Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Crunching numbers

We've been eating at home more and less in restaurants since we bought our gas grill about three weeks ago and guessed we were saving money.
Turns out we are.
Since we started grilling on Feb. 24, we've had a 38.9 percent ($8.10) reduction in average daily restaurant expenses. Our daily average for groceries has gone up by 20.1 percent ($2.91), so we're actually saving $5.19 a day.
This, of course, does not take into account the cost of the grill, propane used and electricity saved. It will be hard to make a propane/electricity comparison since our electric bill covers everything else in the house, including heating and cooling. But at $5/day the grill will have paid for itself by April 14. So unless the price of propane goes completely nuts, this will turn out to be pretty good for our cash flow.
Oh, yeah. There's also the savings in transportation costs - gas, oil, tires, etc. - by not running out to a restaurant every other night.
The downside is nights like last night when I overcooked the burgers. When I brought them in the first time, they were underdone. When they came in the second time, they weren't quite hockey pucks, but they were damned well done.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't be afraid to flip the burgers/steaks/chops more than once, or prod to check for state of "doneness." The grill guys on TV say this is verboten, I say nuts to them. My wife paid me a great compliment when she said I'm way better with the grill than her dad (whom she reveres).

Nothing better than the stuff off of the grill.