Eating in vs eating out

Debt Hater and Fabulously Broke recently blogged about the costs of cooking at home versus eating out every meal. Honestly, I think eating out every day would be bliss – but it’s a luxury FB says gets old, fast, and sometimes you just want a simple basic meal instead of heavy, restaurant fare. Something I can totally understand.

We spend around $120 a week on groceries for the two of us. Sometimes it’s more, especially when we get lots of fruit and veg. (This also usually includes bits and bobs like cleaning products and toilet paper). I have to admit, we’re usually out of food by the Saturday and eat breakfast and lunch out. But the $120, by and large, covers most of all our basic meals.

If we were to eat out three times a day, it would cost us $294. That’s cutting it really low, too – I’m talking a pie or roll from the bakery for breakfast, and an average food court/fast food meal for lunch and dinner. It would probably also be enough for sushi, a salad or something similar at that price.

Breakfasts – 14 x $3  ($42)
Lunches – 14 x $9 ($126)
Dinners – 14 x $9 ($126)

Ouch! Dinners alone would be the equivalent of our weekly shop. I’ve thought about this topic a lot, but never actually sat down to crunch the numbers. Looks like it’s definitely worth it for us to cook and eat at home.

(Just as a side thought: why are all the quintessentially NZ foods so greasy and fatty? Fish and chips, pies, sausage rolls…)

Photo / midorisyu

Pantry staples

Believe it or not, it wasn’t until I’d been living away from home a couple of years that I started to stock my kitchen cupboards with things like flour, rice and stock. I pretty much lived off pasta and strirfrys and as for baking? Nuh uh. The one time I ever tried to make a cake, I managed to produce this beautiful tri-coloured marble cake – rock hard on the outside and rubbery on the inside. It was in no way edible, even by the lowest standards. I was SO disappointed; I’d spent over an hour mixing ingredients and painstakingly layering the colours. Sigh.

Now, at least, I can manage super basic cakes/muffins/biscuits. And we now have staples on hand which means if we haven’t planned out a specific meal, chances are we’ll still be able to whip up something for dinner. Not like the good old days…

On any given week, you’ll pretty much find in our cupboards:
-rice
- pasta
- beef and chicken stock
- flour
- sugar
- tomatoes
- corn
- eggs
- onions
- soy sauce
- chili powder
- curry powder
…and potatoes. It may be the poor man’s food, but I can’t get enough of them! Fries, chips, roasted, mashed, boiled, hash browns…I love them in all their varieties.

We’re also working on expanding our spice collection (currently stands at less than 10, due to the fact each jar costs almost $5. We picked a buy-one-get-one-free voucher from one of those instore demonstrators last week though, which was neat).

Am I missing anything? Should I be buying other things that I just never realised I can’t live without?

Photo / foooey

The grocery game

Personally, though I’ve done virtually no travelling – and certainly not on my own dollar – I think food in Auckland is somewhat overpriced.

Let’s do a comparison, shall we? Worldwide readers, feel free to chime in!

(I’m aiming for budget brands/lowest sale prices here; bread, for example, can run up to almost $5 a loaf, and chicken up to over $20 a kilo)

2 litres of milk – $3.20
Cheapest loaf of bread – $1.40
Boneless chicken breast (with skin on) – $9.99 kg, at the lowest
Cucumber – 99c in summer, 2.99 in winter
Kelloggs cornflakes - $2.99 for 500g, on sale
Tomatoes – around $1.99 kg in summer, up to double or more in winter
Potatoes – $1.99 kg, although we sometimes buy in bulk which is slightly cheaper
Cabbage – $1.49
Bananas – $2.50 a kg
Beef mince – $5.99 kg, at the lowest – up to a ridiculous $13.99 sometimes at the supermarket for the premium stuff
Cheese – between $8 and 10 a kg, at the moment?
Muesli bars – varies by brand, between $2.50 and $3.50 at the lowest for a 6pack
2 litres of ice cream – $3.50, at the lowest
1.5kg flour – $2.50
1 kg sugar – $2
Eggs – we usually get a 20 tray for $5
Pasta 500g – $1.10
Pasta sauce – $2.99 for 700g (cheap stuff) or $3.50 for 500g (better stuff, on special)

It’s a Monday, but it feels like Sunday…

because I’m on study leave!

Not that I’m doing much studying.

It’s really, REALLY hard to get motivated. This is my only exam, and should be my last one EVER. Oh sweet, sweet relief.

But….I just don’t care! I’ve handed everything else for all my other papers. This is a core paper that I need to pass to graduate; it’s the most academic of all my papers, and the most stuffy. At this point, as long as I pass, I actually don’t think I’d care.

