May was our most stay-at-home month this year. We only ate out in the evening four times, and 21 of 31 lunches were prepared at home from ingredients.
May was also the month we acquired a stove-top smoker for hot smoking food. This adds another layer of flavor to our meals.
The averages for this month:
- Lunch prepared at home $2.43 ($3.21 in April)
- Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $6.89 ($10.84)
- Dinner eaten at home: $5.62 ($6.07)
- Dinner eaten out: $15.64 ($12.23)
Our most expensive meal was at Gordon Biersch when we shared a working meal with another software developer, where it ran to $20.90 per head.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $213.59 per person in May. We actually spent $51.05 for lunches at home plus $68.94 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $119.99.
Had we purchased every dinner out at the same average it would be $484.84 each, compared with $151.87 for meals prepared at home and $62.54 for meals out, or the $214.41 total.
That’s just working on the average. Several of the meals we had would have been well over $30 a serve in a restaurant.