30 Days of Dinner

So like many other people we are on a limited budget and we're trying to pay off credit card debt/student loans/mortgage.  We have never been good at sticking to a budget....we've tried everything but we always veer off course and end up starting over again and again.  We don't make enough money and we spend too much!  So along with making yet another budget, trying to find little ways to make extra money and sticking to it all we are trying to cut back on eating out.  This has ALWAYS been our downfall, ever since we started dating 8 years ago.  Every week we would go to a local restaurant that had 2 for 1 burgers...go out to lunch a lot...go for desert after supper...and so much more!  It became a terrible habit of ours and has been the hardest for us to break.  I don't mind cooking and my husband loves to grill but for some reason we like to eat out as well.  He grew up in a family where they went out to eat A LOT, and they still do.  If we ever hang out with his mom or dad it is always going out to eat....unlike my parents who treated going out to eat like something special.  My mom made a lot of homemade meals or we always just had simple things like sandwiches, soup, cereal, etc.

So to try and stick with it this time I figured I would make it a game and blog about it, I will share each recipe I use including where I got it from, pictures, and how we enjoyed it.  I hope this will keep us accountable.  I plan on using recipes of my own, recipes from online and recipes from my oodles and oodles of cookbooks I own.  I figure we will have to spend a little more at the grocery store but it won't compare to what we spend eating out.  Plus it will go way farther than eating out does.

So to be fair I went through our bank statements to see how much we did spend on eating out.  This obviously doesn't include if we used cash but we usually use our debit card.  This will include if either of us ate out for lunch or we went out to dinner or ordered in.  Then I will compare September's statement at the end of the month and see the difference!

June: $263.41

July: $204.03

August: $258.07 (so far)

WOW!!  We had absolutely no idea that's what we were spending every month.  I'm assuming July was a little less because that's when I had my baby so we didn't go out much the first couple weeks. 

So this motivates us even more....even if I spend $50 more at the grocery store we will still come out ahead!  I will start the 1st of September which works out great cause my husband will get paid that day so it's my usual grocery day.  So as I scour my recipes over the next week leave me a comment with your favorite cookbook or website you get your recipes from!!

See you all in a few days with my dinner plan for the month of September!!