From the makers of last month’s Pantry Stash Challenge, we bring you a brand new challenge for the month of October!

During the month of September, DH and I decided to focus on our grocery buying and cooking habits, something that just happens every day without much thought except for what’s on the shopping list. It was very informative and helped us see places where we could streamline and cut down. One facet of this awareness was making an effort to use up some of the food we’d been stashing away in the pantry and freezer instead of buying a bunch more. While September is now over, this is an ongoing effort that continues with great success. It’s also helped me adjust my shopping habits so the egregious pantry over-flow doesn’t happen again.

Inspired by the usefulness of the September challenge, we decided to keep the idea going into October with our Eating-Out Challenge. I cook for us the vast majority of the time and we rarely go out for lunch; however, there are times each week when it is convenient or just plain fun to go out to eat, be it at the local burger place or a sit-down restaurant. The only previous limitations we set on our external dining was a general feeling that is wasn’t cost- or calorie-effective to eat out more than two times a week unless it couldn’t be helped. Therefore, we decided this was a great time to draw attention to how often we were eating out and how much it cost us.

Since our eating out habits are in general pretty reasonable, we didn’t find that our expenditures were out of control. However, when we considered how much money we would save just cutting that by 30-50%, it was a compelling figure.  So our challenge for the month of October is to set an actual budget for eating out, a dollar amount that reflected the desired savings over our previous months’ averages. Any time we pay to eat out of the home counts toward the total.

So far, the challenge has gone really well. Through 12 days (even including one meal I had the last day of September, which doesn’t technically count), we are probably around 30% of our budget. It hasn’t even been too painful, either, though I do find myself craving certain foods or, more compellingly, just getting out of the house with DH on a date. But since we are still allowed to go out, I don’t feel deprived and miserable (always the key to winning a challenge!).

Obviously, picking cheaper restaurants helps with the goal. We don’t need to go to a fancy sit-down place every time (we rarely do anyway). I’m usually pleased just to get a burger at our local joint (economical yet light years better than a fast food burger!) if I’m feeling like a dinner date. I also get pleasure out of fixing a fancy meal at home instead of having someone else fix it for me, usually with a bunch of ingredients I don’t even care for. Another huge part of meeting the goal is meal planning–knowing what I am going to cook at least three to five days ahead of time. If I already have the idea and have plenty of time to get the ingredients (if they aren’t already in the pantry ;)), then I’m actually excited to come home and make dinner instead of feeling lazy and caving in for an unexpected meal out.

There will be one exception, however…my birthday is this month! We always go celebrate at one of my favorite restaurants, usually Italian, which is notoriously overpriced in my opinion (but you just can’t beat ravioli with creamy cheese and tomato sauce and fresh pesto…yum yum!). We’ve decided to budget birthday and anniversary celebrations separately from ordinary eating out, since it’s just a few times a year.

I’ll try to update at the end of the month to let you know how it turns out. So far so good, and I look forward to being successful at this challenge!