Spending Habits: Food & Drink

[NW-Bound]

...Since food and housing are probably the two biggest costs (assuming no huge cat payment) and also have huge variation it reminds me how much flexibility there is when considering ER...

The adjective "huge" applies to the cat, the payment, or both?

 

[2017ish]

...

What amazes me about this thread is how BIG the variation in spending is and yet I bet most people are not malnourished and probably satisfied with their situation.

...

I think a lot of the outliers are people who see dining as entertainment, whether at home or away. I know Danmar mentioned that expressly--and it certainly applies to us, particularly with our wine budget, the restaurants we choose when we do go out, and the quality/cost of the weekend meals we cook at home.

In our situation, it gives us a lot of flexibility in spending. If my projections are way off five years after retirement, we can slash this category with little pain.

E.T.A.--NW-Bound, that made me laugh!

 

[kcowan]

After reading this thread, I'm going to open a bottle of wine even though it's just 10a.

Good plan. You have to let it breathe. If it is not breathing in a couple of hours, consider giving it mouth-to-mouth!

 

[kcowan]

We do not eat out. Whenever we go out, it is dining. Usually linen table clothes. We probably average 3x a week. Cost about $90 for 2 with a bottle of wine. Often with one or two other couples. Our main entertainment. We average two meals at friend's places every month and one at our place every 2 months.

Eat one other meal each day in. Dine out more often in Europe (and also eat out there too) but always try for breakfast in.

 

[David1961]

Mine went down after retiring, mostly because I am cooking more things at home and have time to comparison shop more.

 

[Danmar]

I think a lot of the outliers are people who see dining as entertainment, whether at home or away. I know Danmar mentioned that expressly--and it certainly applies to us, particularly with our wine budget, the restaurants we choose when we do go out,

Yes, in fact the expense caption in my spread sheet is called "entertainment" although it is virtually all dining out. We will often go to fairly informal restaurants for lunch but usually try for nicer, more formal places when we go for dinner. Never go to "fast food" places. Meals out would always include beer/wine. Quite enjoy dining out often with friends or family.

 

[RobbieB]

I have really come to appreciate the joys of good booze. It's smoother and tastes better and doesn't "hurt" the pipes or the belly.

And not the most expensive stuff either, I usually look for stuff $30 to 50 / fifth

Patron, Hendricks, Bushmills "Black Bush", Templeton Rye, Macallan 12, Courvoisier

I'm moving a bit slower now than when I was young, don't have as much energy and I ache more. But at least I don't have to drink cheap booze -

 

[David1961]

When I track my spending, I never know whether to count eating at a restaurant as "food," or "entertainment". I categorize it on a case by case basis.

 

[haha]

Same here. If I am alone and just hungry and don't want to wait until I get home, it is food, in the same category as groceries. But if I spend $20 in these circumstances, I call it entertainment. If I am out with others, including mi compañera, I call it entertainment. Meals for me are always enjoyable, so in some sense they are always entertainment regardless. I hate chain restaurants and rarely enter one. Though I had a MacDonald's cheeseburger w/o bun w eek or so ago in downtown SF. Every place else was mobbed.

Ha

 

[Danmar]

When I track my spending, I never know whether to count eating at a restaurant as "food," or "entertainment". I categorize it on a case by case basis.

We solve this problem by not specifically recording groceries but rather including it in "other cash" expenses. Have always done this. I think because groceries are quite a small expense because we eat out so much. Might be $1,000 per month and very consistent, which is insignificant to our overall budget. I guess we could categorize it but at this point seems unnecessary. Eating out is always entertainment. Lots of ways to skin a cat.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

When I track my spending, I never know whether to count eating at a restaurant as "food," or "entertainment". I categorize it on a case by case basis.

The categorizations that give me a hard time are:
Buying non-grocery items at the supermarket. I basically keep the receipt and do some manual edits. I don't find this too bad as we don't buy non-groceries at the supermarket very often and the receipts for the stores we go to are pretty detailed.

