My 2023 Resolutions included five categories:
- Eat professionally prepared meals judiciously
- Eat less for dinner
- Start each weekday with 30 minutes on the elliptical
- Meditate for 1 minute each day
- Engage in Christianity every day
Quarterly Reports 1 – 3 can be accessed here:
In this post I shall reflect on my resolution to eat professionally prepared meals judiciously. First I shall review the fourth quarter. Then I shall reflect on this category over the year. Finally, I will determine what to do moving forward.
For the fourth quarter, the grade for eating out/take-out improved to a B from a D. Our average monthly spend dropped sequentially from $1,025/month to $484/month of which $103/month consisted of alcoholic beverages. (I don’t know what the alcohol spend was in Q3 because most of it occurred while I was on vacation, and I was too busy indulging in a newfound predilection for Hazy IPAs to keep receipts). I’m pleased with the drop all the way around.
Annual Review. For the year, our family of three spent $7,622 on eating out/take-out/delivery. That’s an average of $635/month.
My abundancy mindset tells me to increase the spend in 2024. Eating out and take-out/delivery can be fun or at least they can provide a break from cooking and cleaning. My scarcity mindset, however, argues to decrease the spend in 2024, noting my 2023 assertion that reductions in this area “will 1) save money and 2) increase quality control of food intake.”
Dining out certainly can be special. My fondest dining memory of 2023 was with my wife and son in the tiny, remote desert town of Borrego Springs, California in February. The evening began in the Fox Den Bar of the La Casa del Zorro Desert Resort & Spa. I asked the salty bartender to make me whatever concoction she could dream up. We sat at a high top in the corner, studied the mural, “Home of the Fox”, and eavesdropped on alcohol-fueled conversations.
Then we sauntered to the Fox Bistro for a late dinner. We ordered a lot of just about everything, and the drinks flowed…mostly to me. My favorite dishes included Cambozola cheese and an out of this world Portabella Wellington in a tomato cashew sauce.
Before we knew it, the few diners who were there when we arrived had finished their dinners and left. The pianist continued playing for an audience of just us. I handed our amazing waiter, Kevin Hibbs (a van lifer), some cash to give to the pianist with a request for Moon River, our wedding song. Without a hitch, the pianist played it and then continued with other wonderful songs from an expansive repertoire.
After dessert, in a nod to my grandmother, I requested Grappa to conclude the evening that started with the mysterious concoction from the salty bartender, progressed to a bottle of white wine with my appetizers and salad and then to a bottle of red to complement my Wellington. Kevin could not find Grappa, but he did return with another suitable digestif. Full and happy, we meandered back to our room for a good night’s rest after a day that began with a walk on Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, continued with a drive over a snowy mountain pass and then an awe-inspiring descent to the desert floor where we squeezed in some four wheeling to include my son, who had just gotten his permit about a month prior, launching sideways off a sand dune while I screamed from the passenger seat and quickly followed up with a “good job” after he landed it beautifully.
I could continue on reminiscing about various meals from après-surf overstuffed burritos or evening stops at Cracker Barrel on the way home from basketball tournaments or milking free beer samples during a ski/snowboard lunch break on a sun-drenched deck at Snowbowl or stopping in from a stroll for glass of wine at a bar in Encinitas only to take them up on 1/2 off wine bottle Wednesdays and letting the surreal evening evolve from there or enjoying bites and beer at a local brewery, or, or, or….. Okay, the abundancy mindset has made its case for increasing spend on dining out in 2024.
My scarcity mindset wants to reduce the 2024 spend on dining out/take-out. An old roommate of mine would buy expensive sports team jerseys but would spend hardly anything on food. The guy ate rice and tuna pretty much every meal. He explained his allocations thusly, “The jerseys I will use over and over again for many years. Food turns into shit.” Okay, point taken.
What to do? What gets measured gets managed. I now have a year’s worth of data to know our average monthly spend of $635. How about this? I’ll try to keep 2024 flat with 2023. Fact is, I enjoy eating out from time to time. It is important to me. I don’t want to cut it. However, take-out and delivery, though, seem like a waste in most cases. You pay tax and often a tip is expected, so take-out expense is no better than the expense of simply eating on site. Certainly delivery entitles the driver to a tip and often the restaurant will tack on an additional delivery fee. Furthermore, take-out and delivery meals usually arrive home in a deteriorated state–lukewarm or soggy, for example. Take-out makes the car stink, and the time taken to get it can rival the time to prepare a simple meal. From an environmental perspective, take-out and delivery result in additional trash from packaging, and if driving is involved, the depletion of natural resources and increased pollution. I think I can cut down on take-out. That will provide a hedge to stay even with last year’s professionally prepared meal expenditures while allowing me extra room to continue enjoying dining out from time to time.
With Love,
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present