Son's school to get/return him for Thanksgiving break so gas(thus the c/c bill)will be higher in November.

 

So how was your October financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in October?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings in an emergency fund or a retirement account?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check out your progress too and celebrate with you or commiserate with you!

Sluggy

$30K Savings Challenge MAY 2010 Totals.....Not so Good but Still on Track!

I have posted my MAY End of Month $30K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.

I have to report that we finished up May in the black!

The extra cash amount we ended the month of May with was.......$1,183.24.

Income
We had $306.68 left over of DH's salary after expenses were deducted. Add in some rolled coins amounting to $16.00, a $115.81 in Rebates &, along with the flea market profits of $744.75 and you have a deposit of $1,183.24 toward the Savings Challenge!

Seeing as our monthly target is $2,500.00 to reach our Year End Goal, we are waaaaay short this month.

Outgo
As for the expenses in May.....it was a money gobbling month!

The electric bill went down $30+.  It should have gone down more because the heat was off....except we used extra hot water having an extra person here for the month, so more laundry(I use hot for my white loads) and showers plus DH started opening the pool up which uses more electricity as well as water.
The water bill went up too due to the increased water usage mentioned above.

 The credit card bill was up over $1100 due to DH's new glasses(2 pair) and the new cd player he had installed in his car.  There was also paying for daughter's SAT exam.  Those charges accounted for $900 on that bill.  The rest was gas and some eating out charges and was within our normal range of expenses.

Out-of-the-ordinary expenses in May besides the CC Bill ones.....yearly maintenance and repairs on the 3rd car for the teens' use, in the amount of $1,636.99.  Though this car is a workhorse it is very old and the teens are running it into the ground with driving all over the place.  This car needs to last through next school year as daughter is taking dual enrollment classes at a local college while in her last year of high school, and she needs wheels to get to the school  3 times a week.  If it goes, she has no transportation so we are putting a stop to the 'fun' use of this car.  It seems like she/this car has become the way for all the kids to travel places here and that's being ended.  It is going to be for getting to her job and very limited 'fun' travel from now on.  This car is costing us around $2K a yr. in repairs/maintenance at this point.  And then you add in registration, plates, inspections and insurance and it's becoming quite the suck hole.

There was also a yearly veterinarian check-up for the 3 dogs.  That blew a $454 hole in the budget as well this month.

The Food Budget costs for May are in another post, which is located HERE.  Food/Toiletries spending in May was $18.04 over the budgeted $300.00 for May, but by putting the rebate money that came in last month toward that expense I can say we came in under budget there.  After the rebate money we only spent $202.23 on food/toiletries and our Savings percentage was 82.97% which is quite respectable.

Looking Ahead to June....
We have a week long visit from a relative in June, but various teens will be leaving home for weeks at a time in June  so the food spending will probably go down overall.  I have lowered the food budget for June back to $250 but will try to do better than that.
The Credit Card bill as of June 1st is already over $1,300.  More than half of this is due to a car a/c repair.  The rest is just a bunch of smaller $40-$50 purchases like clothing for the kids, plants and manure for the gardens, hubby's internet chess subscription, out of the ordinary gas purchases from retrieving #1 son from college, associated eating out charges from the trip to his school, etc.
We also have another car repair that will showing up on this month's credit card bill.  No word yet on the amount but I am sure it won't be pretty!lol  At this rate, we are looking at a $2K or more cc bill for June.

Plus I put off paying the $1K for #2 son's weeks at camp until June since May was so hard on the budget.
So, that's $3K plus the ordinary utilities and food expenses coming up in June.  All the more reason to keep an extra sharp watch on spending this month.

I am hoping but not totally certain that we will be able to meet our monthly goal of $2,500 saved in June.

YTD Standings....
We have a Year To Date Total of $16,073.74 in Savings.  To save $30K for the year, we need to put away $2,500 per month average.  Even with our lackluster May total saved, we are still ahead at this point in the year of our final goal.

So how was your May financially?  Leave a comment and share with us what you did with your money, both the good and not-so good.   Do you have any tricks or tips that help you to end your month before the money runs out?    Let us know!
If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out too!


Sluggy