One of the fastest ways to watch what little finds you may have slip from your bank account is to eat out a lot.

Food is a dangerous temptress. It’s immediate, it’s inexpensive on a meal-by-meal basis, and it makes you feel so much better about life when you’re stressed out about your finances.

The irony there is that it’s very easy to eat out once, twice, three times a day, and over the course of a month, flush hundreds of dollars down the toilet – literally.

A five dollar meal seems pretty inexpensive. But add it up – thrice times daily, times 30 days in a month, you’re looking at $450 to chow on food you probably shouldn’t have been eating anyway.

Here are some of my tips for eating right and eating cheap when you’re going broke:

• Visit the grocery store and think vegan. You don’t have to be a vegan to eat like one. For less cost than a grilled chicken salad at Sonic or the least expensive salad at Subway, you can buy a whole bag of salad mix in the produce isle. I like to buy the big four-veggie salad bags, which run around $4. This will last you a week at two meals a day if you like a light salad, or if you like to enjoy a big bowl of salad like me, two bags will get you through a week. Add light salad dressing and some fruit (I love nectarines and plums) and you have a super healthy, low-calorie, $0.50 or $1 meal. [Soup is another option here, but I'll be honest: I hate making soup and I don't like eating it all that much. Your mileage may vary.] Just replacing one $5 meal each day with a $1 salad will save you $120 a month. I don’t know about you, but that’s my family cell phone plan, or two months of Dish Network, or at least a week’s gas to and from work. You’ll feel better and more energetic from avoiding lethargy-inducing heavy meals and you’ll see an improvement at the bathroom scale as well.
• If salad’s not on the plate for my palette on a given day, I try to take aim at Subway next. Can’t beat $5 footlongs for value, and they’re a healthy option. One footlong feeds me for two meals at $2.50 a meal. Or go for a packed veggie delight wrap, easily equivalent to a footlong sub in substance, for $3.50 – split over two meals at $1.75 each. With some chipotle or sweet onion sauce, these are great, inexpensive, healthy meals. Just don’t go overboard and down a whole footlong or wrap in one sitting. Make two meals of it and pass on the chips and drink – you’ll just double your cost per meal, and your calorie intake.
• There’s no shame in hitting your local fast food dollar menu when the need arises. We life fast-paced lives and it’s realistic to admit you’re going to have to get food when and where you can sometimes. But instead of getting the four-piece chicken tender meal at Church’s, go for the strip and a biscuit for $1.29. It’s not much of a meal, but if you use the tricks I outline below for eating light and feeling full, it will satiate you through dinnertime. You can get a junior burger, two-piece chicken strip wrap, or a junior breakfast burrito at Sonic for only a buck. McDoland’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, all have great, robust, filling dollar menu options. They aren’t healthy by any means, but they’re cheap and serve their purpose. Consider it inexpensive and easy portion control.
• Sick of salads and dollar menu options? Upgrade to a nice meal from Chili’s, TGIFriday’s, Red Robin, Applebee’s, or your diner/restaurant of choice. Lower-priced entrees run $6-$8. The secret to eating inexpensively here is splitting that oversized meal into several smaller meals. At most Italian restaurants, one order of spaghetti and breadsticks is enough for four honest, smaller meals. You can break one gluttonous meal into four reasonable ones and end up paying $1.50 or $2 per meal. I for one would rather have Olive Garden leftovers for two days, with salads and fruit mixed in to keep things fresh, at an extra $0.50 per meal than four separate meals off the dollar menu at Sonic. There are some great guides to safely storing and reheating leftovers over at O Chef, eHow, Real Simple, What’s Cooking America, and even Winn Dixie.
• If you have a significant other or kids, these same ideas apply. Reduce portions, replace one or two meals a day with a good meatless salad, split entrees with your mate and/or kids, etc.
• Pay attention to eating a balanced diet. Quite often, people get the nutrients they need to function purely by accident – by sheer influence of the large amount of food they eat. When eating vegan, make sure each meal has balanced contents and a wide variety of colors – carrots, cucumbers, spinach, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, and so on. If you normally have a Dairy Queen chicken strip basket for lunch every day, don’t worry – you didn’t have many nutrients to lose there.
• Replace expensive, calorie-heavy snacks with healthy, inexpensive ones. You can eat any three pieces of fresh fruit for less cost than one candy bar. String cheese is one of my favorites – it’s easy to peel and eat slowly and has great texture.