Well, as long as I didn’t get anything below a B-. I’m Asian. To get a C would be, shall I say, unthinkable.

Had a good weekend, financially. Went shopping at Lim Garden (crazy Chinese supermarket in Mt Albert). We got all our meat and produce there – spent about $25 or something ridiculous on meat in total – and bits and bobs like noodles, sauces, sugar etc. If only they stocked everything a normal supermarket does…it would be perfect. We still had to go to Pak n Save for things like razors, tampons, baking soda and cereal. We spent $51 at Lim, which pretty much covered all our dinners and other important stuff, and then a whopping $60 at PnS! This did include toiletries and a fair few treats, to be honest. If we go back to Lim this week and spend a similar amount, I’ll try to make sure we rein ourselves in at PnS afterwards so we can really get that grocery bill down.

One thing that has always been hard to manage is BF’s lunches. While he was working, I usually made him rolls or sandwiches – sometimes the odd pasta, salad or fried rice – and he had another $40 or $50 for lunches. I know, that’s a lot, but the physical work kind of calls for it, and the kinds of food places around his workplace were expensive. Honestly, it was just one of those things it was easier to pay for. Especially when he was on sites that didn’t even have any kitchen facilities at all. Since he’s been home, he hardly eats lunches, but he has had a couple of one off days worth of work recently and that’s been hard to account for – especially not knowing until the last minute. We’re just taking it as it comes.

We shopped at Countdown this week, and had to get things like batteries, a multiplug board and mop in addition to groceries. But with the help of my Visa Rewards Card (which is accepted there) we got out spending $113 out of pocket. Of course, I got home and realised I forgot to get any fruit, but we have some fruit salad somewhere in the pantry.

Although Countdown is pricier than PnS, it also has some really good specials from time to time. EG:

Cheese – 500g Anchor, 4.99. Saved 4.10 (finally prices are starting to come back down!)
Griffins malt/wine/arrowroot biscuits – 2 for $3.50 (except you always have to buy both to get the discounted price, which can be a pain)
Meadowlea margarine – 2 for $5. Saved 2.50
Watties canned cooking sauces – 2 for $4.60. Saved 1.80
Leaning Tower pizzas – 2.99 ea. Saved 2.70

And CD are usually pretty good about scanning through the correct prices, too.

We squeaked in at just under $120 for groceries this week. Hurrah!

So it’s not going to be a particularly exciting or healthy week. Which is just as well, as it’s going to be a busy and stressful one, and the easier the dinners are to throw together, the better.

Sunday: Rolls with chicken and salad
Monday: Chicken kiev
Tuesday: Pork belly and fried cabbage
Wednesday: Nuggets and chips
Thursday: Shepherd’s pie
Friday: Nuggets and mashed potato
Saturday: Fried rice

Yes, I still love chicken nuggets and so does BF. Don’t judge…

A full belly is a happy belly

I’m sitting here rubbing my tummy with glee (sort of); I love when BF throws together epic meals like the one we just had!

I should have taken a photo…grr. He made surf and turf with steak, prawns, mushrooms and onions (stir fried with a pinch of soy sauce) and a bit of KFC potato and gravy on the side (a weakness we both share…).

Much as I loved the prawns, it was the mushrooms I wolfed down! One of my favourite fall back dishes was born from a desperate weekend brunch consisting of leftovers – toss in onions, mushrooms and canned tomatoes, and even better if potatoes can be incorporated somehow.

We went to Countdown for the first time in a couple of months and made it out at $130. Which was pretty good considering what we bought – lots of meat, a few splurges and even some produce. This week we’re having nachos, chili, chicken giouvetsi, and fried cabbage.

Standouts (in a good way): Cabbage half, 1.85; capsicum, 99c; 24 prawn cutlets, 5.03 (we don’t normally eat THIS well!!);500g brown sugar, 1.25; Nature’s Fresh bread, 2 for $5 (now we’re eating two loaves a week, I usually get name brand as there’s virtually always a 2 for $4 or 2 for $5 deal on); Select chilli beans, 1.59.

Standouts (bad): “Breakfast” mushroom pack, 4.98; Raro, 1.79, Home brand milk 4.75 (thirty cents cheaper at PnS, get with it Progressive!!)

Grocery shopping

Assessing the damage….

$147 for this week, so I was pretty close on guessing $150 at the checkout. I figured anything under that would be okay. considering it included a 5.50 carpet cleaner, $10 razors and $6 shaving cream for BF, I think we did pretty well.

