Basically, I was looking at my budget and spending few months back. I found out I spent nearly $3000 over 12 months on food delivery like DoorDash, uber eats, etc. Spending few hundred bucks per month and 60 to 100 bucks per week.
I thought ordering takeout was random but when I looked at the dates I ordered, I noticed a pattern. It was heavily concentrated on 2 weekdays, monday and thursday.
Timing was also similar. Lunch time or late afternoon you know. I realized its because those two days I’m drained from work and too tired to make decisions. Too tired to cook and so pressing that order button on the app feels like easy decision and a source of relief after long hard day at work. On other days, I cook food at home but I’m too burnt out on those days.
Seeing $3k spent made it hard to ignore. I decided to delete the apps to create more friction so I could reduce the spending. It was hard because I can still literally call the restaurant or drive to it to eat. But I have been able to bring spending down from peak of $500 last April to under $100 per month from September to December.
Anyone else found this small spending leak in the budget that was based on some patterns or predictable?
I found $60 to $100 leak in my budget every week and its always on monday and thursday
byu/Fantastic-Cap-9325 inFrugal
Posted by Fantastic-Cap-9325
7 Comments
Yeah, my wife just ordered stuff on Amazon as she pleased. It was her money, but I finally got her to send me her statements and I broke her spending down. She was mad at herself lol. She kinda did it with food delivery too, but not too much.
We don’t order through the food apps anymore. If we go out, we’ll either dine in or call in an order to pick up. I do most of the cooking and make extras of foods that are good reheated for days like your Mondays and Thursdays. I know I’m not going to want to cook tonight, so we’ll just have left over fried rice I made the other day. Unless my wife wants to cook, to which she’ll look in the fridge full of food and say “we don’t have anything to eat”.
Freezing leftovers in prepackaged boxes like a lean cuisine will save you.
I drink a diet Dr pepper big gulp for work every single day.so I budgeted in a 7-11 gift card every paycheck to pay for this only. I moved that amount out of other categories to compensate. Now it’s just a line item and not a surprise.
Were you spending $30 to $50 per meal twice a week? Does that sound right?
If you know which weekdays you are ordering food because you are too tired to cook: start cooking an extra meal for those days and remember yourself to eat it instead of ordering something 🙂
I have really rough weeks and on Friday I’m always like “I need to treat myself” and go shopping for snacks for 10-15€, so I started having one treat on hand, so I can have it on Friday/Saturday instead of buying extra much and eating it all
Try something simple instead, like a ham and cheese sandwich. We have gone to much simpler meals when we are tired. We have even done sliced apples with popcorn for dinner when we re overwhelmed.
I deleted Amazon. When I wanted something I’d buy it. Once I saw what they did with my money I closed my account and saved more than $3k. I have not denied myself what I want, there’s just more time in between the idea and the purchase so I make better decisions.
They engineered one click and subscription deliveries to circumvent that. Google “Amazon + shoppable moment”