Lesson to Chew On
By Mary Ann Albright and Matt Wastradowski, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
Oct. 14–Common sense holds that preparing meals at home has the potential to be less expensive and more nutritious than dining out. But how much of a difference does it really make? And what are the trade-offs?
As two 20-something Columbian reporters trying to make the most of our food budgets, we decided to keep food journals for a week, tracking what we consumed and how much we spent.
After the week ended and the journals were compared, we discovered there were pitfalls with both eating out and eating in. We found out that it’s easy to overestimate how much money can be saved by eating at home. And regularly consuming some items, such as diet soda, can easily consume a disproportionate share of a weekly grocery budget. In turn, a daily stop at a coffee shop can undermine even a thrifty restaurant diner.
To make our exercise complete we turned to a local nutrition expert and a local finance guru to analyze our eating habits and give us feedback on making smarter choices. On the nutrition side, Jendy Newman, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator with Southwest Washington Medical Center, offered suggestions for healthful eating habits at home and in restaurants.
Dick Thompson, a certified public account with Vancouver-based Thompson & Associates, counseled us on ways to keep food from eating up our budgets. Here’s what we learned:
MARY ANN’S WEEK
When I looked at what I consumed and spent over the course of seven days, by far the biggest shock was that I drank $18.25 worth of diet soda. Newman suggests that soda addicts such as myself try switching to Propel Fitness Water, a fruit-flavored, low-calorie drink you can buy by the bottle or mix yourself with powder packets and tap water. In theory, it’s a good idea. Propel contains just five calories per serving and is rich in vitamins and antioxidants, which I don’t get from drinking Diet Coke. However, it doesn’t have the carbonation I love, and there are cost barriers. A bottle of Propel costs about 75 cents, compared to 40 cents for a can of diet soda. I could mix my own Propel for about 38 cents per serving, but I’m not willing to add that to my already busy routine of preparing lunches, snacks and dinners.
At least for now, I think I will embrace Diet Coke as my vice. Thompson said it’s fine to have your treats — that’s what discretionary funds are for. You do have to balance these splurges by skimping in other areas, though. For me, that meant downgrading from full-sized to “schoolboy” Granny Smith apples.
Buying smaller, less expensive apples was just one of the new weapons I added to my arsenal of money-saving tricks after tracking my spending. I learned I was also doing pretty well in some areas. I brewed my morning tea at home and avoided prewashed bags of lettuce, both of which saved me money. Still, given these small sacrifices and the time and energy I spent shopping and cooking for myself, I was surprised that my colleague Matt only spent about $40 more than I, considering how much more he ate out. Yet that $40 I saved adds up to $160 a month, or $1,920 a year. After I did some quick computations, I started to feel a bit more savvy.
I could have spent less than $100 for the week had I not fallen prey to a trap I suspect confronts many people who prepare most of their meals at home. Because I was so good about cooking for myself, I felt I deserved a treat by the end of the week when I ate out with friends. At Le Bistro Montage in Portland, I had a Caesar salad with chicken and two cocktails. Thompson pointed out that, combined with another, more modest dinner and two lunches out, these four meals added up to about $50 — roughly 45 percent of my overall food expenditures.
That Montage salad was good, but it didn’t taste any better than the signature salad I make with chicken, bell peppers, bacon bits, dried cranberries, Gorgonzola crumbles and light balsamic vinaigrette dressing. And it cost four times as much.
Saving money is good, but another aspect of dining at home I really enjoy is the control over the quality of ingredients I use. When I make a burrito, I use 93-percent lean ground beef and low-fat sour cream. I doubt that’s what goes into burritos at most restaurants and taco stands. I use light salad dressing, applied sparingly. When I make Mediterranean food, I use whole-wheat pitas and bake my falafel balls, rather than deep-fry them. There is a social aspect to eating, though, and occasional meals out give me a break from the kitchen and a chance to relax with friends.
There are ways to still enjoy socializing while saving money, though. Rather than going out to eat, I can invite friends over for a potluck. If I’m sick of eating at home, I can go out to lunch. Having breakfast or lunch at a restaurant is usually less expensive than dinner, Thompson advised. Even better, I could eat my main meal at home, then meet friends for tea or dessert.
More about Mary Ann
Age: 26.
Height: 5 feet 5 inches.
