Frugal Friday: Eating Out

Last night I was hanging out at friends house, and she mentioned that her husband was picking up some take-out for dinner. I found myself being super jealous! A night off from cooking sounded sooo good.

But,as you probably know, Adam and I LOVE Dave Ramsey. We have taken his Financial Peace class, and went on to teach it at our church. It has been beyond a blessing, and truly changes how you feel and think about money. With that being said, sometimes it gets hard to stick to the plan. Right now the goal is to finish paying off our student loans so that we can be debt free! And if you have ever listened to his show, you better believe that by about this time next year, Adam and I will call in and scream "WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEE!", and we will record it and everything! We are so excited about it!- Dorks I know....ANYWAYS, his motto is to live like no one else NOW, so that later you can really live like no one else (meaning not having loads of debt, and having lots of money!). What that looks like for us is truly living out the saying that "we aren't gonna step inside a restaurant unless we're working there" while we're working hard to pay off this debt.

Now we do make a few exceptions here and there. For example, we allot ourselves a certain amount of money for dates or entertainment each month- And with that money we can do whatever we want with. But we did modify it so that when we do go out, it's only for an appetizer or dessert and we eat a little something at home before we leave. This way, we spend less and make our money stretch out longer, but still have the eating out "experience".

One of the MAIN money wasters that we see and saw when we taught the class was money spent on eating out. That was one of our downfalls too. If you think about it, that one $30-$40 meal at the restaurant could've been half a weeks worth of groceries! Ahhhh! When we mostly eliminated going out to eat and started on a much more strict budget, our food costs for the month went down at LEAST 50%! Crazy, huh??

Some tips on Eating Out/Groceries:

• Meal plan meal plan meal plan!!!!!! I can't stress this enough. So much money is wasted when going shopping without a plan. I know Rachel Ray says to shop when you're hungry, but that can cost you a ton of money too. Buy what you need for your meals, plus a few extra snacks (I said a FEW!) and eat simply.


• Like I said earlier, when you do eat out, go for the experience. Eat a little something at home, then just go, sit, and enjoy yourselves over an appetizer and drinks. Or if you are eating out for the whole meal, be sure to order water- drinks can totally add up! This is a hard one for me specifically- I love my drinks!

If you want more info on our plan that we follow, go to Dave Ramsey's website. You can listen to his show on there, and learn about his plan. And while this may sound a little over the top for some of you, I'll tell you something that really is- having your student loan so long that it becomes part of your family picture- or having your student loan so long you have to throw it a birthday party every year - or having your student loan so long that it qualifies for AARP :) Haha! I crack myself up! Well actually, Adam cracks me up because he came up with those! Nice babe.

Love, Krystle