July 1, 2013
PiC and I have a new tradition of sorts, a weekly dinner with one singlet friend, and a every couple of months dinner with another singlet* friend. Both are friends from years back, Ye Olden Youth Dayes. I don’t know if it’s weird that we never tried to seek out couple friends specifically now that we’re married but it’s just never been a priority. A friend’s a friend, whether single or doubled up. And I like that, paired or not, our friends feel comfortable with us, paired or not.
*Singlet denoting the fact that they may not actually be single, but they hang out with us sans partner for these regular shindigs.
We’ve gone out to explore weird little joints, relaxed with easy take out, and experimented with new recipes. The responsibility or privilege of deciding what to do next has been alternated like a hot potato, back and forth, but I always feel like since we’re feeding three in total, two of whom are a couple, isn’t it more fair if we paid 2 times out of 3 outings?
Sounds logical to me, but the singlets we dine with usually gives me an odd look when I venture forth with this theory. Granted, we rarely have terribly expensive meals, ranging from $5-20 per person depending on whether we’ve cooked, did take out or dined out, but it does still feel a bit unfair from my perspective.
:: Am I being overly aware or would you feel the same way? What if you were the single one? What if you were part of the couple?
January 15, 2013
Our food spending this year was astronomical.
That is, in some ways, surprising.
I eat a lot less than before. No stress eating either. You’d think that’d reduce food costs somewhat but it really didn’t matter: PiC more than makes up for my here again, gone again appetite. While I skip meals when flying solo, being with him means at least one meal will happen a day. And if I’m Chef, even if I’m not hungry, I’m still compelled to make a real meal. Maybe to avoid the judgment when it’s looking like the five KitKats and a mini Snickers bar style dinner but also because cooking’s therapeutic. Besides, for someone that loves every single thing I try my hand at, even the things I think suck? Who would mind?
Anyway, the point is: this year’s food budget? Mostly for two people? Was, in a word: dammmnnn.
We spent nearly the exact same amount on Groceries as on Eating Out. Groceries included frozen meals, convenience foods, snack foods, fresh food, canned food.
With so many 12-14 hour days, there was just no time or energy to do fancy or creative meals on the weekdays. Instead, we’d make up big meals on weekends, freeze portions for later, experimented with new “quick” recipes. Not all of the experiments were successful, not in my opinion, but I evidently married a man who’d eat anything I make. Super helpful when you have a complex about food waste!
The ugliest pot pie ever. But it sure was tasty…
When I cook, I do a fair amount from scratch. Lots revolves around chicken, the affordable protein we love. I make stew, pot pies, roast our own chickens, and once every several months, put up chicken broth. We try different grains in bulk, and avoid red meat*. All of this nets pretty minor savings, but I enjoy the cooking and we both like simple healthy meals at home. Bonus: It keeps my roasting skills polished. No horrific dried out turkey for Thanksgiving for us, my favorite meal of the year. Can you imagine ruining 20 lbs of turkey?
*I love steak but have an irrational fear of ruining it so I refuse to cook it. PiC does not love it like I do.
Double roasting. The honey cooks faster and make it look like it’s burnt but it’s just extra delicious, extra crispy skin. I’m loving the new roasting pan.
We had convenience and frozen foods as patches for no-cooking days, and traveling weekends when no cooking would happen. Pretty sure we also paid for groceries for other people on occasion. That’d be included in here. Couponing is an as-and-when activity instead of a weekly past-time.
Eating Out included: fine dining, treating friends to meals or snacks or anything food, special occasion meals, casual dining, fast food, drinks.
For day to day life, where we used to have a cap on the number of times we’d eat out or order in, this year has been rough enough that I finally just stopped fussing about sticking to an artificial number. Yes, it’s more expensive, yes, it’s not always the healthy choice and no, I’m not going to sweat it. Bottom line, we needed to eat, our working weekdays were far too long some days to do anything but come home and forage, and we could afford it.
A deconstructed kebab from Tuba Restaurant. We get to try new fancy-ish stuff in the city when visitors come to town!
Food, all kinds of it, both “high-end” and the remarkably pedestrian stuff we enjoy, was a spending priority for us, a clear trade of money for time or mental health, clocking in at about $6500.
It’ll be interesting to see this coming year’s spending. I have more opportunity to make time to cook on weeknights now, and if we eat out, it’s on weekends instead. Will it balance out or stay the same?
September 8, 2012
For a whole $25, PiC and I splurged on a new dinner experience nearby – trying a restaurant that no one we knew had tried before. We’re not hugely adventurous in that way. We love trying new foods and new places, but PiC relies on recommendations and reviewed places, the risk of a disappointing meal is just too high for us in our old age. 😉 I thought it might be worth it just to see whether we had a worthwhile contender for our business and I didn’t personally regret the price even though I might not feel like it was worth going back any time soon.
