What is the biggest waste of money every family could avoid?

This is a question recently asked of me to answer from a blogger’s point of view. I thought this over for quite some time and the one thing that kept coming to my mind was the amount of money I’ve wasted over the years by eating in restaurants way too often.

 What is the biggest waste of money every family could avoid?

When I was in high school, I worked as a waitress. During my senior year, I went to school in the morning, worked as a secretary in the afternoon, and waited tables at night. During homeroom each morning, the dozen of us in the half-day school/work program often made plans to eat out at lunch. I remember our teacher teasing and scolding us about spending our entire paychecks at restaurants. We didn’t care; we thought we were “grown” since we had jobs and money, especially me since I had two good paying jobs. I made more money waiting tables than I did my first year of teaching and I often felt rich with that money in my pocket.

In college, I still worked and made decent money. My favorite “Bell-based” Mexican fast-food establishment had the $0.29, $0.39, $0.49 cent menu. My friends and I could always scrape up the change to eat there. Even when I didn’t have money, I had a car. I had many friends without cars and I would ALWAYS agree to drive them wherever they wanted to go as long as they paid for my food, too. They never turned me down!

As a young newlywed, I suppose I was caught up in a romantic notion of dining out with my (now ex-) husband. We lived in Denver and could have eaten at a different restaurant every night of the week had we chosen to. We didn’t eat out that often, but ate out more often than we should have. Our new friends even raved about what a good cook I was. After all, I was a good southern woman and knew how to cook in ways they had never experienced. Nevertheless, we continued to experience everything that Denver had to offer.

Then we moved to Missouri and I became a stay at home mom for a year. That was a shocking experience on the budget. We went from an Army specialist and teacher’s pay for the two of us, down to a family of three on a specialist’s pay. Going out to eat was a something of the past. After a few months, I came across a coupon book that allowed us to eat 2-for-1 at several area restaurants and we were able to eat out once, but no more than twice a month. When shopping at the commissary, we noticed our cart filled with groceries for home cooked meals versus many, many of the other carts filled with convenience foods. Again, our friends raved about what a good cook I was.

Then I went back to work and we went back to the bad habit of eating out far too often. He got out of the Army and the budget for eating out halted again. We eventually divorced and the budget for dining out fluctuated up and down. I considered it a special treat to eat out with my toddler, especially when she could eat free at so many locations. It was a special time that I could focus 100% on her and worry about nothing else.

Over the years, I continued to receive pay raises, and the budget allowed the two of us to eat out more often. Then without warning, I became disabled. Thank you Multiple Sclerosis – NOT! My income cut into slightly less than half and I then had a mortgage to pay. I did NOT get the additional ten years to work after the MS diagnosis, as I had predicted I would. After all, I could make better predictions than the experts in the medical field could. LOL

My daughter began calling our situation “The Great Depression II.” Thankfully, this does not describe our eating situation. We have to adhere to an extremely strict budget that infrequently affords us the luxury of dining out on anything much nicer than Sonic. However, we’re eating a greater variety of foods because of shopping with coupons and my refusal to allow food to be wasted.

When I’m feeling well, we cook in large batches and freeze it in small portions. We have our own variety of fast foods. We amazed friends when we started a small garden. We often plan menus for weeks in advance, planning meals based on what we have on hand, and shop for the fillers we need on a monthly basis. My daughter is fourteen, but knows how to cook better than several grown women I know.

We have more food on hand than ever before and spend less than ever. How you may ask? We use coupons like crazy! I spend a considerable amount of time matching up the coupons that I have from the newspaper, and select others from Cellfire, Coupons.com, Coupon Network, Free Coupon Alerts, Red Plum, and Smart Source with sales at our local stores.

Yes, I stockpile, but not in excess! Last night I did exactly this. My cashier was thrilled for me when she saw that I had saved $60 in sale prices, $43 in coupons, and my total savings was 50%. Even more exciting to me was that I had an entire cart full of quality groceries – meats, cheeses, whole grain snacks and cereals as well as other items that will help stretch what I already had on hand. There is no way to compare buying food for an entire month to spending that same amount at restaurants.

I think feast or famine easily sums up my love affair with dining out. Thankfully, we’ve learned to feast at home these days!