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> learning to cook and prepare your own food. > learn to budget money and manage expenses. if you've never done this before, i very, very strongly suggest you

> learning to cook and prepare your own food. > learn to budget money and manage expenses. if you've never done this before, i very, very strongly suggest you look at how much eating out is costing you. my wife and i are saving literally thousands of dollars a month.

born_on_sega 6y ago
How do you managed budget and food?
- joshstrange 6y ago
  Not who you are replying to but I recently (2.5 months ago) started using YNAB again and have fallen in love with it. The last time I tried it was when it was desktop software but their newer web-based version with transaction import/sync is a game changer for me. As for food I can't really help there. I ended up writing my own app to manage/track expiration dates for what I have but that's barely the tip of the ice-burg. I hope to integrate with my recipe app (Paprika) to work on meal-planning and picking recipes I like while trying to use up the stuff that will go bad first.
  - abnercoimbre 6y ago
    Used YNAB a lot to develop discipline, then switched to Lunch Money [0]. It's being worked on by a solopreneur; she's awesome. The app is, I think, a natural evolution for the YNABer who got the discipline and now doesn't need to track every single dollar all the time. [0] https://lunchmoney.app https://lunchmoney.app
    - jnfr 6y ago
      Thank you for the shoutout, and that's wonderful to hear! :D
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  this is a very un-HN answer, and i wish i had something sexier for you, but: Excel. we look at statements from our various accounts, enter into a data tab, then group expenses into categories: house (elec, water, cable, etc), food, vehicles (gas, tolls, oil, loan, etc) fun (spotify, netflix, etc). as the saying goes, you cant manage what you dont measure.
- jasonv 6y ago
  Mint from Intuit. The free level works quite well for me.
oldsklgdfth 6y ago
Looking at my monthly eat-out cost is a real wake up for me. If I don’t have prepared food or a snack it’s very easy to be tempted to grab something quick and overeat.
- kevstev 6y ago
  Quarantining made me realize just how much I spend on food and alcohol. And while don't get me wrong, I love a good meal and a night out with friends, we will definitely be reeling that in a bit even after all restrictions are lifted. And a night in cooking a great meal and opening up a nice bottle of wine (that is much cheaper than anything we could buy at a restaurant) can be very satisfying too. One thing that is a bit hard to get around is that we live in a city, and some friends are single, and that going "out" to a public place like a bar or restaurant gives them the feeling that they haven't "given up" on meeting someone for the night, but going to someone's house means its orders of magnitude less likely that someone will just pop up. Even amongst married friends, the spontaneity of having someone just happen to be at the same place you are is a big thrill that just isn't going to happen if they are sitting in my living room. I live in a neighborhood where there is a main drag where most bars/restaurants are, so this happens fairly often. But taking a step back, my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come.
  - weaksauce 6y ago
    > my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come. this is somewhat inherent in the system. they message you that you need to be out and about to be happy. it's the capitalistic way. Also a bit of why a lot of jobs work you so hard so you are too tired to form any thoughts on the system at large. I think a more sustainable economy is what america (and the world) needs. the growth at all costs has been very, very bad for our world. for instance, one unintended consequence of mass manufacturing of food is that to get reliable, consistent bread they stripped everything that made it good (including time spent fermenting) and then added in a few choice macro nutrients and now, I suspect, those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale. if people went down to their local baker and bought naturally leavened breads with more wholesome flours instead of wonder bread et al we might as a country be less sick. there are other examples of long term costs associated with short term thinking. (rise in allergies and planting male only trees because of a 1940s department of agriculture recommendation come to mind but there are others) not to say it's all been bad but there have been many bad outcomes.
thecleaner 6y ago
My experience is the same. Also when two people cook it is far easier and quicker. Learning to cook also gives you freedom. You can vary the taste for the same dish. One thing to note - its safer to cook veggies than meat if you are still learning. But one tends to get better in this art.

born_on_sega 6y ago

How do you managed budget and food?

joshstrange 6y ago
Not who you are replying to but I recently (2.5 months ago) started using YNAB again and have fallen in love with it. The last time I tried it was when it was desktop software but their newer web-based version with transaction import/sync is a game changer for me. As for food I can't really help there. I ended up writing my own app to manage/track expiration dates for what I have but that's barely the tip of the ice-burg. I hope to integrate with my recipe app (Paprika) to work on meal-planning and picking recipes I like while trying to use up the stuff that will go bad first.
- abnercoimbre 6y ago
  Used YNAB a lot to develop discipline, then switched to Lunch Money [0]. It's being worked on by a solopreneur; she's awesome. The app is, I think, a natural evolution for the YNABer who got the discipline and now doesn't need to track every single dollar all the time. [0] https://lunchmoney.app https://lunchmoney.app
  - jnfr 6y ago
    Thank you for the shoutout, and that's wonderful to hear! :D
kryogen1c 6y ago
this is a very un-HN answer, and i wish i had something sexier for you, but: Excel. we look at statements from our various accounts, enter into a data tab, then group expenses into categories: house (elec, water, cable, etc), food, vehicles (gas, tolls, oil, loan, etc) fun (spotify, netflix, etc). as the saying goes, you cant manage what you dont measure.
jasonv 6y ago
Mint from Intuit. The free level works quite well for me.

oldsklgdfth 6y ago

Looking at my monthly eat-out cost is a real wake up for me. If I don’t have prepared food or a snack it’s very easy to be tempted to grab something quick and overeat.

kevstev 6y ago
Quarantining made me realize just how much I spend on food and alcohol. And while don't get me wrong, I love a good meal and a night out with friends, we will definitely be reeling that in a bit even after all restrictions are lifted. And a night in cooking a great meal and opening up a nice bottle of wine (that is much cheaper than anything we could buy at a restaurant) can be very satisfying too. One thing that is a bit hard to get around is that we live in a city, and some friends are single, and that going "out" to a public place like a bar or restaurant gives them the feeling that they haven't "given up" on meeting someone for the night, but going to someone's house means its orders of magnitude less likely that someone will just pop up. Even amongst married friends, the spontaneity of having someone just happen to be at the same place you are is a big thrill that just isn't going to happen if they are sitting in my living room. I live in a neighborhood where there is a main drag where most bars/restaurants are, so this happens fairly often. But taking a step back, my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come.
- weaksauce 6y ago
  > my discretionary spending has dropped by 95% and my bank account has swelled at a rate that I could have never imagined without much drop in my overall happiness at all and this is likely to lead to changes in spending patterns for years to come. this is somewhat inherent in the system. they message you that you need to be out and about to be happy. it's the capitalistic way. Also a bit of why a lot of jobs work you so hard so you are too tired to form any thoughts on the system at large. I think a more sustainable economy is what america (and the world) needs. the growth at all costs has been very, very bad for our world. for instance, one unintended consequence of mass manufacturing of food is that to get reliable, consistent bread they stripped everything that made it good (including time spent fermenting) and then added in a few choice macro nutrients and now, I suspect, those types of products are causing problems health wise on a macro scale. if people went down to their local baker and bought naturally leavened breads with more wholesome flours instead of wonder bread et al we might as a country be less sick. there are other examples of long term costs associated with short term thinking. (rise in allergies and planting male only trees because of a 1940s department of agriculture recommendation come to mind but there are others) not to say it's all been bad but there have been many bad outcomes.

thecleaner 6y ago

My experience is the same. Also when two people cook it is far easier and quicker. Learning to cook also gives you freedom. You can vary the taste for the same dish. One thing to note - its safer to cook veggies than meat if you are still learning. But one tends to get better in this art.