I’ve been diligently tracking my finances lately to try and control my spending. Money is tight and we need to cut back, and the first place to do that is by tracking the how and how much of the money you spend.

Once the results are in, you have another example of financial triage to do. Ok, so your grocery budget seems high ‘“ but cutting back on food can be a tangled project. The per item savings is small, so reducing your budget usually involves a dozen decisions, always hard to make. Ditching the gym membership is more tempting, especially during summer, but I think health is important and we do use it. Where do we make choices?

Maybe it’s easy if you’re in a situation where you don’t really know what you spend money on, and you’re wasting a lot of it. For me, however, I know where it’s going and each penny of it is for a good reason. Trying to figure out which reason is a better reason is very hard. I’m not at the end of this process by a long shot, but I will mention one thing I’ve relearned during the recent weeks ‘“ you have to balance time, effort and money.

Let me take my small but persistent budget in eating out. It turns out that most of that is what I’d call utilitarian eating ‘“ grabbing a pizza slice while on the way somewhere, picking up a sandwich for the kids after the gym because they’re hungry and I want to stop off somewhere before going home. It turns out that this drains my budget on a regular basis and it would be very tempting to focus on that as a waste of money. After all, I can make a pizza or a sandwich in short order at home. I’m not exactly eating exotic foods I couldn’t make at home in fancy restaurants. My eating out experiences are bland, basic and boring. They don’t leave me with fond memories or new food ideas. They aren’t even especially healthy.

The sole benefit of utilitarian eating is that it gets me through the day. I have to admit, when I was tapping my pencil on my budget sheet, that this knowledge gave me pause. Sure I could save the $2.50 for a pizza slice, but it also means making an extra trip home to get food, or being just that much more organized and bring more food along. And that, I can guarantee you, would require a support system of mindful focus, life organization and general reduction in stress and mayhem that is never going to happen.

I think there’s an important reason I’m still grabbing these quick meals. It’s also the foundation of the entire fast food industry I’m sure ‘“ it’s fast and it’s food. As a bonus, it’s also cheap and the mental calculation of how much time it would involve for me to replace my quickie meal leads me to opt for the fast food almost every time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not eating my lunch out every day or leaving my fridge bare while I consume all my meals in fast food joints. But for me, I’d rather forego some other food indulgence than cut out my on-the-road food support options that fit my lifestyle. I spend less in a whole month on this utilitarian eating than I would on a single fancy dinner (not that I can afford those either). So I guess that leads me back to the difficult task of reducing my grocery list. The fancy olives I like, perhaps, or the nicer forms of cheddar can take a backseat to something that’s in the right place at the right time. That’s kind of sad for me to think about, but it’s worth a try. Right now, for me, I’ve made my priorities and one of them is rushing around and getting things done. That’ll have to do.