Controlling Your Diet Controls Your Costs
My spouse has been following a meal plan for almost a year now. And through that, it has helped me understand a lot about myself as well and the art of overindulging. I have the direct monetary overindulging generally under control now, but my indirect overindulging could use some work. Especially in the arena of food.
My spouse eats a certain number of calories per day. He doesn’t strictly follow the meal plan any longer, but he keeps track of his overall calorie consumption, and limits himself to a specific amount. So I don’t have to worry about stocking up on items for him - because if I do, his calorie count keeps him from gorging on them and using them up faster just because I stocked up. So when there is a great sale on the cereal he eats or the protein bars he has for snacks, I can buy in bulk (within the expiration date) with no qualms, for I know that the calorie limit he has imposed upon himself will keep him from eating them faster just because they are there.
I wish the same could be said of everything else. I am not as good about controlling myself, and in some ways, neither are the kids. The kids do have a certain number of snacks per day, so that does control how much they eat. But if I buy a lot of a particular thing they really like, if they know about it they’ll request that for every snack. I’ve taken to “hiding” the stocked up snacks in a different closet and taking them out as needed on a weekly rotation.
But if I controlled my calories as well as my spouse does, I would be much more successful at stocking up on stuff I love. I have no problem with stocking up on many of the things we use on a daily or weekly basis and using them only as needed. But then there was a sale on lentil soup. And a week later, I am surprised I haven’t turned into a lentil. I ate that stuff all the time. Which negates the purpose of stocking up. It is not saving money if you consume more of it because its there.
Lentil soup is yummy. Especially if you boil a potato and cut it up into it, and eat it with a chunk of crusty bread. But I digress.
Overeating doesn’t just widen my waistline, it depletes my wallet. If I do better with portion control, it doesn’t matter if we have 2 cans of lentil soup or 20 on hand. If I only eat them when I would be normally consuming a meal, I’m not using anything up faster than I should. Even if I choose lentil soup for every meal - especially if it was cheap. :) If I eat it when I’d be eating something else if I didn’t eat it, that’s okay.
If I eat it when I normally wouldn’t be eating anything just because it is yummy - well that’s costing me money.
So no more eating yummy stuff just because it is there unless I should be eating something then anyway. My waistline will thank me in the end. I think.
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October 29th, 2008 at 6:47 am
This is so true. I have realised that those times my weight increases and my eating was out of control, so was my spending. Control the one, control the other - they seem to be related.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I am the same way! If its in the house I eat it!
Once we move we are going to meal plan and do a weekly grocery instead of a monthly…it will be interesting to see what happens to both my wallet and waist line!
October 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I’ve been thinking about the connection between overeating and overspending lately, and like the way you expressed it here. In our home, I’ve been saving money by making homemade bread, and promptly munching away all of my savings with extra slices of warm, buttered bread. *Sigh.*
October 29th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I’m the same way - my husband got upset last night because there were no chips or other snacks, but I try not to buy them because unlike him, if they’re there, I eat and eat until they’re all gone. I have no willpower when it comes to the food in my cupboard, but do well at the grocery store for some reason. If I don’t buy it, I won’t eat it!
October 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I’m with you MadeMistakes. I KNOW when I buy a box of ice cream sandwiches, cookies - heck, even crackers - that it won’t last more than two days. That’s just the way it is. So I rarely ever buy them. It’s pretty easy for me to resist them at the grocery store because I gave up my car last year to save money and I can only buy as many groceries as I can carry.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I love the timeliness of this post. This is just something I was thinking about a few days ago, but more along the lines of “if I don’t eat the whole thing today, I can have the rest for lunch tomorrow,” making two meals out of one. Also, along the same lines, when I do go out now I take a water bottle with me and use that instead of buying a soda. Every little bit helps.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
My husband and I both try to watch our snacking and our calories. He snacks on popcorn (he makes it from scratch on the stove, then sticks it in a plastic bag). M&Ms are my trigger food…o.k., is that a food group?LOL! My kids, both teens, are not huge eaters, never have been. Maybe that’s why they’re so slender. My oldest will snack on yogurt, cheese crackers, chips if they’re there, or just drink a big glass of milk (I made half 2% and half powdered to stretch it…he never noticed). My youngest will snack on popcorn. So I don’t buy lots of snacks because they just go to waste.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I wish my snack of choice was lentil soup–then I probably wouldn’t need my weight-loss blog! :o) But yeah, I do the same thing. I “save” money by buying something on sale, and then I promptly eat more of it. I like the idea of a meal plan, but I have trouble coming up with stuff. I have 3 days worth of meal ideas. Does anyone have any ideas for more? I don’t like making meatloaf or chili…those were two of my days until I realized that.
