I mentioned somewhere that it's one of our goals or intentions for our time here in our apartment to eat 19/21 meals at home (or prepared at home) a week, translated to eating out only twice a week. I knew it would be crazy hard for us for a number of reasons: we are social people, I occasionally get bored with grocery shopping and/or cooking, I'm obsessed with Groupons and Living Social deals and we're in a new place surrounded by places we haven't tried yet and want to. If I had to grade us for last week, I'd give us a B+. And I should also mention that some of Adam's travel schedule necessitates meals at restaurants but he's reimbursed for those so we're not counting that and he is making an effort to take his lunch even when traveling when the opportunity is there.
We had brunch with our running peeps after the 5K. These may get lumped into the "doesn't count category" going forward. I mean, running makes anything ok, right? No? Shoot. But it was brunch, which is never all that expensive!
On Saturday night, we finally used some AMC passes that I was given two Christmases ago to see Moneyball. We wanted to go to the theater (that's in a mall) early to make sure it didn't sell out since it was opening weekend. Neither of us were hungry before we left so we ended up at PF Chang's during the hour and a half we had to kill before the movie. On the plus side, we passed over the prix fixe menu that would have been way too much food to split two appetizers and an entree. It ended up being perfect. On the not-cost-effective side, we each had a beer (but they were so cheap for an awesome local microbrew!) which I wasn't planning. We did, however, see a free movie (apparently a $22 value these days) and smuggled in our own treats so no money was wasted on the insane concessions. HOLY MOLY movies are expensive even here.
On Sunday night, I had book club so that was my third meal out of the week. Oops. But I kind of feel like it's important to get out and meet people (and maybe actually read the book next month, sorry guys) and it was BYOB so my Trader Joe's Vinho Verde came in very handy, thank you Mr. Movers for making sure it got here safely. I only ate half of my dinner and brought the rest home for Adam to snack on and take for lunch on Monday so getting 3ish meals out of one restaurant entree and salad isn't too bad.
Like I said, it wasn't a perfect effort but it was a B+ in my book. I might have to modify the original goal to 3 meals out a week, which would end up being one social occasion, one fitness related meal out (after running, biking or yogaing with a group) and one date night. Either way, it's still a vast improvement over where we were in Chicago, where we could easily convince each other to go out to eat any given night of the week.
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