3 October 2007 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

I love fine food. I’ll eat anything from gourmet Japanese food as well as a quarter pounder from the local burger joint. Growing up in a fast paced environment in the city of San Francisco, I was never really able to eat at home often. My dad worked late shifts most of the time and my mom ran her business until about 8PM seven days a week. It was only recently that she retired and began cooking home cooked meals and I started coming home for some freebies. I would usually go out to restaurants and not think twice about it. It became a habit, where my girlfriend and I would just go out constantly to eat. On many occasions we would actually sit in the car confused about where to eat because it would seem like we already tried them all. We’re not alone, according to the USDA, Americans ate out ten times as much in 2004 then 30 years before that in 1974. It’s a growing trend, or should I say problem.

During the past two years or so I started to take a serious look at my health. I began my mission to lose weight and eat better. I made a lot of progress, in the form of 30 pounds, however I was still eating out an awful lot. I started cooking a bit more and made my own sushi, steaks, and pastas among others, but most of the time I would still find myself in front of a menu without knowing it. Eating out at restaurants is completely fine in small doses, such as nights out on the town and of course, special occasions. It’s the casual meals that I, along with millions of Americans buy at restaurants that are hurting us financially and physically.

Our One Month Project

A few days ago my girlfriend brought up the idea of eating at home for a month to see how much we can save and how far we can push this. Without having to think twice, I agreed because thought it was a great idea. Basically we would estimate our average meal costs, including tips and we would add it to our joint high yield savings account each time we would have eaten out. Instead of eating out, we’re purchasing a cook book as well as looking up online recipes for our favorite foods. This is going to be a great experience for us as it allows us to get familiar with cooking so we can do so when we move in together next year. My thoughts with cooking, as with everything else in life, is that if someone out there can do it well, theres no reason you can’t either. So, like my installation of laminate flooring, I’ll give it a shot. My sushi came out fine so anything else should be edible as well.

I’m estimating that we’ll be able to save about $500-$600 from eating at home and cooking ourselves. The first month might be brutal since many dishes will be our first time, but it should be smooth sailing afterwards. I’m not trying to completely eliminate dining out from my life, as I think I’m getting more than just food, its the experience. So hopefully we can have a good mix of eating out and staying in and save at least $300 a month that way. The money will stay in a high interest account for now and we’ll invest it when we move to our new house. By doing this, eliminating excessing restaurant patronage should add up to tens of thousands over the course of our adult lives. The results of our project will be posted in one month. I encourage anyone else to do the same. Wish us luck!