Here’s what we’re having for dinners this week:

Lemon/basil pasta

Chicken fried rice

Peanut satay burgers x2

Lemon and basil pasta

Sausages with peas and corn

Chicken/sour cream tortilla bake

Bolognese

Cheap eats

Sense mentioned she was keen for some new cheap recipes.

Not sure how much I can help with that, but I thought I’d post up some dinner ideas.

• Carbonara
• Lemon basil pasta (sooo tasty! Simple, versatile and good)
• Trusty old bolognese (with or without meat)
• Mexican Rice
• Nachos
• Burrito bake
• Chicken fiesta salad
• Chili (or try a white chili version – it’s on my list of recipes to get to)
• Corn fritters
• Kebab or pita wraps
• Fried rice
• Basic stews with a bit of meat, onions, potatoes, carrots, leeks, kumara, whatever takes your fancy
• Stirfrys (think we are finally giving up on store bought sauces – satays are runny, sweet and sour don’t have the intense flavour, lemon chicken too sweet, Chinese BBQ just…wrong) But we have had luck with curries (Pataks are good but pricey) and Thai curries (spice paste from the ethnic aisle, add a tin of coconut milk, meat, udon noodles and complementary veg – you can’t go wrong!)
• Burgers! Easy to healthy up with loads of veggies. (And chicken nuggets – I may be outta my teens but I love me a good half dozen chicken nuggets. I blame it on hardly ever getting Happy Meals as a child).
• And we keep our eye out for interesting things at the butchers – like recently we found chicken pieces stuffed with cranberry and rosemary. It was delicious after a half hour in the oven.
• If there’s a good sale on, a hearty roast or silverside with roast veg.
• And of course the trusty sausages/steak with mashed potatoes/oven chips/vegetables.

**I am also bursting to try: Spanakorizo and Chickpea Curry from Closet Cooking! **

Sorry it isn’t a very exciting or varied menu, but like I said, at $120 a week “destitute gourmet” is pushing the definition

I find it really difficult to gauge if our grocery spending is reasonable. One of my friends said a while ago her family of four spends about what we do (or a bit more). WHAT?? But they are Indian and her mother stays home, I think, and they cook a lot from scratch.

It’s all well and good for Hillbilly Housewife to go on about baking your own breads and stuff, but I am just too busy and want cheap and filling with less work. If I was a SAHP, I would totally adopt her ideas, though.

We seem to spend more than the few friends we have who don’t still live at home. But we both have fast metabolisms and eat a lot. And we don’t eat out at all anymore, so our shopping accounts for ALL  our food. That, and I hate baked beans with a passion and rarely eat noodles – except for the Yum Yum shrimp flavoured packs, which are 50c compared to about 10c for the really cheap, nasty noodles. Seriously. Yum Yum noodles are the shiz.

Do you eat round a dining table?

It’s been a long time since I lived in a place which had a dining table. Our old apartment literally had no spare room for such a thing, and although we have a huge kitchen now, we don’t have a table in it to eat off. I remember in one of my old flats we squished a dining table and chairs into the area just off by the front door, but I still hardly ever used it.

So generally we eat on the couch, or most of the time, in our room. I don’t like this arrangement, because a) when we eat on the bed, we inevitably splatter something ont the duvet or the sheet. or b) when we eat on the floor by the TV, something always gets on the carpet! The other night, I had had enough when BF got some curry on the carpet – the turmeric seriously digs its heels in and creates an eerie fluorescent glowing stain. So I brought in a huge tea towel to act as a picnic mat for us. Clever, huh? If only I’d thought of that AGES ago…..

It’s a far cry from my parents’ house, where we had a rectangular dining table (it extended out both ends) covered in an easy-clean cover. I hesitate to call it a tablecloth, as it was made of a sort of vinyl type material, waterproof, that just wiped clean every night.

In fact, we do so much differently to how we did things at home. We would never have things like 12 packs of Coke cans. We’d have big, huge 2.25l bottles of fizzy which went flat super fast. We often had ice cream, but only ever ate tiny portions at a time and so a 2l carton lasted forever. We never, EVER had frozen chips, or canned vegetables. But we did often have croissants, raspberry buns or doughnuts for after school snacks, bought from the supermarket. Now the situation is pretty reversed. Tinned tomatoes and corn are cheap, and since discovering freezer chips I’ve never looked back. But bakery goods are way too expensive, and I can’t remember the last time I had a raspbery bun (drool).

And of course, the days of being served up a big plate of rice and then serving ourselves from a couple of different dishes (usually one meat and one veg) throughout the meal are gone. Now we tend to have one dish meals, or if we have dinners with several components, I put together nice little plates with a bit of everything and we can go back for seconds. But I guess that relates back to not having a dining table and being able to spread out dishes.