Thanks for the feedback so far! Keep it coming!
A few responses:
We came to the conclusion a while ago that alcohol and non-nutritious "snack food" should be coming out of either our entertainment fund or our personal spending "fun money"
We mostly don't use budgets. We're more in MMM's mold of making decisions on the level of an individual purchase. So the solution would be either to set a budget for alcohol and such specifically or (more likely for us) just decide to drink less. I do have a non-mustachian habit of having about 1 drink a day after work. All the alcohol comes from Costco; beers average $1/bottle there, and the cost of an individual mixed drink is probably a bit higher. Maybe I should think of this more like people think about lattes and cut to only a couple days a week.
The areas I can see where you could make the biggest difference is your "prepared" foods. Hummus is dirt cheap to make, you can easily spend an afternoon making ravioli and stock your freezer for a couple of months. Both Granola and granola bars could be cheaper if made at home, even if it is a wash cost wise, having control of the ingredients brings them from "snack food" to actually helping you meet your nutritional needs.
I feel like we have so few prepared foods left! In general, I like the idea of making more of this stuff ourselves, but there's only so many hours in the day. We have replaced some store-bought stuff with homemade: I make my own almond butter and will never go back. Homemade isn't hard, and it's so much better and cheaper than storebought.
If you make a bunch of hummus, how long will it keep? Ravioli is an interesting one -- we've never tried making it ourselves. Can you point me to a good recipe? DW did go on a granola-making kick for a while, but I'm certain it was more expensive than the store-bought stuff.
Are you wasting much? Of the mint and basil, how much did you use vs toss? What miscellaneous ingredients are hiding in your pantry, never to be used again?
I've had this thought, and we're trying to reduce waste. We keep a whiteboard on the side of the fridge that says "use me!" that lists non-staple items that need using up from the freezer, fridge, and pantry. I threw the last of that basil into a pasta last night.
Mint is harder. I made a batch of mint extract a little while ago, but other than that it's hard to use. (I could categorize the mint under the alcohol spending -- usually for mojitos.) We can grow some herbs on our patio, which is nice, but no mint there now. Anyway, I don't think we're wasting all that much.
I happen to notice that 32 oz of yogurt ranged from $2.49 up to $3.99.
Hmmm. One of them was bought when we were travelling. That $3.99 one I'm not sure on. I think DW bought the fancy kind, probably because we were out and she was at the other grocery store.
I saw several canned bean purchases of various type. Eat more of that - they are so cheap. Even cheaper bought dry.
Any good bean recipes to recommend? We keep intending to cook our own dry beans. Gets back to the "only so many hours in the day" issue.
Have you ever made your own bread?
Yes! We rescued a bread machine that my mom had in the garage and never used. We don't regularly eat a ton of bread, with the exception of English muffins, which are harder in the bread machine. But this rosemary bread is my favorite, which we make with the rosemary from the patio:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/jos-rosemary-bread/Pirates Booty. Yummy stuff.
Yes it is. I buy it, and it's gone in like three days. The Costco size. Good thing I bike to work. :)