Eating less overall and differently than your body is used to will cause some transitional pains – cravings, hunger, maybe even some emotional influence making you tense, easily agitated, or obsessive over wanting certain foods.

Here are my two big tips for beating those demons:

Drink lots of water. People just don’t drink enough of this stuff on a daily basis. Take aim at four pints at least, roughly eight regular glasses of water or eight regular bottles of water. Many, many times, your brain misinterprets a lack of water for a lack of food and you get hungry as a response. Drink a bottle of water before bed so you stay hydrated through the night, drink a bottle in the morning to replenish yourself (go for room temp water instead of cold so you don’t tick off your stomach), and then try to drink a bottle of water with every meal and between each meal. Every time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated, so instead of just taking a sip to wet your lips, drink a lot in that moment. If I don’t pay attention and end up thirsty, I’ll drink a half a bottle of water immediately whether I feel that much need or not. If you stay hydrated, you’ll have far few issues with random hunger pains.

To stretch out those small-portion meals (off the dollar menu or split from a large entree), drink lots of water with your meal and eat s – l – o – w – l – y. Take your time and pay attention to your food, really taste and enjoy it. When you eat, remove all other distractions – no TV, no book, no newspaper. When you take a bite, take a small bite, enough to really taste what you’re eating, and chew it extensively. If you can’t stop yourself, put your fork down, sit on your hands, and count up to 20 as you chew for every grind – 1, 2, 3, 4… You can train yourself to stop shoveling food down your throat. When you take your time and pay attention to your meal, you appreciate it more, you better taste the flavors and textures, and your brain really experiences the act of eating. If you eat while you’re distracted by TV or something else, your brain doesn’t fully appreciate what you’ve consumed and an hour later it will have forgotten that you ate. You’re paying for this meal – and it’s what will give you fuel for the next three or four hours; take the time and attention to enjoy and appreciate it.

If you don’t think you spend all that much on food, do the whole 30 day budgeting program of tracking every penny that comes out of your pocket or bank account to see where it goes. I promise you, you will be surprised. Good advice at Art of Manliness, Mighty Bargain Hunter, About.com, and Medscape.

And for more good reading on the subject of eating cheap (and trying to stay healthy in the process), check out Cheap Healthy Good (which has an awesome logo and site design), Slashfood, Get Rich Slowly, and a funny take on the topic at the Financial Times.

- James

What’s your favorite meal to eat on the cheap? What tricks have you used to control the amount you spend on food and the amount you eat at a meal?

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So let’s talk about budgeting and how to prioritize your bills when you’re going broke.

Here’s a rundown of my bills, rated first (must pay) to last (pay if I can, cancel if I must):

1. My home mortgage

2. My car loan

3. Home and car insurance

4. Storage units

5. Cell phone

6. Business-related bills (web hosting, studio rent, e-newsletter service, other services, etc.)

7. Home bills (home phone, home internet, electric bill, propane for heating, etc.)

8. Second home mortgage (the home and debt I inherited from my father)

9. Credit cards and lines of credit

The most important thing is to ensure you keep a roof over your head, food in your belly, and a way to make a living. If you lose your car and can’t get to your job, everything else will fall like dominoes when you get fired. Ensure your ability to earn money; then use that money to pay what you can and enable yourself to climb out of the hole you’re in, either through debt counseling or bankruptcy.

You’ll note my business expenses list highly on my priorities list, but only because I make a good bit more money each month from my small business than I lose to expenses. To cut out these expenses would cut off that income; both revenue and profit. That profit I use to help pay other bills; there’s nothing wrong with leveraging money to make more money if you can. Be realistic with your numbers to ensure you really are profiting, and stick with it if it’s giving you more opportunities to earn money and pay your bills.

My cell phone service also ranks highly on this list for this reason. Unless you make money with your cell phone, then consider it down there with other “comfort luxuries.” Reduce your plan as small as it will go, then control your usage to stay under that number. If you can get out of your contract without a fee, do so; you can always sign up again later when your finances are in better shape. Despite the proliferation of cell phones across the land, being unreachable is probably better for your sanity and mental health than always being accessible.

For most, your standard day job income should be enough to keep your foundational bills paid: mortgage, transportation, home necessities. Everything else can go to collections or be wrapped up in your bankruptcy filing, but these are the things you will need to keep up with to give you a launching pad for your new financial life.

It’s a long-standing business axiom that what isn’t measured isn’t maintained. The best way to tighten your financial belt is to pay strict attention to what you’re really spending money on.

