March is over and we didn’t eat out, except for the two exceptions noted in the original goal post: one trip to Chick-fil-A (because of the monthly calendar coupon), and free food at work. Although I can’t quantify any health benefits of the hiatus, I can certainly quantify the financial aspects.
The difference in food expenses from 2009 to 2010: $549.78
Below is a screenshot from my (now obsolete) Microsoft Money report, comparing this March with last March. You can clearly see, that in the Fast Food category, my expenditures dropped from $206.86 last year to only $19.30, which was the aforementioned Chick-fil-A transaction. My Dining Out category, which is generally any restaurant food other than fast food went from $375.15 to Zero!
I didn’t have School Lunch expenses last year, because Tristan wasn’t yet in Kindergarten. His food was built into day-care expenses for 2009. As for the Misc for the month, that $7.00 went to a snack for Mackenzie at the ballpark and purchasing a bag of boiled peanuts to support a non-profit.
It is worth noting that for three days last March, we were at Walt Disney World, so the Dining Out expenses for 2009 may be a little higher than the typical month. Even if I scratched out $50.00 due to the high cost of food at Disney, I still saved right at $500.00. Imagine if we did that every month. That would be an extra $6,000.00 in our pockets!
One thing that amazed me looking at the report was the negligible increase in Grocery expenses: only a $10.00 increase. I guess I have been the coupon king lately, but I didn’t realize that it was paying off that much! We haven’t been eating any differently. On Sunday I grilled some steaks. We’ve had fish several times this month and red meat about twice a week. I’m not sure how the Grocery costs remained the same even though we ate many more meals at home.
