If you just keep saving, saving, saving, which, by the way, you have associated with no fun in your brain, and at the same time trying very hard to let go all the things that you’ve labeled as “fun”… then inevitably at one point your brain will say, “Ah, heck it. This is wayyy too much painful. What’s the point?”

If you’ve heard of the Body for Life program, where the author shares his diet program with the reader, he emphasizes very important thing: set aside 1 day in a week to “let go” and eat what they want. That’ll actually work a lot better than just stopping eating junk cold turkey.

As for leaving the house now, as a stay at home Mom, I leave the house for things like playgroup or to go to the park or to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Certainly not just for grocery shopping. Ick.

At one point when I lived without a budget or tracking our expenses were spending $1k/month eating out. Yeah we had no debt, but heck we sure could have been doing something else. This went on for about 3 months.

So from there I said we’re going to cut it. And we did, slowly. I went down in increments of $100. Actually I cut it to $750 immediately and then $500. Then slowly in $50. Now I can do $200-300/month or less if we really try.

I think that going to $350 and $300 will help develop a routine. Then you can get it lower. Cold turkey could be hard.

InDebtToo: We don’t have an entertainment budget. Actually the eating out budget is labeled “dates”. But we spend it all on eating out for the most part. I know it’s a lot of money. I’m admitting it’s a lot of money. Too much. I know. We don’t spend money every single time we leave the house. We go to the park, the pool, the play area at the mall, friend’s houses, walks, ect. I just really like to eat out. I would rather go to dinner then go to the movies, or mini golf, or bowling. All of which cost way more for a family of 4 then pizza at the local pizza shop.

I understand what your saying about not having enough to do, and that has certainly been the case at other times in my life. But right now I feel like I have tons of stuff to do but it’s all in the house. Cleaning, writing, school work (I’m already taking some classes) I still like to get out of the house, meet a friend for lunch, or just let the kids play some place that has a play area. Our local pizza place has a kids play area, so we head over there and they can play and I can study without kids underfoot, or talk to a friend or whatnot.

And you don’t need to say it’s not your business. I made it everyone’s business by posting it on the internet. You are always welcome to share your thoughts.

Why do you feel that you need to go out all the time? Must you always spend money when you leave the house? It almost sounds to me that you don’t have enough to keep you occupied. Wouldn’t some of that money be better used to pay for a course for you to take, or some other sort of activity that would enrich your life?

I hope I don’t sound too negative because I don’t mean to be. Your money is yours to spend, and really none of my business.