Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Only losers quote themselves, but I'm going to do it anyway. Late last year I said the following phrase.

"What's good for your stomach, is good for your wallet, and vice versa. "

 You ever notice what the cheapest item on the menu is? It's usually salads. It also tends to be the healthiest. What's healthier and cheaper, eating at a restaurant or eating at home? That's a no brainer.

My New Year's Resolutions all have to do with health and finances. This phrase has almost become our family mantra or ideal at this point. I want to keep my weight down and I want to hit our budgets every month, and the 2 concepts absolutely work hand in hand.

So to start the year, Liz proposed her own 1 month challenge to us. Can we go an entire month without eating out? I'm sure to some people that would be a breeze, and for others that would be torture. For us this is a moderate to difficult challenge.

We really like eating out though. Liz even said just now "10 days, that might be the longest we've ever gone without eating out." Honestly, the hardest part is staying away from ice cream or frozen yogurt places. No matter how strict our vegan diet is, that may be a food Liz will never be able to give up. And I can't say I put up much of a fight. But even in restaurants, with our desire to be mostly vegan, the choices are not always there. So in that sense the month has been pretty easy.

Liz is also getting creative with meals. Tonight we had "seitan", which was freakin' delicious. It tasted really good and had the feel of steak or pork.

The other benefit of this no-restaurants-month is that we have had absolutely no trouble meeting our weekly budget for food money. Food money is easily our toughest section of the budget. We always have to borrow from another section to make up for our over spending on food each month. Some months it even causes us to spend more than we make, which is a serious budget no-no. But when you don't go out to eat, food costs less, and we are certainly seeing the benefit of that in our budget.

I'm hoping this month carries over to months in the future, we don't need to eat out as much as we have in the past.