Posted on 08/31/2022 9:03:48 AM PDT by grundle
Standing in my kitchen on a recent morning, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch later that day, it occurred to me that what would appear to be a fairly mundane (albeit delicious) task was actually so much more.
Maybe that’s because, during the previous month, I spent close to $700 on restaurants alone. That’s like a million peanut butter and jellies.
It was that revelation that inspired a month-long no-restaurants-or-shopping challenge I assigned to myself in July. I could not continue to ignore my mounting bills, and I could not go on living with the constant reminder and anxiety of my $18,000 of credit card debt.
Looking at my expenses, I made the difficult-to-me decision to cut restaurants and shopping out completely for a full month. No shopping for non-necessities. No takeout. No dinners out with friends. No “Let’s grab a drink!”
Aside from the ubiquitous PB&J, I found myself trying out new recipes, like this miso-glazed salmon and a kale Caesar salad I cannot stop making. And, as an unexpected bonus, I feel... really good. It may not be sustainable to make myself every meal for the rest of forever, but having a basic idea of everything I was consuming for a month really made me feel like I was taking care of myself.
I’m not sure what comes next. But as this month comes to an end, I have spent over $2,000 less than the month prior. I paid $1,000 off my credit card balance, put money away for taxes, and felt no anxiety about what my balance was while handing my debit card over to pay for some essentials. I didn’t get sick of peanut butter and jelly, and I have yet to miss a restaurant.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
This guy is just finding out how conservatives live.
Yep. Another thing I discovered is, if you don’t drink, a bar is a good place to get food.
I remember when "Dinner and a Show", meant McDonald's and Hawaii Five-O.
In the fwiw department, I like PBJ sandwichs.
Had one last week. Strawberry jam.
5.56mm
Financial advisors will tell you to get your spending habits under control first. Otherwise, new income will just lead to new spending at a higher level and the debt problem will just compound.
Now disciplined spending and more income will get you out of debt quickly.
The writer, most likely a clueless Millennial, says it’s not sustainable to make all his meals forever. Um, yes, it is. Learn to cook something besides kale salads and pb&j sandwiches. $700 a month spent at restaurants is insane.
“This is a good article .
Someone was behaving foolishly and discovered this on their own, and changed their behavior.
They might be a conservative someday .”
Read the article. H was laid off.
Lol! Very fancy name for a delicious, comforting lunch!
“Hospital food” ain’t what it use to be. I had an overnight hospital stay for some tests a few years ago and while in my room I received a call from some type of nutritionist to plan my evening meal and breakfast. It was nice but I felt a bit guilty since all these unnecessary services were billed to insurance. It was a resort style experience. LOL.
The problem is: when you find yourself eating five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch you realize that you are neither happy nor in control of your life.
When we were kids, we would sometimes deliberately not eat the last couple of bananas in the fruit bowl because we knew our mom would make banana nut bread when they started browning.
“The writer, most likely a clueless Millennial, says it’s not sustainable to make all his meals forever. Um, yes, it is. “
Give the kid a break .
It sounds like he learned a lot and changed a lot of bad behavior.
Applaud him, sounds like he’s less of a liberal than he was previously.
And maybe his eyes will see that government should do similar behavior changes .
My youngest wasn’t this dim. Instead of getting in debt, he went to work and SAVED. When he felt like going to fast food, he instead went and bought a nice t-bone (back when they were routinely $4/# on sale). As a result, he stayed skinny, saved more money, and at 27 is a homeowner, new car owner, neither of which required Mom or Dad’s signatures, has a great girlfriend, and a better job future. NOW, he’s taking a few classes at the local CC to add to his abilities.
Can someone do an article about him? :)
*** But there is a cost to cooking at home and eating leftovers, mostly time in cooking and cleaning up afterwards. We shouldn’t ignore that. You are largely paying for convenience and the time saved when you eat out. Otherwise, people wouldn’t do it so often. There is a benefit there which people value.***
Well, I guess I don’t eat out other than with these friends very often. It usually means getting dressed up with make up on, which I don’t wear around the house every day. I don’t dress up to run to the grocery store either. When I go out, I have to use gas to get there, and then the time involved is in choosing a dish, letting them cook it for me. I usually reserve at least an hour to 1-1/2 hours for eating dinner out (sometimes more), and close to that much if we meet for lunch instead. My meal prep usually takes less than an hour from food prep to serving, though occasionally it takes longer (usually multitasking with another chore if something is baking in the oven). If I make two or three times as much at one time, I freeze those portions and then it’s a quick meal the second and third times.
I don’t think eating out takes much less time than making things myself, including clean up. There are times when the food is good enough to warrant going out, but that’s not usually the case for me. Plus, I get a lot of pleasure from preparing my own dishes. Maybe not every single time, but many times, yes. Cooking is fun, and it’s a great skill to have.
If you’re talking about fast food, that’s pretty repulsive to me, and we only do that when we are on the road and need to stop. We very rarely eat FF otherwise. It’s pretty yucky stuff most of the time. There are a couple of outliers to this, but not many, and none of those “better” places are close to my home. I’m semi rural and there are only a handful of places within a 10 minute drive that I would even consider eating at, and none of them are FF places
There is one place that’s within that 10 minute drive that makes much better fried chicken than pretty much anywhere in the whole country, so they will always get my business when I’m in the mood for that. Other than that one restaurant, I can make the meals more economically and they taste better, too.
Noodles with butter.
Noodles with tomatoes.
Noodles with herbs.
All of it yummy and cheap.
Just say it in Italian (or french) and people think it is fancy.
That’s a really gross looking avocado toast, and $22? Completely outrageous! Make 4 times that amount of avocado toast, with tomatoes and sriracha aioli for less than $5 at home, even with the high price of ingredients these days. Kids need to learn to how to cook or prepare wonderful food!
Single guy sez:
Costco rotisserie chicken: $5 (maybe $6), four meals:
Veg + rice or potato
Salad (2 meals)
Ramen (enhanced, but NO TOFU)
Salad
Saturday is dinner with brother and family. Sunday lunch is Saturday dinner leftovers (thank you, Rose).
If I’m feeling creative, I’ll try cooking something new on Sunday, to be used for dinner and weekday lunches.
Somewhere in there is an enhanced frozen pizza for 2 meals.
Breakfast is eggs, ham or bacon, and toast in various combinations. A box of cereal for late night snack, or breakfast when running late.
My favorite local steakhouse/watering hole, that I used to frequent weekly (I’m worth it), was a victim of Covid, and the next nearest is not worth driving the distance after work. I haven’t found a worthy successor, so I rarely eat out these days.
Lol, almost a brioche bun, but not quite! 😉
I love the other parts of the description!
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