phillygold

Hello all. I’ve been reading and occasionally posting in the “dinner” thread with great enjoyment. One question has come to mind. I see some folks eating relatively high ticket items, almost on a nightly basis.
So, my question is...how do you hold down costs? Don’t get me wrong...I’ve always been a quality over quantity type of person. However looking at some of the meals...food expenditures, especially for those with families to feed, must be $600-$800 per week. Not to mention the alcohol (fine wines) that some add in.

Beyond doing the Costco thing...am I missing something? Or am I just cheap?

JBord

It's an interesting question. There are probably 100 different answers. The top one in my mind:

During this insane time of restaurant closures, people have saved a lot of money that used to be spent dining out. That's being diverted to buying more luxurious items. As an example, we dined indoors at a restaurant last weekend for the first time in a long time as restaurants here were allowed to partially reopen. It was nothing fancy, just a nice, average place. The total dinner bill before tip was over $100. I can buy a 4 pound beef tenderloin and my wife and I can eat filet mignon for 4-5 nights at that price. Not to mention that people also aren't spending money on vacations, concerts, and other events.

But your other question is the really interesting part. How do you hold down costs?
While we don't have any real strategy, here's how we buy groceries:
- If there's something we use regularly and need, for example eggs or butter, we just buy it without even looking at the price
- If we see a good deal on a luxury item, even if we weren't looking for it, we'll buy it and either make a quick plan to use it or freeze it if it's meat. I browse the meat section every time I go to the store.
- For certain things, we actually shop around. We planned to do that aforementioned tenderloin at Christmas. We watched grocery flyers, looked online, and went to about 5 different stores until we purchased one about a week before Christmas. Ended up about 20% less than the first one we saw.

kipper

I meal plan a week at a time, using grocery store circulars to help with meal planning.

I have a meal planner board that's on the fridge, and for each day, I list what I'm going to have for lunch and dinner.

One of my local chain stores offers a different, "buy this, get all of this for free" weekly. It typically is an offer that requires you to buy whatever meat, and then you receive all or most of the other ingredients for a meal for free. Some weeks, I take advantage of that. Other weeks, I have all of the ingredients, but it gives me an idea. Other weeks, it's not something that appeals to me, so I don't take advantage of it.

As part of my meal planning, I cook enough for leftovers for 2 additional meals. I package the leftovers in one-meal servings, so when I'm ready to eat them, I reheat one container, as opposed to having to reheat several containers or plate everything before heating.

On weekends, I'll cook a week's worth of breakfast burritos or egg bites, and then reheat those in the mornings.

Duke787

Pre-COVID we weren't as disciplined about meal planning because it was so easy to stop at the store and pick something up on the way home from work (which is a both a good and bad thing -- we eat a lot of salmon so on that front it meant the salmon was always eaten the same day it was purchased).

COVID has made us really limit our trips to the store or offload the trip entirely to Instacart (or Whole Foods pickup). So now we meal plan every Sunday and based on the menu can identify which store is best for the week but accept there may be trade-offs.

My wife is a great cook and a lot of what we make can be easily frozen which helps too -- e.g., if ground beef is on a good sale we can stock up and make lasagna / bolognese / meatballs and stick it in the freezer so we can benefit from the sale and have some ready made meals for future weeks.

BamaVol

I do most of my food shopping in one place. My shopping list consists of basics only: milk, bread, eggs, cereal - often in generic terms. When I get to the store, I am flexible. If chicken drumsticks are on sale, I buy chicken drumsticks. If it’s breasts, I buy breasts. If it’s eggplant, I buy an eggplant or two. I have to be less flexible for the rest of the ingredients. But I will always have certain things on hand. There are always bananas, apples, potatoes, canned tomatoes, flour, spices, onions, sliced bell peppers in the freezer, etc. I try to buy the specials and will use those basics up before they go bad. And unless I have a bad experience with a brand, I am almost completely disloyal.