PiC did a real comparison, ordering the bibimbap, not the stone pot. It was basically all the classic ingredients, and good. A little odd that the rice was on the side but that didn’t take away from the meal.
The Classic Bibimbap: served here with the rice on the side instead of in the bowl.
Instead of my usual soft tofu soup, I was charmed by the idea of a restaurant serving oxtail soup, so I had to give it a try. I’d recently experimented with cooking a family recipe and that went pretty well, but I still need to develop that sure hand for the flavoring “to taste.” I probably should have gone with the tofu soup. The oxtail soup broth was bland and disappointing, as though it hadn’t been steeping to bring out the flavor of the oxtail bones. It did have all kinds of things in it but it didn’t make up for the fact that the soup was pretty much hot water that I flavored with the salt and pepper.
Oxtail Soup: Just add salt and pepper
Some days I choose Korean cuisine entirely for this:
The Side Dishes: Possibly my favorite. There’s a seaweed salad, potato salad, kimchee (an acquired taste that I haven’t quite got down yet), soybeans, coleslaw, and a lot of other delicious tidbits.
The problem with that is when they disappoint, like this place did. The seaweed salad and other normally tart pickled selections, were simply not. They were limply tangy, like they were trying as hard as possible not to be offensive which made no sense to me because the population around here seems to appreciate fairly authentic (which would read: flavorful) cuisine. After all, the very popular usual restaurant serves very pickled side dishes and they do an incredibly brisk business – I’m going to say there’s a correlation between their flavors and their success. I want my tart things to be mouthpuckering! Otherwise I’d just stay home and make my own darn pickled stuff.
Overall: they’re very average. Taste isn’t better than our usual nor are the prices better. I suppose it’s good to know we’re weren’t missing out on a gem either in the flavor or price arena?
No, I would really have liked to have a second option on those nights when our favorite is jampacked. But they’re super nice there and bring you tea and stuff while you wait. They do everything right. Which is why they’re the favorite.
October 25, 2010
After a wonderful meal at a Korean tofu house with a friend we hadn’t seen for a few months, she wanted to make plans to meet for dinner again during the week before she left town.
That same day, I received a message from another friend who recently relocated to this coast. She planned to be in town to see family, could we have brunch when she landed Saturday? When I wasn’t available, she asked if we could come out to see her across the way Sunday. Though she didn’t specify it was a full day thing, history shows that’s going to be expected. All previous “come hang out with me” invitations have always turned into a day-long finagle-fest because she always wants to do just one more thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy her company but it’s really hard to commit full days to hanging out at the last minute like that because I’m usually running like a madwoman during the week to survive and use the weekends to become human again. Which, as you might imagine, is a little complicated after September’s hosting visitors every weekend (and seeral weekdays) but one.
That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? I quite enjoy seeing friends, of course, but the last minute requests and those that sometimes grow well beyond moderation are rather difficult to accommodate. Or even to want to accommodate; it requires a sanity check to make sure we’re not just constantly running to everyone’s beck and call because they’ve dropped in and didn’t we want to see them?
Sure, but I think it becomes taken for granted that we’ll always be available on their schedule and doesn’t call for much advance notice. That drives me, an inveterate planner, at least a little up the wall. I understand that not all trips are planned as far ahead as I would like but these texts and emails are increasingly and frequently coming with very little notice.
Aside from the limited time factor, I worry about the money we’re spending hand over fist with this stream of visitors. When we host, I can cook and feed them relatively (not very) frugal basis. But many times, we end up eating out because they’re in the city, we’re not, and it’s inconvenient for them to come to us and then trek back to the city.
While PiC and I have agreed on a rule of thumb on eating out, my personal budgeting rules have always stated that “entertaining” comes out of the same eating out allowance lest we end up using the personal 2x/week allowance, and entertain two or three times on top of that. Before you know it, we’ve spent most of the week eating out. My personal budgeting rules have been repeatedly smashed under the weight of the last minute traveler.
We can’t control the travel habits of our friends, and we certainly never want them to feel unwelcome or unloved, but it’s time to gently nudge them toward better notification habits. And we need to learn to set boundaries we’re comfortable with rather than self-guilting ourselves into doing far more for them than is necessary.
Do you have any trouble managing drop-ins or do you have a good standing policy that works well for you and yours?
August 30, 2010
I actually wasn’t interested in participating in Funny About Money‘s Half Off Diet for the purpose of weight loss, but I do want to share how my version of it is a money-saver.
As a kid, the only time we ate out was, ironically enough, at Vietnamese restaurants.
My parents were great cooks but there are a couple things that were always more economical in a time v. money aspect to eat out: beef noodles (pho) and the 7 courses of beef. Go figure, the typically expensive red meat, right?
