Eating out?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

How often do you eat out? And what do you typically spend?

I guess either weekly or monthly you can answer. I think we eat out a lot, 2-3x/week, for $50-100/week.

[rduell]

DH and I usually eat out once a week, on our night out. I budget $30 a week for it. Sometimes we spend it all and other times we don't. Then we usually will order something in later in the week.

[scfr]

We eat out about once a month, for less than $30 (per month). It's easy since we both work from home, but the dishes do seem to grow like weeds in the kitchen sink!

[PauletteGoddard]

We eat out a lot too: once or twice a week. We're not always frugal about where we eat either. I've pledged to remedy that by doing batch cooking and encouraging the use of leftovers.

[cschin4]

We used to eat out, which usually meant take-out of pizza, drive-thru, or chinese. However, our son was recently diagnosed with celiac disease and gluten allergy. So, I have been cooking ALOT!

[kealina]

we tend to eat out about once a month for under $20 if left alone... that doesn't account for special occasions and family though... in our busy months it tends to come out to 3 times a month and a bit more money too...

[Staceyy]

Dh is a long-distance truck driver, when I travel with him, we have to eat out at almost every meal, unless the hotel or motel serves breakfast. We travel together about one week a month. When I am home, I cook almost every meal from scratch. I am a professionally trained chef. When we eat out, the meal is usually less than $25 for dinner for the two of us. We generally eat at Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel, Ihop, Denny's, Lone Star or at a truck stop. We rarely go to expensive restaurants even when home. If we want gourmet food, I cook it myself. Dh receives $35 per day per diem.

[Little L]

Dining out is no doubt our budget buster. I struggle with it on a daily basis. We go out too much - several times a week to the tune of several hundred dollars a month. Terrible waste of money I know and I'm trying to cook more at home and go out less.

[Fern]

Well i'm single, but i eat out regularly with BF, usually 2x on the weekend, once when we see each other wednesday nights.

On my own, i occasionally splurge by having lunch at Boston Market or the chinese place, but that's not that often, once a month or less. It adds up quickly.

[Fern]

In years past, when i worked long hours far away from home, i didn't have the time or energy to make my own lunches to bring to work, so i ate lunch out EVERY SINGLE DAY, to the tune of about $30 a week.

So glad i'm not doing that anymore.

[newlyfrugal]

Last month (February) we ate out about 12 times a WEEK. Yup, every dinner, lunch and weekend breakfast was at a restaurant. Some of them were as simple as Subway, others as high priced as TGI Fridays. That was bad, very very bad.

During March we made concerted effort to change our evil ways and only ate out 3 times TOTAL that we were responsible for paying for. Much better. Of course the jury is still out on total cost savings because we ended up spending a ton of money for groceries instead but we were restocking a very dry and dusty pantry.

From now on we are limiting ourselves to 1 meal out per week unless it can not be avoided (i.e. travel, scheduling problems, forgotten lunch). I just hope we can stick to it!

Sara

[disneysteve]

We don't eat out all that often, but when we do, it is fairly expensive. We don't eat crap at home and don't want to eat it when we go out either, so no fast food and usually no chain restaurants (Chili's, Applebees, Friday's, Ruby Tuesday, etc.).

Last time DW and I ate out was Friday night. We had drinks and appetizers, no entree, and the bill was $56. That's a little high because we don't usually get alcohol when we go out but we were in the mood for something special.

We went out with another couple about a month ago and the bill for the 4 of us was probably around $200 (I don't know exactly as the other couple treated - we'll pick up the tab next time).

[Ima saver]

Well I eat dinner out about 5 times a week. I budget about $100 a week for that. I spend very little at the grocery store. But that is our form of entertainment and we enjoy it. Dh puts in very long hours so that we can eat out every night. Most of our meals run under $20 and we take our own liquor and mixers!

[JanH]

We eat out at least 2-3 times a month. We have budgeted about $50 total for it. If the kids are around or we visit them, we add another $50 for eating out with them. Hubby has another amount to eat out lunches on because he and co-worker(s) eat out a couple of times a week. We used to eat out a lot more, but this is one area we've tried to cut back on. We also try to share meals.

[Ima saver]

Believe me if I had kids, I would not eat out much. this just started a few years ago,

[LuxLiving]

We ate out 'takeout' once this weekend - used a coupon for delivery pizza to the tune of $14.99. Our grandson was visiting and with the way the pickup and drop off times were it was the best we could do - to entertain him AND get where we needed to be on time.

Usually we eat out once a month - somewhere in the area of $20-25. Some months not at all. Very limited take-out or drive-thru eating -- maybe $10 a month but that usually comes out of one of our allowances and not the family budget.

[poundwise]

About 4x a month.

2x as a family (3 people)

1x as a couple (date)

1x just picking up something/getting delivery

[simpleyme]

about once a month it seems ;-)

Jan 1st we had chinese me and and DH 13 dollars
Feb 14 we took the kids to our favorite pizza (Abbys) cost abt 23 dollars
mid march we went to taco bell ,me and Dh cost about 7 bucks ;-)

[PRICEPLUS]

We don't eat out as much as order pizza or some other take out and bring it in. We try and use specials at all times. Personaly I would rather eat something made at home but Sometimes time and circumstances force us to use fast food!

[Daylily]

We eat out about once every two months (if even that often). We generally spend $40-50 when we do.
We live outside of town so it is just as time consuming to drive to town, eat, and drive home as it is to make the food at home and do the clean up.
DH travels overnight a couple times a week, so when he is at home he wants to eat home cooked food.