Pandemic isolation continues so there was no eating out, but we did take-out for an evening meal. This was the first restaurant prepared evening meal since March. We chose Gus’ BBQ because we figured BBQ would travel well for the 10 minutes it took to get it home and on the table.
We have narrowed our range of take-out meals to those that travel well enough to not be compromised. We added Mr Fish and Chips in Simi Valley because we can merge it with an Aldi trip. In vented containers the Fish and Chips weren’t significantly compromised.
The averages for this month:
- Lunch prepared at home $2.71 ($2.71 in July)
- Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $8.47 ($8.47)
- Dinner eaten at home: $5.71 ($4.71)
- Dinner prepared in a restaurant $17.70 (NA)
Our lunches at home average in a fairly narrow band and this month’s average is slightly down, but within normal variation.
We ate six lunches and one dinner, of 64 meals in the month, that were prepared outside the home.
Our most expensive meal of the month was the Dry Aged New York Strip with Slow Cooked Broccoli at $14.12. Our evening meal average cost is right in the middle of the expected range.
Although Gus’ BBQ intended it as a meal for one, we shared our single take-out meal for $17.70 per serve with tax and tip.
This month, lunches at home cost 23% of the cost of eating lunches prepared outside the home. Our evening meals prepared in the home are 32% of the cost of Gus’ BBQ.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $295.12 per person in June. We actually spent $55.59 for lunches at home plus $27.11 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $82.70 in total, which is even lower than our usual low total cost.
If every evening meal cost us the same as our one this month, it would be $548.7.0 We actually spent $170.03 for dinners at home and $17.70 for dinners out, or $188.00 in total.
This month’s savings from preparing most of our food at home is now hard to calculate, but we definitely save by cooking for ourselves, and we had a lot more control over what we eat.
Over the month we prepared 23 different recipes for evening meals.