How much money are you saving?
 

I went back through some of our bank statements, just for fun to see how much money we were spending on fast food. About $110 a month!! Now I don't buy fast food, and my husband almost always packs his lunch. Maybe we should take that money and do something fun with it each month.

How much money did you used to spend on fast food?

Oh gosh, we used to spend a ton of money on junky food. More than 100 a month I'm sure. Probably more than that amount every week. We didn't really eat fast food - but restaurant food and candy junk OFTEN.

No longer eating it honestly doesn't really save us any money in the long run though. Between the gym membership, fitness equipment, personal training, doctor and chiropractor's appts (I messed up my back weightlifting), regular batches of new clothes and shoes and way better quality fresh food and supplements I'd say losing weight has been an expensive endeavor for me. Probably balances out. Well worth it too! Best money I've ever spent.

I never spent money on fast food but I remember when my husband and I first started dating, we were going out to eat at Indian restaurants and other restaurants. Indian restaurants are expensive or at least where we were going was expensive. It was around $50 per meal and minimal leftovers.

I'd agree we've spent plenty of money on things like home gym equipment and such. It is money well spent though :)

I honestly don't think we've saved any money ;) Eating healthy & mostly "clean" is a bit more expensive than eating all the processed junk. It's more worth it and my whole family seem to be feeling a lot better because of it!

I think I posted about this a few days ago in another thread. I am saving A TON of money! I used to hit the McDonald's drive-thru every weekday morning for breakfast and spent about $5.00 every time. That's $25 a week right there. I stopped eating in the school cafeteria (the food is delicious, but drowning in butter/fat/gravy and loaded with carbs) and am saving $15 a week. Right there, I'm saving almost $160 a month. I haven't found "eating clean" to be all that expensive, either. Fresh food is a bit more expensive, but when you're controlling your portions, it's not so bad. Besides, it's more flavorful and I honestly believe my body is able to process it more efficiently, thus, I'm not hungry all the time.

Since I decided I'd never spend a dime to lose weight again, AND have my own garden and can food from it, we have saved an enormous amount of money since I quit eating junk, smoking and drinking. I roughly figured my bad habits ran around $50 a week. SO, I have been saving $50 a week and every time I get enough to open a CD, I do. I have one of the first ones I opened (12 mo) just about coming due, so now I'll add whats in my sock drawer to that one when I renew it. I plan on using my bucks for something really awesome. I'm thinking a breast lift or tummy tuck...but it'll probably go for soybean seed or fertilizer... :(

I will agree with RomanceDiva! I say eating unhealthy is alot cheaper than eating healthy but eating healthy saves money in the long run with medicines. I am an example of that since I lost some weight , I don't have to take meds that my doc was getting ready to line up for me. So I am really happy about that!

I would say overall we are about even on where we were before. Because the extra produce is expensive, and we try to mostly get organic. I can't wait until we get the garden started again. Before we weren't eating out all the time, and mainly I was eating a lot of cheaper food (popcorn, bread). I think one of the times in my life when I gained weight fastest was when we were really poor and we were eating almost no fresh produce, mostly just processed food like packaged noodle meals and junk.

We were already paying for the Y so my son could go to swim lessons and gymnastic stuff, so I don't really count that as an increase, although now if I don't use the family room I pay for the childcare there while I work out.

I will say that at one time we were eating out almost every night plus lunch out several times a week and we were spending well over $600 a month on food out which would be a lot more now because this was 6 years ago...BLECH!

Jen

Hmmm. I find eating clean and portion control to be far cheaper than junk.

We used to spend over 100$ a month at this ONE restaurant ALONE (and the food was half off when we go so we went A LOT at 8$ for the both of us!), let's not forget the othe 1-150 spent elsewhere on days off and the extra 200$ we'd spend a month on junk food at the grocery store!

Now we hardly EVER eat out and our monthly grocery bill is down to 220 a month from 280-400!

I'm going to second that. I think we spend about the same amount as we always did!

The first time I lost weight, I didn't save any money because I bought a lot of meat and fresh vegetables. This time, however, I'm eating a lot less meat and a lot of frozen or canned vegetables, instead of strictly fresh. I am saving money that way. Different circumstances, too ... being laid off, my healthy diet has to be an inexpensive one.

I do notice, though, that I don't have nearly as many random fast-food napkins, ketchup packets, and fast-food garbage as I used to!

mmm i think its the same for me but smaller clothes are cheaper here and easier to find also the health gain is priceless

Oh, for me it's ridiculous how much of my own money I am saving by eating healthier... I am 19 and a student, so my parents pay for my meal plan at school, which is pretty much where I get all of my meals. BUT, we also have a student convenience store (where I spent my own money) that stocks up every kind of delicious snack food in the whole world, and I confess, last year I pretty much lived there, LOL! I would buy a sugary fruit "juice" drink (read: 5% juice and 95% sugar) almost every day, usually one full bag of tortilla chips/Sun Chips per week, huuuge bags of candy (it was sold in bulk), frozen meals, etc. I would also order delivery from my favorite pizza place at least once every 1-2 weeks, an order consisting of a small deep dish Chicago-style pizza (like 600 calories per slice!!) and a 6-pack of Sprite, all of which I would eat by myself (usually in 2 sittings). It really kind of disgusts me to think about it now... :(

I never even realized how much money I was spending on all that crap until I started eating healthier this year and pretty much stopped buying anything from that store except for the odd protein bar here and there (Luna Bars<3), and I don't even remember the last time I had pizza, let alone ordered it for delivery. As you can imagine, it's been quite a change from my old habit of buying at least 1-2 things per day and getting pizza all the frickin' time! My checking account empties so much more slowly now... And I could definitely get used to that. :D

I draw £300 ($425.575, wow, that's slipped again!) every month for housekeeping. There's only me but that figure has to include everything, cleaning stuff, food for the 5 dogs and, maybe 1 lunch out a month.

I don't eat by myself in fast-food places, and drive thru's are not big over here but there have been many days when I've rounded off a hard day's eating with a large Chinese takeaway.....

when I moved house recently, I got rid of my bigggg freezer and now have a much smaller one in a fridge/freezer combi, so I'm not tempted/able to stock up on cheap junk food from the freezer shops.

All this, combined with a desire to lose weight, to keep my fat intake way down on what my tastebuds want (!) means that of the 300, I regularly put £100 - £150 of it into a savings account for my holiday later this year. Somehow, feeling that this is 'my' money, that I could use to treat myself, makes me far more economical in how I spend it.

I suppose if I bought good meat as often as I'd been tempted to buy junk, processed stuff, then that might put the cost up but fresh fruit and veg. isn't working out that expensive.

Oh, I believe I'm spending way more money then I used to. Way more.

Fresh fish, chicken and turkey breast, tons of veggies and fruits instead of rice, breakfast cereals, flour-y stuff, waaay more money. And we just go through so MUCH of it. I shop at least 5X a week. My food bills are enormous.

Yeah, I'm definitely spending more money. But I look at it as money very well spent. Better then medical bills, that's for sure.

Oh and although "regular" sized clothing is less expensive then the plus sized stuff, I'm buying SO much more of it. Oh and shoes. Yikes. So lord knows that's adding up. I do need to cut back on that. But it's hard, I've got a lot of years to make up for. ;)