Daily caloric needs: about 2,000 ( nutritiondata.com ).
Marital status: Single.
Money spent for a week’s worth of food: $117.42.
Biggest money-waster: Diet soda has no nutritional value, yet I spent $18.25 on it in a week.
Biggest money-saver: Schoolboy apples cost 98 cents per pound, as opposed to $1.60 for full-sized Granny Smith apples.
Guilty pleasure: Ben & Jerry’s Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream.
Regular routine: Green tea, low-fat yogurt and whole-wheat toast with peanut butter and honey for breakfast, a turkey sandwich with apples and carrot sticks for lunch.
Favorite foods: Whole-wheat penne, chicken, falafel, hummus, salads, fajitas, burritos
Matt Wastradowski
I knew I spent a lot on food, but $157.06 in a single week? I never gave much thought to my food budget before, so the amount shocked me at first glance. But after I reviewed my journal, the costs made sense: I ate out 13 times throughout the week.
Lunch ran nearly $7 per day, with dinner totaling about $10 each day. But Thompson considered the frequency with which I ate out to be fairly typical of adults today. Thompson says that most people who don’t plan their budgets or track costs are surprised to learn exactly how much they spend on food. When they start planning what they’re going to eat and tracking costs, it makes them better shoppers.
While I might plan the outings more carefully now, eating out is woven into the fabric of my social life. More often than not, dinner becomes a rare opportunity to catch up with important people in my life. It’s not great for the waistline or wallet, but it’s not something I’m willing to give up. Fortunately, Newman says people who eat out can trim calories and save money.
Newman encourages diners to order an appetizer in lieu of a meal or split a meal with a friend. Coupled with a salad, both options typically save money and create more healthful meals.
Lunch and dinner costs weren’t the only surprises in my journal.
I was bewildered by the cumulative cost of my daily stops at Starbucks, where I buy an iced tea to help me wake up every morning. A single 24-ounce iced tea at Starbucks is $2.33. That didn’t seem so bad. Then, I did the math.
A box of 100 tea bags runs about $4 at the grocery store. That’s good for about 49 24-ounce glasses of iced tea. Buying the same number of iced teas at Starbucks would cost $114.17. As the lines at Starbucks can verify, I’m not the only one needing a caffeine fix before work. An unsweetened iced tea is my vice, but many Starbucks fans order mixed coffee drinks with calorie-filled sweeteners, whipped cream or milk. Newman suggests that people take more control over the calories they consume by ordering plain tea or coffee, then adding a minimal amount of sweetener or sugar.
Size also matters. Ordering a 12-ounce drink instead of a 20- to 24-ounce drink cuts the serving size nearly in half, which in turn reduces the number of calories by at least 25 percent. The calories don’t always increase or decrease in proportion to the drink size.
The convenience factor keeps me going back to Starbucks for more, but I may start brewing my own tea to save money and avoid the temptation to pick up a scone or cookie from the coffee shop’s tantalizing bakery case.
I can also stretch my budget further by not drinking iced tea with meals eaten out. On average, iced tea accounted for at least 10 percent of my total bill at restaurants. A glass of water will quench my thirst just as well — and it doesn’t cost a penny or contain a single calorie.
More about Matt:
Age: 25.
Height: 6 feet 3 inches.
Daily caloric needs: about 3,500 ( nutritiondata.com ).
Marital status: Single.
Money spent for a week’s worth of food: $157.06.
Biggest money-waster: Iced tea with restaurant meals, which increase the cost of the meal by as much as 10 percent.
Biggest money-saver: A $5.99 Domino’s pepperoni pizza that lasts for three meals.
Guilty pleasure: Pre-meal chips and salsa at Chevy’s Fresh Mex.
Regular routine: Two Clif Bar energy bars for breakfast, sandwich and chips for lunch.
Favorite foods: Spaghetti, Mexican food, pizza.
Did you know?
In 2005, the average household spent $5,931 on food, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Labor. Of that nearly $6,000, $3,297 went toward food prepared at home, and $1,158 was spent on meals out. Food accounted for 12.8 percent of overall expenses, trailing only housing and transportation.
Note: In this study, the average household, or “consumer unit,” had 2.5 people.
Matt Wastradowski can be reached at matt.wastradowski@columbian.com. Mary Ann Albright can be reached at maryann.albright@columbian.com.
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