It helps to be an advanced stage cook.

Stage 1 - you can take a box out of the freezer and heat the contents in the microwave.
Stage 2 - you can follow a recipe.
Stage 3 - you see ways to improve the recipe; reduce or increase amounts, substitute another ingredient.
Stage 4 - you can look in your pantry, fridge and freezer and figure out what to make based on what you have.

I don’t make gourmet meals but they’re decent and appreciated and usually look good as well.

USA_flyer

Meal planning is key.

Avoiding big ticket items loke filet steak unless its on special offer.

Also, here in the UK, I scan and pack my shop as I go round the store so I know exactly how much I am spending. If I get to the end of the shop and I am underspend, I might pop back to the meat aisle and buy something fancy.

bensyd

That's a great idea! Is that new?

Most days I eat pretty plainly. Steaks on the BBQ, pasta etc. I can't say I really watch how much I'm spending on food, and I definitely don't do the meal planning thing. It's more like around 430pm I start thinking what I'd like for dinner. Working from home I don't mind walking to the supermarket to break up the day anyway. If I see something on special then I'll buy it.

gaobest

blend of...
Costco
safeway
trader joes
gourmet grocers for bread / spreads
average of $40/month for adult drugs
Maximum 3 carryout meals a week, if that many

corky

I am definitely a sale shopper....I try to stock up on basics like chicken when there is a sale & freeze them. I am good about eating from the freezer so I keep the rotation fresh. If something I want isn't on sale, I try to find an alternative that is and is in the same category (such as just buying a different veggie or protein). I eat a lot of chicken! I do plan meals although not for a whole week...more like a couple days and I try to plan for a few days of leftovers. I hate throwing out food--not only for budget reasons but I just feel guilty being wasteful. I rarely do takeout & that is a big savings. I find if I plan ahead, it isn't necessary unless I really want something that I am not going to bother making at home (usually something ethnic).
Good thread idea, OP.

FlyerEC

We have noticed that now that we are allowed to dine out with maximum of 8 per table , restaurants are packed ! Reservations sometimes required weeks in advance !!
That was before the holidays , CHRISTmas & now 15 days of the Lunar / CNY .. & soon Easter ..
Even with Lent ..
Thing is everyone was saving from no travel & tired of being cooped up at home . Some with kids at home when schools were closed & lessons were all online . Quite a few horror scenarios .

Weekly marketing in a market where produce is fresh and cheaper . Supermarket ( s ) weekly too especially for “ dry “ goods , it helps to look out for household necessities on sale & other items on offer , in papers , etc , before going 😉 .

kdm31091

I think planning is key. Psychologically, if you plan ahead of time, you already know your dinner (or whatever) is "ready" for that night and you are less likely, at least in my experience, to cave in to stopping for McDonald's etc.

I am not a huge fan of cooking and it's not always easy but eating out is just insanely expensive as a habit, and although we all "waste" money on things and everyone's definition of that is different, it's actually crazy to think about how much money you can be spending just to eat. Someone on reddit recently mentioned spending $1,200 a month on eating out. That is ridiculous, plain and simple. You are not getting anything you get to keep or enjoy, you're not funding your retirement, you're not improving your house, etc... It's just food. So I think budgeting food is absolutely worth the sometimes annoying effort.

lwildernorva

Guilty as charged. As a solo before the pandemic, I budgeted $500 per week for my dining out. When I traveled, I sometimes would spend more.

For some people, dining out is like travel--an indulgence that (maybe) they can afford.

There's no question that the pandemic has changed habits, and it will be interesting to see if some of these changes are permanent. I always knew I could spend less than 20% of my dining budget by eating at home, maybe even with better food and wines/alcohol. As noted, I'm solo so I like the social part of dining out. I like finding good but not ridiculously overpriced places. I also like the occasional dive where if I spent all my money there, I'd probably save at least 60% of what I've budgeted but wouldn't quite get to the 20% level I spend at home.

