Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh but we have discovered we’ve pretty much quit eating out, other than an occasional fast food restaurant.
After reading Madame X’s post about where she spent her food money last year, I can say I’m quite happy we have stopped eating out at places like Applebees, The Keg, Red Robin and other local “sit down” restaurants. I was shocked to see that Madame X spent so much of her food budget eating out. She readily acknowledged that’s where her money went and I think she might have been a bit surprised as well. Her budget got killed in the “sit down” restaurants.
We haven’t consciously talked about reducing our restaurant meals but I think we’ve just slowly shifted our meals back to the house. The thought of spending $30+ on a meal just doesn’t even seem remotely appealing. After seeing how quickly those “sit down” restaurants can kill a food budget, I think we’ll definitely continue our strategy of avoiding the nicer restaurants unless it’s a special occasion. As frugal as I’d like to be, I still can’t bring myself to take my wife to a fast food restaurant for our anniversary.
What are we doing instead? Well, we aren’t starving, that’s for sure. We have been doing a much better job of buying our food at grocery stores and eating at home. We still work hard to purchase sale priced items to add some variety to our meals and to save money, but there are always those “staple” type items that we buy regardless of price. We used to debate “going out” to eat before many of our meals. Now there isn’t even a question of whether we will eat at home, although there is still plenty of debate on what we should eat on a particular night.
With that being said, we are still eating out every now and then, but we are choosing low cost “fast food” which might explain why McDonalds and other fast food chains are doing fairly well. I think we are one of many families that are choosing lower cost fast food when we do eat out. We actually don’t go to McDonalds much but we do go to some of what I’d call the “middle of the spectrum” fast food. We eat at places like Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Taco Del Mar and a few other smaller chains. Yes, that’s a lot of Mexican food, but that’s due to my food allergies more than anything. We also get Thai food when we have a coupon, as well as a bit of other Asian food.
Have you changed your habits when it comes to eating at restaurants?
We don’t eat out much at all, never have. We find that we just don’t like the food. I’d much prefer to spend the money and buy some good grass-fed beef steaks and a good bottle of wine and enjoy a nice quiet meal at home (not to mention it’s much healthier).
When we do eat out it’s also at places like Chipotle or something like that, but that only happens once a month or so.
I completely agree. We have been buying steaks at Costco (the price is so much better than the grocery stores) and have been making absolutely delicious meals at home.
Steak: $5
Potatoes/garlic: $1
Vegetables: $1.50
Drinks: $4
Total meal for 3 people: $11.50 (which includes the alcohol)
We’re saving a fortune by doing this. The food tastes better, it’s healthier, and we never feel the need to tip each other.
When i finally sat down and made my first budget i was shocked how much money was spent on eating out. I was spending more money than my groceries. You really do not think about it because it goes away in little pieces. But they do add up.
We’ve become HUGE fans of www.bustameal.com. I’m not sure how my wife discovered it, but it’s become a critical component of our weekly planning. She sits down once a week and picks out recipes for the week and then it automatically creates a grocery list. She posted a suggestion that they allow for adding in other “miscellaneous” grocery items to the list, and they made the change within one day. It’s completely transformed our grocery shopping & meal planning.