Hit $500 in savings from meal prepping 3 months of dinners on $40 a week

I started tracking it back in June after a buddy said I was wasting cash on takeout and now I'm sitting on a full month of emergency groceries just from sticking to lentils, frozen veggies, and chicken thighs - has anyone else actually counted up what they saved or am I weird for doing the math?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_robert1mo ago

Nah, you're overthinking it, that's just normal budgeting.

skyler_kim151mo ago

Wait, is it really just normal budgeting though? Normal budgeting would mean you're tracking your expenses and adjusting things based on what you actually need. What he described sounds more like he's cutting out things he actually uses just to hit some arbitrary number. That's not budgeting, that's just depriving yourself until you crack and binge spend later. I've seen it happen with clients who try to get too strict too fast, and it always backfires. A real budget leaves room for the stuff you actually enjoy, otherwise you're just setting yourself up to fail.

felix_coleman871mo ago

Yeah, I've definitely been there. The trick is to not slash everything at once but replace one or two expensive habits with something cheaper that you still actually like. If you're eating lentils five nights a week and hating it, you're gonna cave hard on Friday and blow the whole week's savings on pizza.