The Lunch-eater's Solution

Remember when I wrote about buying lunch? I oh-so-wittily called it the "lunch-eater's dilemma?"

Here at NPB headquarters, we've come up with a pretty good plan to tackle that problem. Now if only the G20 leaders converging on my city can do as much for the financial crisis!

What we did was this: Made a metric ton of food on Sunday. Dishes we made: a bunch of rice, chicken stir-fry, veggie stir-fry, teriyaki sauce and curry sauce. We put them in the refrigerator and each morning before heading to school/work, we made ourselves a lunch with the ingredients. It's worked out pretty well so far, with each of us remembering to bring food for the day. I like having the two sauces to choose from -- Monday wasn't a very curry kind of day, so I brought the teriyaki. Crisis averted.

It takes some time, but saving money and planning ahead always does. Now we just have to think of which sauces we're going to make in the future...

How We Budget: Entertainment

This morning, a couple of our friends texted to ask if we wanted to go out for brunch with them. It was a very enticing prospect - we'd get to spend time with two very fun people, eat good food (well, delicious, if not good for us), and have someone else take care of the preparation and clean-up of the meal.

The problem? We are already overbudget in our "Entertainment" category this month.

We budget $65 per month to our entertainment/going out budget. (In Pittsburgh, this is definitely reasonable. If we lived in New York or DC, we'd be going out maybe once a month.) So far this month, though, we've spent $66.50. And that's not even counting the few times we've ordered pizza for dinner rather than cooking something ourselves. In order for us not to go wildly overbudget in the entertainment category, I've put those expenses in the food category of our budget.

I know that some personal finance bloggers don't have an entertainment category in their budgets. They are concentrating so entirely on their goal, whether it's eliminating debt, saving for a down payment, or whatever, that they don't want to spend money on frivolous things like going out to a bar or to see a movie. That's 100% reasonable.

But I know that we would feel completely deprived and despondent if we didn't give ourselves at least a little license to go out when it's within our budget to do so. So, we plan for it and stick (mostly) to our budget.

However, we had to politely decline our friends' request this morning. C'est la vie, I suppose. Maybe next month.

The Lunch-eater's Dilemma

One area where we can really improve is in packing our own lunches.

Yes, it's difficult, especially for two busy people who are juggling work, school, community group commitments, keeping up a house and garden, etc. But according to this calculator from bankrate.com (God I love the Internet), if we invested the money that we spent on buying lunch during the week, we could have $4511 after four years.

That's equivalent to about 15.5% of my yearly gross pay.

I was reminded of this when I forked over about $7 for my lunch today -- my fast-food, definitely unhealthy lunch. Usually we're good about this kind of stuff. On the weekends, we'll make big dinners and package the leftovers up for lunches. But this weekend we ate at other people's houses both days, making it difficult to do that. I'm going to a friend's house for dinner tonight, too, so I may end up having to buy lunch again tomorrow.

Eventually, we'll have a weekend where we'll make a big batch of soup or stew and freeze it. Until that day comes, though, I'll try to remember to wake up a little earlier in the morning to at least slap some peanut butter and jelly on bread.

Obligatory About Me

Hi, everyone. I'm the Nonprofit Breadwinner, or NPB for short.

I live in Pittsburgh, and my spouse is a Full-Time Student, or FTS for short. We're in our mid-twenties. I don't make a lot of money, since I work at a small nonprofit organization. In fact, they just cut my pay. I make under $30,000 a year. FTS is in a demanding graduate program and, prior to August, worked full-time (not at a nonprofit). However, FTS will still be able to work about ten hours a week for that company, providing much-needed income.

We have two cats, a mortgage, student loan debt (mine), and the will to make this work.

We've lived pretty frugally for the past few years, both because it suits us and because we don't want to spend our money on crap. We garden, can and pickle the produce we grow, rarely eat out, and don't buy things on credit. Still, we've had to make some adjustments to our budget, and hopefully this blog will help keep me honest about what in our plan is working, what isn't, and everything in between.

I hope you enjoy our chronicles.