How I Cut Down on Eating Out

Hello, everyone! The first week of October has already passed. Isn't that crazy? I feel like I somehow fastforwarded to October from the beginning of January. It feels surreal to me that 2018 will be over in only 3 months. 3 MONTHS.

I want to manage my time better and improve my productivity on the things I desire to accomplish this year. One of them, as you guys all know, is my financial independence.

As you can see from my last month's expense history, I spent a lot of money on food for eating out so this week, I tried my best not to spend any money on eating out. I was successful! Except for one purchase of a Chik-fil-a spicy chicken burger (yum!).

How did I do it? Here are my tips.

1. Plan out what I'm going to eat for the next day. I know I sound like a broken record (meal prep, meal prep, meal prep). However, it does work. I made my own adjustment to this golden rule because I am the type of person who likes to eat what I want and have no idea what I would like to eat on the coming Thursday if it's Monday. Because of that, I made a rule where I plan out one day ahead. I can go grocery shopping more often than before so I will grab things I would like to eat.

2. Make cooking times as short as possible or as easy as possible. I find that I am willing to cook more when it's simple and easy. Now remember, I am just starting to "adult", so my cooking skills aren't honed to the point where I can minimize my cooking times to the max. Unlike pro adults out there, I take a long time to cook a lot of my favorite dishes. So I tend to stick to things I know how to cook quickly.

3. If all else fails, I go to prepped meals at grocery stores. Trader Joe's has a great selection of prepped meals at the cost of $5. Yes, it is usually more expensive than you buying food and cooking but it's a lot cheaper than eating out. Even McDonald's set menus cost around $9 these days. So it will be a win to get prepped meals (which are so much more delicious than McDonald's although I love their fries).

This past week was such a proud accomplishment of mine since I have been struggling so hard to cut down on eating out. I am planning to keep up with this for all of October and then improve on my cooking in November. Cheers!

My Budget Planning

Hello, everyone! Here is my budget plan for this semester. I usually like to plan my finances according to my academic year since my loan money is the only source of income for now. 

Here is my September expenses. 

Yikes! I had many birthdays and I had to activate a few services for my new apartment so this month's expenses were a lot more than usual. 

So here is my plan for the rest of the year: 

I will cut down on coffee by making coffee at home. My boyfriend and I are doing better at not eating out anymore. Also, there won't be many birthdays that I have to attend. 

My income plan will come together as planned. I must work hard from now on to make it work! I will be planning my income sources as I finish writing this. It will be challenging but fun. 

Anyways, it is frustrating to be a student and not work at all. However, this will be a great time for me to improve my budgeting and avoid lifestyle inflation once I graduate in the future. Cheers to everyone who is struggling like me but aspiring to be a personal finance expert.