Convenience costs. As a post above notes, pre-packaged meals at grocery stores and delivery costs more than DIY. I've learned to make good estimates on portion sizes and buy at the grocery store no more than I need to make dinners for the week with some occasional leftovers for lunch. I had become a pretty good cook long before I made a decent living, and I've rediscovered some of that skill in the last year. When I go out now, it's not unusual for me to take the leftovers home for lunch or dinner the following day--before, it wasn't unusual for me to not take anything home--mainly because I would have had multiple boxes of leftovers that I would have eventually thrown out anyway.

As I said, the question is: does this continue two, three, four years from now when we're out of this situation? I've felt for awhile that we will go back to spending our money as we did before. After all, in the wake of the last major pandemic 100 years ago, we had the Roaring '20s, not a time known for stay at homes.

mtofell

Not sure if this is a traveling question but in that area I ALWAYS get a place with a kitchen when traveling with the family. I don't care how much more the room with a full kitchen costs, I come out spending less in the end. And I suppose this relates to non-traveling as well. Eating out is expensive no matter how you do it. For home I've found a vacuum sealer is one of the best things I ever bought. You can take advantage of sales or volume purchases (Costco, etc.) and pack things in an easy/clean package to use at home or take with you.

BamaVol

The OP mentions holding down costs. My dining out budget and eat at home budget are roughly equal. For the last year, I have underspent my monthly dining out budget by an average of $600 (via less frequent take out and not buying drinks out) and gone $100 over on eating in. So, I don’t feel a lot of pressure to hold down costs. Plus, I have a fuller pantry than in the past. I don’t like to waste money but it does mean that I can splurge on halibut and grouper instead of settling for salmon every time. It also helps that one of us (not Mrs BV) will eat almost anything out of the back of the fridge no matter how long ago it was put there so very little is thrown out.

chgoeditor

Generally speaking -- I think comparing a single budget line item is misleading. Sure, they may be spending a lot on food, but maybe their housing costs are low or they have no debt or you just prioritize other spending items.

Personally, our big discretionary expenses are food and drink, and housing comforts (landscaping, furnishing outdoor spaces, etc.). In "normal times," music and travel are also priorities. Pandemic or not, we don't spend a lot of money (relatively speaking) on clothes/accessories or cars. And we don't have kids, so none of those expenses.

For our two-person household, we probably spend $800 a month on groceries, and $600 a month on restaurants/take out. But both bring us pleasure, so it's a worthwhile expense. We have an Alaskan fish subscription (4.5 pounds April-December for $139 a month, I think) and in these pandemic times, we go to a good butcher every 2 months or so and probably get $200-400 worth of meat that we freeze.

We go to Costco every couple months and stock up on staples, and we also take advantage of living near a wonderful Indian neighborhood to buy a lot of dried herbs and spices, rice, and some other staples at a fraction of what we'd pay at non-Indian grocery stores. We're not great at buying high-end meat and seafood at Costco -- we might buy chicken breasts and thighs, which are conveniently sold in multipacks that are easily frozen, but we're less likely to buy a huge portion of beef or seafood that we'd need to repackage into smaller portions before freezing.

That said, I now grow food in our garden, and while the upfront cost might be a little bit more expensive, we're have weeks or months at a time when we're not buying tomatoes, herbs, leafy greens, etc. (This year's garden will be larger -- greens, radishes, scallions, cucumbers, zucchinis, beans, peas, herbs, peppers, etc.)

I haven't gotten into canning, but might if this year's garden is bountiful.

I'd guess our food expenses have gone down overall during the pandemic because we're eating out less (typically ate out 2-4 times a week pre-pandemic) and entertaining less (typically had dinner guests once a week pre-pandemic), but other related expenses have gone up. For example, we now get groceries delivered 90% of the time, so we're paying delivery fees and tips. Plus we're trying to spend more on local and independent producers, which are a bit more expensive.