It’s time for a no dining out update! It’s been 2 months since we gave up dining out in 2018.
In case you missed it, in an effort to save an additional $10,000 this year, we decided to give up dining out, take out, and take-out coffee. Get all the details in this post.
A lot of you have asked how we are doing so I figured I’d let you know! BTW- if you want more personal communication from me, sign up for my email list. I send out emails about every other month about random life events, deals, and fun ways to save money. Sign up here.
Related Post: Don’t Disguise your Wants as Needs
No Dining Out Update
My husband and I both love to look through our credit card and bank statements. Before having kids, I’d get up every Saturday morning and look through our spending for the week to see if we stayed on budget. Now that we have kids, Tom does this for us and even pays off our credit card several times a week. Even though I relate to the debt free community, I’ll never understand why so many people who are financially savvy fail to use credit cards correctly! That is another post for another time though- stay tuned for that.
How much we saved
Anyway, I woke up early to look through our credit card statement from last January to compare it to this January.
We spent an extra $286.41 last year.
This doesn’t take into consideration Tom’s work lunches or our travel expenses. Tom’s lunches get reimbursed and my food while traveling sometimes gets reimbursed, in fact all of it from last January was reimbursed.
Does this even make a difference?
Sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth it to cut out these expenses. In the grand scheme of our budget, $300 isn’t huge. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a small amount either. It all adds up fast!
A few things to consider:
- We are making more money in 2018 than 2017 thanks to a Tom getting a raise and me making more on this blog.
- We now have 3 kids instead of 2.
- Our boys are old enough to eat more now.
Overall, I feel like an extra $300 is pretty good considering we have another baby!
While we are attempting to spend less this year, in reality we will probably spend just as much if not more in order to feed, diaper, and clothe our growing family. We are hoping that the extra money we are making this year can go to savings.
What I’m learning
It’s funny how my friends seem to be more affected by this than I do. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit and I can say that I’m pretty much out of the habit of relying on drive through, take out, and Starbucks.
I’ve learned that I was doing all of these things out of habit, not because I wanted to. I’ve been cooking more, trying new recipes, and drinking pretty good coffee at home.
We still get our fix
The fun part about my job is that I’m still dining out quite a bit. So far this year I’ve worked with Burger Fi, Carrabbas, and a new local restaurant called Dorona. I’ve eaten pretty well for someone who isn’t dining out.
We also enjoyed dining out during our last trip to Disney. We completely justified spending money on food because I get a lot of perks as a travel writer. Our room was free, and we only had to buy one ticket for Disney because two of our tickets were comped. I love having a side hustle that can feed my travel addiction!
Related Post: How to Get Free Vacations as a Travel Blogger
We’ve messed up once
Over the span of 2 months we have only given in and messed up once.
I say “we” because Tom has actually caved and taken the kids to get fast food several times. He loves to treat the kids to Taco Bell and Chick-fil-a on days where he picks them up from school.
The one time that we goofed was when we bought delivery pizza. We don’t even have an excuse. We just really wanted delivery pizza.
Even though we haven’t been perfect, we’ve saved a good amount of money and we’ve only messed up a couple of times.
Hopefully we can stay on this great path for 10 more months. Wish us luck!
Have you ever done anything like this to save money? What tips do you have to share?
Good luck, guys! That’s so inspiring!
Thanks so much, Rachel!
Hi Hannah! I think that a $300 difference in spending is pretty substantial! $300 over 12 months would be $3600 and wouldn’t that be a nice little surprise at the end of the year.
We are going uber strict with our budget in hopes of saving $1500-$2000 each month. We are fortunate to have great income streams, but we *thought* we were living on a great budget, but at the end of each month we would be like…where did all the extra money goooo?! So, for now, we’ve adopted Dave Ramsey’s cash envelopes for categories like groceries, fun money, fuel, pet food, entertainment (minimal – we are also doing the no eating out). We have a larger than expected tax bill thanks to the success of our side hustle and we were “pre-approved” for a mortgage, we just need to build our assets up some more!
I’ll keep checking in each month and commenting because I don’t have any accountability since I’m not writing my blog anymore!
Wow! Great job with the side hustles! That’s great that you are doing so well.
Yes, please keep checking in! I’d love to help you stay accountable. I’m happy that the Dave Ramsey cash envelope system is working for you. I never could get that to work for me.
Yay for a house! I can’t wait to see what beautiful signs you put up around the home!
I am finding it harder and harder to relate to this no eating out rule of yours. You are privileged enough (and honest enough) to admit you are all still eating out because it’s free to you because of your jobs. That’s wonderful and I’m not knocking that but what is it like to really give up eating out, drive throughs and take out? Some of us know because we have to make that choice in order to survive and believe me, it’s a whole different kettle of fish to never get a break from cooking and feeding your family. I think there is an emotional loss almost, for never having some of the things we would treat ourselves with……
I totally get it, Leann. I’ve been in the situation before where we literally couldn’t dine out or we wouldn’t be able to pay our bills. I’ve noticed over the years as we’ve become more financially secure that my intended audience has changed. I no longer feel like I’m writing about how to scrimp and saved (we’ve done that and invested wisely). Now I’m trying to show other middle/ upper middle class Americans that if they spend less they can save more.
I’ve been thinking about my own privilege a lot lately- well before you posted this comment. I am privileged and I don’t take it for granted. I do hope that even though I’m probably not relating well to you, I can strike a cord with someone else. I’ve always heard that “if you’re pleasing everyone, you’re not doing your job right”. I don’t aim to make everyone my target audience. I truly believe I have a super specific niche of middle class Americans who need to learn how to stop keeping up with the Joneses and take control of their finances.
This may not be you and that’s okay!