If you have missed this, our family is doing a 30 Day Eat At Home Challenge. Please take a moment and read about Week 1, Week 2 and Week 3.  TOTAL MONEY SAVED IN 3 WEEKS: $192.40  But, there was cheating this week. More on that near the end of this post….

We are down to our last few days in our 30 Day Eat At Home Challenge.  I have to say that Week 4 has been the most challenging for me.

Yes, a habit has been formed. But, not really.

You see, we are doing a challenge, so technically I had removed the option for ourselves of eating out. So, I am extremely interested in seeing what happens in the next few weeks after this challenge.  When I have the choice, will I go buy a coffee out of boredom?

Which leads me to what I have learned…

Week 1: Our family doesn’t like change. Plus, I buy more drive thru coffee than I realized.  MONEY SAVED $61.00

Week 2: We are joyfully busy.  Subway and McDonald’s make our life easier. When making supper I consider cooking from home or picking something up as a viable option. MONEY SAVED $81.65

Week 3: I’m not great at meal prep, but we had way less food waste. I also learned that you have to prepare the damn food or otherwise it will end up in the garbage can.  MONEY SAVED $54.65

So what have I learned this week?

That not only do I mindlessly spend money, I also mindlessly eat. I touched on this a bit in week 1, but I really noticed it this week. When I have 30 minutes to kill, I mindlessly get a Tim Horton’s coffee or stop in at Max’s Place with the kids to waste time before we have to be somewhere for an appointment, dance, hockey, school event or play date.

WEEK 4

January 22: I find Monday’s the most difficult as this was often our Fast Food Night.  MONEY SAVED: $20.00

January 23: My husband took my son to a WHL hockey game. They bought popcorn and a bottle of water. Yes, I lectured him on spending money on water. But, I really didn’t care. I was just being a jerk. I do that sometimes. They spent around $5.

January 24: My daughter had a doctor appointment and a hair appointment, I had time to kill between her pickups. I didn’t go buy a coffee. And I would have gone twice that day. MONEY SAVED: $3.30

January 25:

January 26: My girlfriend and I went to her house for tea after our Pilates Class. We didn’t go out for lunch like we usually would have. PART 1 MONEY SAVED: $20.00.  Not only was I super moody that afternoon, but my daughter lost her screen time. I wasn’t in the mood to entertain the kids for the evening and really wanted to go out for dinner to waste time before bed time. It’s true, I admit it. I was beat.  PART 2 MONEY SAVED: $60.00. MONEY SAVED: $80.00

January 27: Ridiculous.  My daughter had 2 dance classes and I was taking part in a Yoga-a-thon. Plus, Zed was in the next town over with our son for a hockey tournament. This was a tricky day to navigate. There was a bit of cheating that happened on both of our parts. I ended up running into Safeway and bought a small fruit platter for the girls to eat while we ran around to all our classes. And the boys went out for lunch with the hockey team. We spent about $33 in convenience foods on Saturday.

January 28:

 

WEEK 4 MONEY SAVED $103.30

I’ve decided that I am not going to take the money spent at the hockey game and the crazy Sunday out of the money saved for this weeks challenge, instead I want to use it as an eye opener for how much money can really just disappear by eating out and literally down the toilet.

TOTAL MONEY SAVED IN 4 WEEKS: $300.60  

Side Note 1: I didn’t track my husband’s spending during these 4 weeks. He would usually go out for coffee once a week and have lunch out twice in a month. He roughly guestimates that he saved $44 this month.

Side Note 2: We also didn’t have anything special planned this month for us to attend like an awards banquet, friend’s birthday, couples night or a rowdy girls night. Just one of those nights usually means $100 out of our wallet.

Side Note 3: I wish we had an idea of what our groceries cost us per month. I’m going to look into that for the month of January and get an idea so that I can compare it to another month in the future.

Side Note 4: I’m going to right a follow up post next week. For now, I really want chinese food.