Jeff’s Blog

… which allowed me to contact my roommate Shuo-Hsiu to save my stupid butt. Here’s what happened:

Today, I left for a week-long vacation with my dad to visit the east coast. I needed to get to SFO somehow, so I arranged to leave my car at my friend’s sister’s place (their whole family is currently on vacation) and have another friend drive me to SFO.

Except I parked in the wrong driveway. I’ll spare you the details on how I came about doing that, but suffice it to say that I was just very confused and very much in a hurry (for no good reason, really).

After I checked in and passed through security at SFO, I sat down to wait for my flight. Half an hour before it was to leave, I got a call from the South SF police department, with an (understandably) upset homeowner complaining that I parked in his driveway. Totally my bad. I apologized profusely to him and to the officer on the other end and attempted to work things out. Over the next ten minutes, I called my roommate Shuo-Hsiu and had him get my keys and drive for an hour (!!) over to South SF to go move my car. I also explained to him how to drive stick over the phone — at this point I didn’t really care how many times he would stall the car, so long as it wouldn’t get towed. Shuo-Hsiu calmly and coolly agreed to go do this for me, and proceeded to make his way over to South SF. Then I had to get on the plane.

You can imagine how anxious I was the whole time, so I needed to get in touch with him to see how it was going. I also didn’t know where the right house was, but knew that the info was in my e-mail account somewhere. At this point, the plane was in the air and cruising at 500mph at 35,000 feet. So here’s where the technology came in:
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Today I bought a ton of food from 99 Ranch and cooked it all in a frenzy. I made four dishes when I probably should have just made two, but I got carried away in my cooking. I probably made enough to last four meals, and that got me thinking about how much of a savings it is to cook vs. eating out for meals. I’ve always known it was a better option, but after doing some quick math I found out that you can actually save a lot!

Assume that each meal you eat out costs $6. Say you really like Subway’s $5 footlong deals, and then tack on sales tax and the reality that no one besides Jared can possibly eat Subway every day of their life (although sometimes I’ve come close!).We won’t factor in breakfast because everyone differs in their breakfasts; some don’t, some eat small ones, some eat big ones. Anyway, the math:

$6 per meal * 2 meals per day * 30 days per month = $360.
This is a conservative estimate, since $6 is considered real cheap for a meal in these parts. If you go to an actual restaurant every now and then, go ahead and round that up to $400 or more. But let’s just say $360 for now.

Today’s groceries cost me $13, plus maybe $2 in stuff I already had at home (seasonings, tofu, rice, etc.). Let’s just call it an even $15. I said earlier that it can probably last me 4 meals, but let’s say 3.5 because sometimes I can eat pretty big. This is a conservative estimate because I got way full today and it should probably last closer to 4.5-5 meals, really.

$15 per meal / 3.5 meals * 2 meals per day * 30 days = ~$257.

So the difference is a little over $100 per month, and that’s conservative! Divided by 30 days, that’s $3 for every day (or 2 meals) that you cook for yourself or eat leftovers from the fridge. That’s a lot of money you could be doing something else with (e.g., read my previous three posts, har har)! If you use it against debt like a mortgage or a student loan, then by golly you’re making even more by staving off additional interest payments.

I know it’s not a crazy revelation that cooking and eating in is better than going out for food, but sometimes we can get so caught up in the busyness of life that we’re actually shortchanging ourselves in the long run. That’s what happened to me last month over the course of a few weeks where I didn’t touch the stove at all.

Here are some other reasons why cooking for yourself >> eating out:

• Eating out is generally less healthy, so you can sort of tack on healthcare costs incurred later on. It’s also not just about saving money, you know.
• It’s greener. If you bring food home from a restaurant, it generates a lot more trash than if you just use your own dishes.
• You can make whatever you want! At a food establishment, you’re usually limited to whatever choices are on their menu. If you’re cooking, you can just ask yourself what you feel like eating and make it.
• After a long day of work sitting in a cubicle, it’s nice to stand up and work around the kitchen and wash dishes. I guess this one only applies to me and other cubicle-workers.

I suppose there are also reasons for the contrary (like convenience and safety), but that’s not the point of my post, so there! Hah.

I think I’m going to try and keep a count of how many meals I cook for myself, and then when I hit 60 I’ll get something nice for myself. Or my car (I want to upgrade an engine mount!). Or Vicky. Probably Vicky.

This is the third and last installment of posts about the talk I gave at Cal AACF’s large group meeting two weeks ago. Here are the first and second parts.

In the first post, I discussed why the issue of money and possessions is so important, even to poor and starving college students. In the second post, I wrote about how giving is a faith issue, and I tried to connect a bunch of Scripture together to prove that. Now, I want to highlight and address two objections — reasonable and understandable objections — people might have against what I’m saying. You probably have a lot more, since I’m sure I didn’t cover all the bases and I’m no Jo(h)n Piper/MacArthur/Edwards/Calvin/the Baptist. Anyway…

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This is a continuation of my previous post, so if you haven’t read that, go ahead and read that first. I last left off with this thought:

Giving money away is the best way to spend it.
It is the biggest investment you can make in yourself.

Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” This begs the question: What is my greatest treasure? Or you might ask yourself “What can I not stand to lose?” “What do I value the most?” or “What do I derive the most pleasure from?” I think they’re pretty much the same thing. In response, probably the first thing we’d say is “friends and family,” but in the back of our minds, I think many of us would also say “money and possessions,” especially in the current economic situation. Today there were rumors abound that our company might go and lay off 10% of its 66,000-member workforce, and that was a big wake-up call as to where my treasures lie. If I’m truly honest with myself, getting laid off would be the worst thing ever, a nightmare scenario. Where, then, is my greatest treasure?

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[I've been meaning to write this for the past two weeks, but kept putting it off because I was too lazy to upgrade WordPress and wanted to catch up on missed TV shows. Tonight, however, I was poring over my finances in Quicken and agonizing over how much I would be able sponsor a friend who's going overseas to "teach English" in "East Asia." Vicky asked me, "Why are they asking you for so much support if they can already support themselves with the salary they're getting from their current job?" That prompted me to think about what I talked about two weeks ago and finally write this post.]

Two weeks ago I did the unthinkable and gave a talk at a Cal AACF Large Group meeting. It was an exhilirating experience, to say the least, and I was a nervous wreck all the way up until the moment I got up to speak. They asked me to speak on Matthew 6:19-34, the passages about “storing up treasures in heaven” and “do not worry, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” I spent about three or four weeks thinking, preparing, praying, and yes, worrying about what I was going to share that night. This is what I talked about, or at least the jist of it…

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