Dining out? Cooking at home?

This past weekend we chose to prepare a nice meal at home instead of dining out. I mentioned that we spent almost a whole week's grocery budget on the foods needed for our tea.  While that sounds like a lot, I believe it was less expensive than many of our other choices.

For that same money (and still do something relatively nice), we could have picked up better take-out, like fast food Chinese (Panda Express), we could have had coffee and a pastry each at one daughter's favorite European cafe, or we could have maybe eaten lunch at a small family-run restaurant. But we could not have gone to a nice tearoom for that same dollar amount.

Since I was paying for this celebration meal out of the grocery budget, it made the most sense to buy a few convenience items for putting together a full tea without overworking myself. As it works out, we won't be spending extra on groceries this month, as I paid for all of the food and beverages using the week's budget. We haven't really needed to grocery shop so far this week. Which means that if we can go until Friday or Saturday, I'll have a new week's grocery budget to shop with.

So our tea (or budget-friendly alternative like named above) cost roughly the same as a week's groceries. Do you ever compare the cost of eating out to your regular grocery budget? I think about that when considering doing a nice meal out. For the same amount to eat out, I can buy a lot of nice food for our family.

Our wedding anniversary was last Saturday. It happened to be my daughter's night to cook. She made BBQ beef using leftover pot roast, and added some easy sides. So that's what we had for our anniversary dinner. We watched the second half of a movie that we'd started the night before while eating this "celebratory" meal. Alternatively, we could have eaten brunch out at one of my favorite nice restaurants (which we haven't dined in since early 2018). I admit, this would have been a lovely way to celebrate our anniversary. However, it would have cost the same as two weeks of our grocery budget. When I think of it that way (comparing the cost of dining out to our grocery budget), it doesn't seem worth it to me. Last year on our anniversary, 4 of us went to Starbucks using gift cards. That was a nice and small way to celebrate.

There are times when I am willing to dine out. For example, when each of my kids graduated from university, when we had a milestone birthday in the family, when we've had gift cards that I wanted to use soon, when we wanted to honor someone outside of our family, or while on vacation.

I guess I feel that I've been gifted with the ability and inclination to cook, so I might as well lean in to that and prepare meals at home most of the time.  I was not gifted with the ability or inclination to do many home improvement jobs, so I am happy to pay someone else to do those. I understand that many people don't have the desire or ability to cook at home almost exclusively. Dining out for them, when affordable, may be a very good use of their disposable income.

Back to my daughters' birthday celebration at home. The work really wasn't that burdensome. I spent about 4 hours actually preparing the foods and about 1 hour pulling it all together with dishes and serving pieces. I think my daughters are worth spending 4 to 5 hours doing something nice to honor them. And like I said, we had a nicer experience than anything else we could have done for the same amount of money.

For what occasions do you like to dine out? Do you ever think about how much food and supplies you could buy for the same amount of money as a restaurant meal would cost? Or is dining out a priority as one of your splurges?

Sometimes you just have to look

On a reddit thread about best Goodwill stores in my area, this is what one redditor had to say about the Goodwill my husband, daughters and I went to on their birthday last week:

"I've always found the Shoreline Goodwill to be the most enjoyable one in the immediate area... less picked over, more treasures, big building, less crowded.... chill vibe. But of course now all the Goodwills skim the best things off the top and sell them online sooo..."

Yes, I believe it's true that thrift stores are either themselves selling off the best stuff online (like quality books) or resellers are storming the stores and cleaning out the best stuff to sell themselves online or in vintage stores. However, some of the good things slip through the cracks are are available for the rest of us to consider. 

A couple of years ago I caught this platter just moments after it was put on a shelf. It's my pattern so I know the expected prices for pieces in it. I knew this platter would sell for about $25 to $40 online. The thrift store had it priced at $3.99. Even though I hadn't come in looking for serving pieces in my dish pattern, I grabbed the platter, carried it around the store while I looked for other things, and thought about whether or not I would really use it. In the end I decided I would use it and bought it.

Last week when we all went to Goodwill together, I really wasn't planning on buying anything. I was just going to look. I always check dishes and glassware, because as I found out at Value Village with that platter, you never know when you'll find something. 

A year ago I saw some small tumblers in the vintage district that I really liked. But in a vintage store they were priced at $10 each. I wasn't about to spend that much on small tumblers. I did like them and made a mental note to check thrift stores.

So at Goodwill, I checked all of the glassware. Lo and behold, there were 8 individual small tumblers very much like the ones I saw in the vintage shop last year, only Goodwill was asking 99 cents each. Again, I wasn't sure I really wanted them, but I picked them up anyway and carried them around inside the store for a bit while I thought on it.

My husband and I really wanted a rowing machine to vary our workouts at home. We knew we wanted a collapsing, budget-friendly hydraulic one. We had been looking at machines online for the past year. We considered models that were priced around $100 to $150. Ultimately, we decided to wait until garage sale season. $100 sounds like a lot of money to spend on exercise equipment for our purposes. If we waited and checked the local garage sales, we thought we could find one at a good price.

The particular Goodwill we visited is a very large store and has a large exercise and sports equipment department. One daughter asked me to check out the sports stuff with her. She pointed to the rowing machine and asked what it was. We brought it out to the open floor area and set it up to try. After we both tried it, my husband came over, and we convinced him to try it. He liked it too. So we decided to buy it, spending $29. It's in good condition, has minimal wear, and works well for our needs. Both my husband and I have used it several times since last week. I can get a better workout in a shorter time using this than I can walking. Now I can alternate how I exercise and develop different muscle groups.

When I shop full-price retail, I always have an idea of what I want, like a new pair of jeans or shoes. But when I shop second hand, I often have no idea what I want, but I just want to check to see what they have. While thrift stores no longer are a treasure trove of goodies waiting to be snapped up (at least not in my area), sometimes you just have to look. You never know when something desirable will have managed to slip through the reseller crack and is waiting for just the right buyer.