Takeout/Instant Food. Generally if we buy it during grocery shopping, it falls under groceries. If it's standalone like pizza, it's falls under eating out.

Birthday/celebration meals. If we take someone out for their birthday or some other celebration, I'm tempted to put it under gifts but it typically gets categorized under dining out.

Alcohol during meals. We manually split this out too because we want to track how much we're spending on drinks.

 

[braumeister]

I'm grinning to myself as I read this thread, so I will make everyone feel good by giving you my horrible example. You may call me a hopeless case and laugh at my practice. It won't bother me a bit.

I have a category in my spending budget that includes:

• Everything bought at supermarkets, Costco, etc.
• All restaurant meals and other food bought outside the home
• All cash withdrawals from ATMs (I usually pay with cash at restaurants and buy quite a lot of things with cash
• All tickets to movies, concerts, plays, events, etc.

The category is "Cash/Entertainment/Food" and averages about 12-13% of total spending.

You folks who worry about tracking costs down to a gnat's eyelash are fascinating, but I just can't see myself ever bogging down to that level.

OK, you may now shake your heads and wonder how I managed to survive this long.

 

[RobbieB]

I don't track any spending, have never used a spread sheet or a paper and pencil.
I've never balanced a checking account and I never will.
I never "planned my retirement" either other than running a few calculators a year and a half before I retired.

Whatever works -

 

[nash031]

Spending Habits: Food & Drink

I am getting closer to FIRE (1-3 years) and have always been very conscious about saving money and watching expenses except when it comes to Food & Drink. I just ran Mint to see how things look this year and was kinda shocked. I am spending $1k-$3k a month on food and drink. This includes lunch out every day Mon-Fri while at work. Dinners with the gf and a bunch of wine. I am curious as to what others are spending on that category. Did it change up or down after you retired?

Not yet retired, but... For two of us, including all eating away from home in a travel heavy year-

2015:

Restaurants - $8000
Groceries (incl. beer and wine) - $7800

I budget $600/month for groceries plus a little for beer and wine. We eat well at home. Pastured eggs, grass fed beef, etc. don't bother with organic fruits and veggies though, generally.

Usually budget around $500 for dining out, but we don't aim to stay within that all the time right now. If we want fancy, we do fancy. Other months, we don't do much of anything.

Needless to say, we LBOM, but don't stick to a hard budget all the time right now.

 

[athena53]

Spending Habits: Food & Drink

You folks who worry about tracking costs down to a gnat's eyelash are fascinating, but I just can't see myself ever bogging down to that level.

I never did before retirement but I'm a spreadsheet type and I enjoy it, especially tracking changes in patterns. Our total spend in a year is pretty astronomical ($82k on Amex last year, which included about $40k in home improvements but no mortgage or utilities). I am reassured when I can see how much is discretionary and could be cut back if necessary.

 

[mpeirce]

The category is "Cash/Entertainment/Food" and averages about 12-13% of total spending.

We budget at an even grosser level. Every month we transfer a pile of cash into the checking account to cover "monthly expenses". We do allocate other funds specifically for medical, insurance, travel, property taxes, and a reserve fund for unexpected "big" expenses (i.e. a new washer and house painting last year)

This keeps us within a desired annual spending cap. Works for us.

 

[eastnortheast]

Family of seven. Me, DW + 5 kids. Monthly budget for groceries = $800. We manage to keep quite close to that. Nominally budget $200/month for dining out but we usually seem to overshoot that by a bit. Two of the kids are freshman at college (living away from home), but the grocery budget is unchanged from what it was last year. Seems to me it should have gone down by 2/7, but we do bring care packages to them when we visit, and that is included in groceries.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

I'm all about categorizing to the level detail that works for you. If you don't need or want that level of detail, that's great too.

I just like analysis and being able to set goals or make changes and seeing the results. Personally, I'm paranoid with our retirement planning goals because going without a paycheck scares the heck out of me. So I really want to understand what we're spending on.