The interesting thing about Vietnamese food is that it’s really so cheap and easy to prepare most foods that it would seem like you’d always save money by eating in. That hasn’t been the case for many years, though. A bowl of good noodle soup cost less than $5, and it was hard to make the argument that it was worth your time making that broth from scratch and preparing all the side veggies and thinly sliced beef to save, basically, a few cents.
So if you were truly in the mood for pho, it wasn’t that costly a splurge. And honestly, we never ate out so that was definitely a special occasion for us kids.
These days, though, the price of a bowl has me staggering. In the Bay Area, a single regular sized bowl runs you between $6.50 and $7.50. That’s a 50% increase!
I can still afford it as take out, though. Always make sure to ask them not to cook the noodles, and order a single bowl to go: that single bowl can serve both PiC and me two meals – and we are big eaters!
PiC claims it’s because I order in the mother tongue, but I sincerely doubt it. Let me know if you think that’s the case, though, and I’ll be happy to call in your order for you! 😉
July 18, 2010
PiC does stand for Partner in Crime, for those of you who were asking. I think it’s fun but he would like it to be known that we are “strictly on the up and up” with every bit of “legit”ness possible. 😀 This is why he cracks me up, he takes the oddest things literally. And it’s true, we’re totally legit around here.
In other news, I’ve been thoroughly irresponsible this weekend thanks to an unexpected houseguest. An old friend gave me a call on Thursday asking if I happened to have bedspace, which we do, and made a serious drive over to visit. He’s been housebound for a while so he was in the mood for a lot of city livin’ – which is so very much not me. As it turns out, we compromised pretty well.
We had a lovely dinner out in the city with his old friend which cost $23 each for the traditional 7 courses of beef. I didn’t know there was a Pagolac in the Bay Area – I used to dine there with my family as the ultimate treat for big big things down south. I know now that it’s not really that costly in comparison to gourmet food but it was pretty serious stuff for my fam. We rarely ever ate out so for that lifestyle, that was a splurge. Honestly, I still appreciate the simplicity and still feel a touch spoiled when we eat that meal.
Saturday dawned late with a little bit of sleeping in which was lovely. We cruised the Farmers Market, picking up salami cones, quarter pounds of cheese, the most excellent bread, and a couple of really expensive peaches. We got lost, taking the wrong freeway, and ended up munching our way through all that food watching the waves crash on the rocks of Treasure Island. Best thing? We avoided having to pay the toll for taking the wrong bridge! Lunch, snacks for later: $24
Later that night, we discovered a fantastic Thai restaurant in Oakland, Sabuy Sabuy, that the nearest multiplex cinema had the worst parking structure set-up ever, paid $2 for the privilege of parking for 3 minutes to not see a sold out movie, and THEN paid $10.50 each for a movie ticket at another theater. *smh* Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I had a Regal Cinemas ticket voucher – could have saved a bit of cash.
Today was going to be errand running but we got a late start and after feasting on the leftover peaches, frozen hash browns and other carbs, I’m settling in to finally get some work done. Ahh….leftovers for dinner tonight!
There’s something incredibly refreshing about hanging out with friends of old. I’m not terribly social, nor that trusting since college, so it always takes more effort to spend time with people who I’ve not been acquainted with all that long. It’s been lovely catching up with these friends more frequently but I definitely need to find a more economical way to do it. “They’re worth it” is the first step on a pretty slippery slope! And on the eve of my trip down south, I should be more conscientious about spending.
May 11, 2010
Remember that 2 meals out per week thing? It’s becoming pretty challenging.
Those friends being in town didn’t help – we hit the quota, and would have gone over had it not been over a weekend. Twice on Sunday! I mean, really! But it was dim sum, and then the longest afternoon of shopping/errands stretched into a late night sushi dinner, and who was I to argue?
Still, that blew the dining out budget for the entire week so I had to veto Cinco de Mayo. Luckily, I had made a huge pot of homemade chicken soup which heated up wonderfully for Wednesday night dinner. Leftovers sufficed for Thursday night but we had to defrost something that night lest Friday night become another night out.
Having friends over is nice, but between that and the wonky schedule when social obligations come up or when I get home really late from work, my money management’s suffering. I’m starting to wonder if my arbitrary limit needs some evaluation. Should I be targeting a dollar amount per week instead of occurrences? Because I count Costco Dog Dinners as eating out – it’s prepared food.
If I were to be on a monthly dining out budget, I’d just have to be more prudent in a different way, and not limit the number of times I eat out so strictly. Is that better or will it just encourage me to feel like there’s more slack in the system? The grocery budget is already at a more than generous amount so I’m really wary of allowing more spending.
How do you keep your eating out to a minimum?