Keep a small notepad with you, or jot notes on your iPhone as I do, and log every single time you spend a dime on anything, from gum at the gas station to making your online mortgage payment. Write everything down, and review it every week, and every month. Tally up your total spending for different purchases (coffee, movies, fast food, etc.) and see where you have room to cut back.

I didn’t realize how much I spent on lunch each day when I ate with my coworkers at the office. Totaled up over a month, this amounted to hundreds of dollars; that’s a family cell phone bill, or a small car payment!

Forcing yourself to write everything down will also make you consciously accountable for what you’re choosing to spend money on. You’re going to feel bad when you realize you’re about to spend $10 on lunch, then tell your kid he can’t have a toy at the grocery store because you can’t afford it; especially when you could have made yourself a $2 meal, or had a cheap microwaveable meal, or even a sub from Subway. You would have had a healthier meal and saved money for more important things.

A good budget, like a good diet, is not built around deprivation, but moderation. I can choose the medium one-topping pizza at Pizza Hut or I can choose the salad bar.  I can choose to make my lunch at home for a couple of dollars, or I can choose to leave my lunch spending up to the whim of my coworker’s appetites.

Use the common sense that the Good Lord gave you, and you’ll find yourself making better decisions in no time.

- James

How do you prioritize your bills in tough times, and what have you had to let slide in the worst times? Where have you cut back on your spending that has made the biggest impact on your financial freedom?

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The creditors – your credit card companies, loan providers, etc. – want to get money out of you. It’s certainly not in their best interest to force you into declaring bankruptcy, in which case, they may not get a dime out of you. When you take on the services of a debt counseling agency, your creditors will assume you are in pretty dire straits, and would rather throw you a bone and get as much money out of you as they can than be hard-nosed and end up with nothing.

When seeking out a debt counselor, your best bet is to find a non-profit organization with reasonable fees. Do a Google search for your nearest metro area and “debt counseling” to see who pops up. Usually you will find some lists for your city, and the direct sites of counseling services themselves.

For example, I live in a rural area outside of San Antonio, Texas, so I just Googled “San Antonio debt counseling” and was pointed to several web sites, ending up with the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Antonio. Their non-profit status, accreditation and professional memberships, and fee structure all fit the ideal description provided by my Dummies book. I’ll reiterate here how empowering that book is when you’re facing debt problems.

I called the service the next day, and was told no appointment was necessary. Their web site clearly outlined all of the paperwork they would need for my counseling session, and it took forever, but I gathered it all up; bank records, loan information, credit card statements, pay stubs, etc. My wife and I also took the time to jot down a list of questions we would want to ensure were answered before our session was through.

I took the day off of work the next Friday and my wife and I dropped off our kids with the grandparents so we could both be in on the session, and both focus on absorbing the information and advice provided.

Upon arrival, in a waiting room resembling a family doctor’s office more than anything, a nice receptionist had us fill out some forms and said she would get the next available counselor for us. This service provided debt counseling at no charge.

After a short wait, a kindly counselor greeted us and took us into his office, as normal as any other. Family photos on the wall, certifications framed, books abound, and a computer gave the counselor access to the web and programs he would need to plug in our information and provide us with a kind of financial status report. I am good with numbers, so this wasn’t anything I didn’t already have in hand, but it provides good perspective to those for whom numbers create confusion and blank stares.

Turns out there wasn’t much to soak up: the counselor agreed we had gone broke. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy was the only option they could foresee as viable. Even if we did attempt to use their debt counseling services to consolidate and reduce our credit payments, my day job income wasn’t even enough to cover our mortgage, car payment, insurance, and other normal bills.

Bankruptcy Certification

After looking at our bills and declaring us prime candidates for bankruptcy, our counselor offered to complete our counseling session as a bankruptcy counseling session, and provide us a certification of having taken the one to two hour course which cost $50. Knowing what we faced, and the inevitability of going broke, we took the course and prepared to declare bankruptcy.

The certification course was simple and easy. The counselor collected some written materials for us, and went page-by-page over the most important parts. We had already covered a great deal of the information in our debt counseling session, so the two overlapped. If you think bankruptcy is in your future, be prepared time- and money-wise to get your certification done with your debt counseling session. It will save you a return trip, and eliminate procrastination.

- James

What was your experience with debt counseling? What was your process for finding a debt counselor and using their services? Were you happy with the experience? Please feel free to comment below.

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