Thursday, January 24, 2013

Let's Talk About Eating Out

Seriously, this is my biggest achilles heel.  Some people splurge on shoes, others handbags, but my deal is I enjoy eating in resturants.  Less common, but still money down the toilet, I really enjoy the occasional Starbucks.

Today I purchased a chicken biscuit and a medium drink on my way to my one year old's well child visit.  It cost me $3.98 and it tasted heavenly.  It tasted heavenly not just becaue it was from Chick Fil A and I swear they must sprinke some sort of addictive controlled substance into their food, but also because I did not have to cook it.  This was the first time I had purchased any food from a resturant in over a month.  If you saw me with a frappuchino in hand, those don't count because my mom gave me the gift of Starbucks for Christmas.

At this point, I am sure many people are wondering what the big deal is about one stinking chicken biscuit for $3.98.

It matters because I am easily able to feed my family of 6 dinner for $4, in fact I do it all of the time.  I am not talking rice and beans either.  I made a turkey pot pie with leftover turkey from our Sunday meal for $4, and that thing could rival any resturant pot pie out there.  It was sinfully delish.

Sure one time is not a big deal, but it is a slippery slope that adds up.  I went through a stage when I was pregnant with #4 and suffering from really bad all day sickness that I was hitting Chick Fil A once a week for over $20 on days that my husband worked late.  I was spending nearly $100 a month on Thursday night dinner, had not even fed my husband, and knew that I could easily buy a whole week's groceries with that $100.

It adds up.  All of the trips through the drive through are flushing hard earned money down the toilet.  I am sure that the $1200 I spent on our weekly Chick Fil A trip that year could have gone to something way more important, like cover our OOP perscription drug cost for the year, towards paying our house off, or retirement.  It coud have gone into the e fund which always gets hit in the winter, or towards college.

Easy to avoid in the lean months, easy to fall off the wagon in the fat ones.

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