July was a very normal month with only two evenings not at home.
The averages for this month:
- Lunch prepared at home $2.32 ($2.73 in June)
- Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $10.32 ($10.10)
- Dinner eaten at home: $5.38 ($4.77)
- Dinner eaten out: $14.33 ($10.24).
Our lunches at home average in a fairly narrow band and this month is only a few cents per serve down from last month.
We ate ten meals prepared outside the home (mostly take out for lunch). Our most expensive meal for the month was lunch at The Country Deli.
Our most expensive at home meal was the Souse Vidé and Grilled Pork Chops with Mango Avocado Salad at $13.52 per serve per serve. Even taking that into account our evening meals are toward the low end of “normal” range.
This month, lunches at home cost 23% of the cost of eating food prepared outside the home.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $319.92 per person in May. We actually spent $48.69 for lunches at home plus $82.52 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $131.21 in total.
Had we purchased every evening meal out and prepared none at home, it would have cost us $444.23 per person. We actually spent $150.77 for dinners at home and $28.65 for dinners out, or $179.42 in total.
This month’s savings from preparing most of our food at home is $453.55 and we had a lot more control over what we eat.
Over the month we prepared 21 different recipes for evening meals.