I’m with Lynnita on the homemade bread making. It’s cheap, fun, and easy to make it in the bread machine, but it doesn’t last more than two days. Plus, we rarely eat bread otherwise, anyway.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Great post! It does seem easier to eat up the yummy bulk supplies first. I don’t worry too much if I do, but I do have to eat up the other food down the line. I like your idea of keeping items out of sight. It does help!
October 29th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Which is why we say financial “health”! Our physical health and financial health are related in many ways and we have control over both. They also seem to correlate like you say, if you control your diet, you can control your budget and vice versa. Everything in moderation
October 29th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I agree. This year Mr Chiot’s and I decided to not buy premade prepackaged stuff. We are now both eating much less and we find ourselves eating more fruits & veggies. If you don’t have it around you don’t eat, and when you make it yourself, you appreciate it more, enjoy it more and eat less of it.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
@Lainey–re meal ideas: Do you like chicken and rice and veggies like broccoli? When chicken breasts go on sale 2 for 1, or some low price, I buy 15 or 20 pounds at a time. Yaay if I can get them boneless, but if not I use the bones for chicken stock and freeze it. I spend an hour whacking apart the chicken into one-inch cubes and then put two cups of chicken into each of a bunch of quart freezer bags. Then I spice the bags…a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a quarter cup lemon juice, a couple tablespoons of minced garlic (out of a big jar, ’cause I’m lazy). Some I season with barbeque sauce, or with a cup of teryaki blend, or mesquite-lime marinade, Caribbean jerk seasoning, curry spices, Italian seasonings, herbes de fins..things like that. I label each back, close them and lay them flat in the deep freeze. They thaw quickly in the micro on defrost in a corning dish, and then I stir fry them. At the same time, I cook a couple cups of rice in my cast iron dutch oven, add broccoli cuts or peas at the last few minutes and stir in (or nuke it separately), sometimes add a can of drained black beans, or cook my own. If you use the frozen chicken/vegetable stock to cook the rice, it’s even better. A few green onions diced over the top and a sprinkle of low-fat shredded cojack cheese…yummy. Cooks very quickly. And for the truly lazy, the beans, the rice, AND the chicken can all be cooked ahead on a weekend and frozen individually, then slapped together in even quicker time. We eat a LOT of different chicken dishes like that. You could sub red beans or cooked lentils for the black beans, too. If you’re really ambitious, spend time mincing a few onions and freeze them in serving size portions to take out and toss in with the rice. I can make about 10 different meals with those basics. You can serve it as a one-pot meal, or separately so everyone can drop whatever they like on top of the bed of rice. And the rice can be plain white, brown, wild, jasmine, whatever seems to go with the spices you’ve chosen. I also buy cheap pork loins or odd-cut pork chops, hack them into chunks and do the same thing. Once the chicken or pork is stir-fried well, I usually dice the meat into smaller pieces, too…hard to cut it smaller when it’s raw, but cooked like that, it comes out tender enough to fork cut. I don’t buy any box or mix meals; too expensive and I’m allergic to too many chemicals, so I have to do it the old fashioned way. Good luck…sorry this is so long!
October 31st, 2008 at 12:35 am
I sometimes eat compulsively in the evening. This almost never happens during the day when I am working or otherwise busy but when night comes…
If I could be mindful and disciplined, I am sure I would save money and calories.
I exercise like crazy (weights, hiking, running, and bicycling) but fall down a bit with the diet.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Great post! I’m working on cutting down on the calories that I consume…it makes a meal out last longer (I ate out for Friday at lunch and ate the same food for Friday dinner & Saturday lunch).
November 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
My husband and I had this problem (or more, I had this problem with him). Because I did all the shopping I knew how much things cost I would never just start eating on a whim. Also, most things in the house were ingredients for planned meals!
When I saw my husband whack off a 1/4 of a block of cheese and eat it for a snack I knew we had a problem.
Now I involve him in the meal planning process and we go grocery shopping together each Sunday.
He now understands that a block of cheese cost $10 and that 1/4 was $2.50! (I also made him read the label!).
November 17th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Great post! My problem is that my boyfriend is not 100% on board with my debt-reduction goals (I just started a month ago). I went to my favorite wine outlet and splurged on a few bottles of wine to select one to bring for Thanksgiving (out of state where they have crappy wine). He kept opening and drinking - he has a larger capacity and thirst for alcohol than I do. What would have lasted me a week lasted 3 days since he was drinking them too. I don’t begrudge getting the wine (it was a small expense), but I have to be really careful with what I buy and have in the house as this recently illustrated.
I’ve decided to only have a liquer that I put in my coffee and he can buy his cheap scotch that he can go through in 4 days. I’ll occasionally have one too (and I do miss the opportunity to just have a drink when I feel like it). I have decided to budget for just my liquor and maybe a small number of cheap red wine throughout the month, but not the designer vodka and gin that I would have previously bought, to the tune of $45/month extra.