Investigative Blogging: money and the fine art of Not Frittering It Away on Food*

Dudes, I love food and I also love eating. Also, I like drinking coffee. Since I started working in the city again, buying lunch has been ridiculously expensive. So much choice! Insanely tasty filled baguettes! So much delicious coffee!

When I started dealing properly with my finances, I knew that one thing that was going to have to change was my expenditure on food and alcohol and coffee. I was going to have to take it in hand and learn the Way of the Budget. There are a couple of things that I've done that have definitely helped me out.

1. LeleleleleLEFTOVERS! Are usually delicious. Not always easy to remember to pack one's lunch however. Also, I share a flat and we share food, so I can't always rely on leftovers for lunch the next day. My second plan then is ...

2. Food at work. I usually keep the makings of toasted sandwiches, miso soup and fruit at work. Sometimes I go crazy and get something like a box of muesli bars or a packet of sante bars. The supermarket that is closest to my work specialises in gourmet bits so the toasted sandwiches are often filled with things like garlicky fromage stuff and extremely posh Italian salami, but nonetheless it works out considerably cheaper. And it keeps me away from the shops on Cuba Street which is always a good thing.

3. Prepaid Coffee Card. I am completely addicted to coffee, and espresso is one of my little life treats. When I started budgeting I worked out how much I spent weekly on espresso and while it's horrifying, I knew that I would be more likely to spend more if I didn't allow for it on my weekly expenditure. The cafe that is nicest and closest to my work is Milk Crate, who offer a discount for re-usable cups (I have one) and has a pre-paid coffee card that allows you to get eight coffees for the price of ten.**  This means that I spend $34 dollars for a fortnight's worth of soy flat white from Milk Crate. Technically this saves me about eight dollars from the cost price, but in actual fact it controls my expenditure more - I don't go around buying coffees willy nilly because I know that the allowance has already been allocated.

4. Take your food wherever you go. Over time, I've developed a wee "Everyday Food Kit" for carrying snacks and water around with me. It consists of a banana holder, a bottle of water (largish one) and a snack tube, which is made of three reasonably sized compartments that screw into one another in a stack. The plan is that where ever I go I take food with me, and am then less inclined to buy myself "a little snack" or "a little treat". Having the water is pretty awesome because I don't find myself buying revolting sickly sweet drinks that I don't really want, I am pretty consistently hydrated (get my eight glasses etc) and I'm not drinking out of one of those creepy plastic bottles that leach chemicals into whatever you're drinking. Banana holders sound ridiculous, HOWEVER; as we all know, there is no better snack in this world than a banana, but there is nothing worse to eat than a battered banana. Gross. Banana holder saves me from fear of battered banana consumption.

Not pictured here but definitely worth a mention is my Keep Cup, the praises of which cannot be sung high enough. Not only does it save me money (see above) and help save the planet (imagine how many coffee cups I haven't used since I've had it?) it also controls my coffee spending: when I don't have my cup with me and I don't have time to sit down and have my coffee, I am far less inclined to buy myself one. It removes the issue entirely. And it gives me space to decide whether or not I need to spend that extra four dollars.

5. Not going out for dinner as often as I used to. It's just self control and sometimes, it sucks. On the other hand, going out for dinner is more of a treat these days, and as a result I tend to enjoy it more. I've also stopped eating so much takeout food (ordering pizza), which is better for my health too - I tend to think carefully about what take out food I want if I'm going to get any at all. Also, I've discovered that I get a kind of masochistic pleasure from walking past all the cafes and take out places on the way home, toying with the idea of buying something, drinking in the smells and imagining the delicious spicy flavours, but ultimately cooking something with the ingredients in the house. Dude, it's SICK.

6. Eating at home - a budget and sharing expenses. I'm in the extremely lucky position of living in a flat where we share expenses and food at a set rate, shop pretty thoroughly and don't skimp on ingredients. I don't know if it would be as easy to live like this if I didn't have that luxury - but if you can instigate something like that, I strongly recommend it. In saying that, we visit the vege markets every Sunday and do the majority of the flat food shop there, which works out really cheap. We don't eat a hell of a lot of meat, and a big supermarket shop normally happens only once every fortnight or so. We don't buy pre-prepared foods or sauces or convenience foods, and I am lucky in that all of my flatmates like cooking and challenging themselves. All in all, we eat a really healthy, varied diet and don't spend crap loads of money to do so. Awesome.

While I'm on about money (because it happens so infrequently, lulz) here is my debt unicorn...

And, I'm keen as a bean to hear if you have any more suggestions!

*Pun Intended
**I think that it's also possible to pre-pay coffee at Mojo.