 

[braumeister]

Personally, I'm paranoid with our retirement planning goals because going without a paycheck scares the heck out of me. So I really want to understand what we're spending on.

Perfectly understandable and I see nothing wrong with that. I wasn't trying to be negative at all -- I really do find it fascinating to see the level of budget detail some here use.

I guess after nearly 15 years of ER (hardly E any more), I've developed a comfort level that many newer ERs won't reach for a while.

 

[rodi]

I find how people catagorize interesting also.

I use Groceries for everything bought at the grocery store or costco... so it includes booze, some clothes, toilet paper, dog food, flea treatment for the pooch, printer paper... you get the idea... if it's from Costco, Vons, Sprouts (and a few less used places) it goes under groceries.

I use entertainment for things that are "entertaining" but could be cut from the budget if I needed to tighten the belt:
Movies out, netflix, cable/internet, kids video game stuff, purchased books for the kindle (less frequent because I'm now a power user of the library.)

I have a separate category for dining - that's for meals out. I could probably roll that into entertainment or into groceries... but since quicken doesn't charge me extra to have the category I'll keep it.

For us Groceries is a big category - depending on the year it's the 2nd or 3rd biggest category. (Some years home improvement or travel bump ahead.) It's behind insurance (medical, car, home, umbrella, etc.) So it's worth having as a category.

 

[iac1003]

I'm not feeling so badly now that I read this, because I just added up our past month's food and restaurant expenses here in Mexico. Higher than I expected but not by much. And lower than many I have read here. I was really frugal for years but managed to not eat any junk foods and brought my lunch to work for a very long time. I have a somewhat restricted diet but we eat very healthy, made-from-scratch meals at home plus we go out to dinner about twice a week and for a happy hour or two (or 3) since we got down here 1 month ago.

Finding organic vegetables is more difficult and more costly here, the farmers market gourmet items are more inviting, Costco is readily available as is Walmart for a few comforts of home (frozen organic berries and spinach for my morning smoothies, salmon for DH which he really likes). The things I generally eat are on the more expensive end. It's good the dollar is strong as opposed to the peso right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[ohyes]

DH and I eat out 4-6 times a week and that is counted in entertainment.

On nights we do not eat out, we go out for drinks (also counted as entertainment).

For both, we veer toward establishments with live music....that starts early in the evening

I enjoy cooking and aim for healthy, organic and avoid processed. It is often pretty good, if I say so myself, but we do not count that as entertainment.

When our kids were growing up, we very, very, very seldom dined out. These days, we love getting out for dinner/music/drinks.

Tonight was Mexican with karaoke. : )

 

[Retire2013]

Well, to be perfectly honest --

1. I eat approximately 12-16 lunch/dinner meals a month at my mother's house. I'm not picky. Whatever leftovers or lunch meat she has is fine by me. At 87 years old, she still makes a sit down meat-potatoes-vegetables dinner every Sunday and I have a standing invitation each week. Likewise for Saturday lunch which is just sandwich/soup. Then I usually stop by 1 or 2 times on weekdays to check up on her which I usually do around lunch time.

2. I eat no-name cereal for breakfast.
3. I shop at Aldi's.
4. I don't eat particularly healthy. On the other hand, I rarely buy chips, snacks, cookies, or ice cream. (I do eat that stuff at Mom's though.)
5. I don't cook. Mainly eat sandwiches -- grilled cheese, tuna fish.
6. I eat at Wendy's about 15 times a month. Mainly their grilled chicken sandwich.

Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Retire2013]

Thank you for your reply. I am glad you have a mother to visit. I still miss my Mom. She passed away 29 years ago! Enjoy your visits with yours!


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[kcowan]

We solve this problem by not specifically recording groceries but rather including it in "other cash" expenses. because we eat out so much.

All our eating out is classed as entertainment. But we blend our food budget with our in-home entertainment so nothing is "clean". Except the bottom line.