Budgeting

Rebecca ran our finances yesterday and looked at where our money is going. The bad news: we're spending too much to meet our financial goals. The worse news: most of our overages are going to food. We love food. We'd been tired of scrimping and saving when med school ended and we relocated, so we weren't very careful when the paychecks started coming in. But we need to buy Rebecca a new laptop soon, and we would like to take a vacation in February. We would also eventually like a house and to pay off Rebecca's student loans.

The good news is that food is relatively easy to get under control, given that we have still allotted a fairly generous amount to it. We've decided not to buy more alcohol until what we have in the house is used up and to perhaps only have it for special occasions. We're also both going to try to pack more lunches instead of buying lunch out so that "food out money" can be saved for dates (or saved, period). Additionally, we'll be switching away from meat to eggs, dry beans, and other cheaper sources of protein. I'm not really that sad about this - we're good at preparing these things, and grilling season is almost over anyway. In the fall, it's nice to sit down to vegetarian chili, homemade falafel, and lentil tacos.

Another tactic is to be much better about food waste. Despite some effort, we haven't been managing to finish our leftovers. I often get tired of them, or they don't reheat well. Many days, I don't have access to a microwave to reheat things, so I can't take leftovers for lunch. Rebecca more often can but forgets.

So expect to see more cost-conscious (while still health-conscious) food ideas come up. There will still be splurges (we're having an actual dinner party on September 27th), but with an eye toward using things already in our kitchen as much as possible.