Mind on our money and money on our mind

Confession: I am not the best at following self-imposed rules. A rule, for example, made by my husband and I to limit our dining out to a certain monetary amount. We held a Come To Jesus meeting about our finances a few weekends ago to determine how to 1) buy a house 2) set up an emergency funds for potential scary scenarios and 3) Do our Brazil trip for our 5 Year anniversary.
After freaking ourselves out, the first expense we knew we don't have a hold on is our food excursions.

Our excuses: We like trying new things, we're lazy sometimes and also the food we buy tends to run out fast it seems. Where $150 a week on groceries disappears, I have no clue. I know it does re-materialize on my hips and bum, but damn, the food just does not seem to last around here.

So we decided that $50 a week would be our max for dining out. Either one decent meal or two cheapos. What wasn't really discussed was, does individual dining out count in this rule? Because I have run out for lunch several times a week since we imposed this rule and even this week I went to several places and easily racked up $50 plus.

One place I have to rave about for a sec is P.M. on Belmont Boulevard. GREAT Asian food for decent prices. My friend Sarah and I met there for dinner on Thursday and we both had wine, a super Vegetable Tempura appetizer (tempura battered broccoli, mushrooms, green beans, snow peas, sweet potatoes (!) ), and three Sushi rolls and my bill was exactly $20 with tip included. So I was happy, and I love that P.M.'s in an old bungalow, so it has a very welcoming vibe. It's not at all "scenester" as so many of these wannabe L.A./N.Y. restaurants are here in Nashville.

Also of note: I'm now a big fan of Rumors Wine Bar, where we went with Virginia last night after seeing "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (FYI not so great, but Clive Owen was in it so my eye candy requirement was fulfilled to the max, ladies. My lord, talk about something tasty. Anyway...)
Rumors is really great - neat place to grab some tapas and wine. I have no idea what I drank, but it was a Chilean Pino Grigio. Virginia pointed out that their entryway/smaller seating area has a painted-on rug on its floor, with vibrant turquoise colors. I want to steal this idea!

Getting to the point of this blog. I think that places like Rumors may be the thing to do - go out for wine after eating dinner at home. I forgot how fun it is to sip wine and nosh on olives on a cold night.
Or perhaps it's a matter of greater discipline -just trying harder to come up with better recipes to stretch out our food dollars a little more.

What if I tell Scott we have to start eating less? Sure, that's absolutely brilliant! Because he hardly eats a thing! I should ask for him to give his side of our quandary.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I am off to Goodwill...to make a deposit and to seek out a few things. Fun and frugal times!