I used to be a McDonald’s junkie, and if I created a budget online with CalendarBudget, the expense of eating out would have been very clear. According to the video “Super Size Me“, McDonald’s would have considered me a heavy-consumer, frequenting a McDonald’s restaurant more than 3 times a month. Fortunately for my budget (and health!), I’ve reduced my eating out habit to almost nil.

Learn why you eat out and create a budget online to stop spending

One of the most common budget-breakers is eating out too often. This occurs for a number of reasons.

  • We make ourselves so busy, we can’t (or won’t) find the time to prepare a quality meal.
  • We don’t grocery shop and meal plan very well so we end up with lots of the same thing night after night. Eventually, we get same-meal fatigue and want to eat-out for variety.
  • We are either too tired or lazy to prepare a meal. Even if we have the time, we’d rather watch TV, or do a myriad of other things.

The above graph shows dollars spent on eating out (in Canada) over a number of years. Clearly, the trend has been increasing. Judge for yourself where you stand.

Because I’ve been using CalendarBudget to track my finances since 2002, I can calculate exactly how much I would have saved by not eating at McDonald’s… a whopping $965.82! If I had invested this money, it would be worth almost $2000 today.

How much money would you save if you didn’t eat out so often?  Why not use the best money management software, CalendarBudget, to find out?  Contact us and create a budget online to serve as a single point of consult to determine whether or not you can afford to eat out.