I’m going to talk about lunch.

I used to pack a lunch - nothing fancy, just a couple of sandwiches, & maybe fruit - then cook dinner, all for around $100/week. Started treating myself to bought lunches. Again nothing fancy, mostly fast-casual type places where you order at the counter & they bring your food to the table. Water not soda. Restaurant lunches are cheaper than restaurant dinners, but they’re also way more calories than my packed lunches, and I found I wasn’t in the mood for big dinners anymore. In the end, I was still spending around $100/week, eating out 5 days/week, and just having a snack in the evening.

About once a week. We’re more concerned about the impact on our waist lines than our finances.

One thing we try to do to save money is to order meals for leftovers. As an example, a $14 burger will almost always be one meal, while a $14 Thai curry typically lasts for 3 meals or more. Even within specific restaurants, bowls or plates offer more bang for your buck than sandwich entrees.

We also often roast vegetables or other side dishes in the oven while waiting for delivery, mainly for health but it’s also typically cheaper.

I used to eat out almost every night and it cost me nearly as much as my rent.

Since then, I learned some cooking, some 10-min stuff, and did a lot of personal work on emotional eating. I really tried to treat it like an addiction, learning alternatives but also, recently I moved to a less urban area where I’d have to walk 10-15mins to get decent food, when I used to have an all you can eat sushi place on my street. That helped more than anything else!

Finally, I gave myself a couple of special things: given how much I was spending on restaurants I never hesitate to spend a lot on cookware or ingredients, and when my partner comes over we often choose a cool recipe to try out, in order to prove to myself that food can be really great even if it’s not made by someone else.

Now I go out for dinner only if I’m with someone, and I make sure it’s always a special occasion (including a date with my partner, it doesn’t have to be super special, just not “I don’t feel like cooking”). It’s still very hard not to go out when I’m having a tough day but I’ve never done so well :)

My husband and I go out for breakfast every Sunday to a small local place. It costs us $25, and it’s totally worth it. My husband also eats out on Thursdays for trivia at a dive bar where he is a regular and gets $2 rum and cokes and cheap food. That’s another $25. About once a month we will either take ourselves or our adult kids out for a nicer meal, about $150 on average. So that’s roughly $350 a month excluding special occasions and travel.

We would be better off financially if we ate out less, but we both enjoy it tremendously. The value it adds to our life is worth the money. This is why we work.

Single person here. I eat out nearly everyday but not necessarily at full service restaurants. A lot of times it’s fast casual fare that has fresh and healthy options - think Mediterranean plates, poke bowls, deli sandwiches, etc. A typical day is $15-$25 that covers two meals.

Yes, I could be saving some money by cooking at home but the time, gas, and energy I would need to spend makes it not worth it. I’ve also found that my attempts at cooking leads to a lot of food waste. A 2.5 lbs roast is equal to 2 weeks of meals for me and even though I could freeze some of it, I know from past experience that ill never pull it out of deep freezer storage. I’ll get bored of eating the same thing after a few days and then abandon everything.

I like eating out because I get to do a variety of foods throughout the week, enjoy the social aspect, and like to support good local businesses with my money. Some tips if you go this route:

1. I always bring my containers for leftovers. I get to pack things my way and I’m 90% more likely to eat my leftovers.

2. I always bring my own drink (when possible), usually water to cut down cost.

3. Sometimes I’ll bring my own dessert, like a snickers bar, to not be tempted to buy their desserts.

4. Less/no tip for fast casual

We typically spend between $800~1400 between two people on all food in a given month. Granted that’s high, but considering that includes everything from grocery trips, meaning paper products, cat food, alcohol… one thing that was interesting for me looking at the data is our ratio of spend on eating out doesn’t strongly correlate to the total we spend for the month. For instance:

July was a super high outlier overall, but it was driven by our grocery spending more than our eating out spending. Major contributing factors were meeting friends more often than usual (four weekends of providing alcohol) and a Costco run. Our eating out generally constitutes lots of runs to e.g. Subway, Chipotle. I get a $6 coffee ~once a month, my wife doesn’t drink coffee. We very rarely go down to sit-down restaurants and have a $50-100 meal, basically only for birthdays or anniversaries. That also hit in July (anniversary).

Part of what’s going on is I think rapidly fluctuating food prices and the fact that for the last ~year groceries had been so much more expensive than normal and a lot of “fast food” at least hadn’t appeared to update their prices at a comparable rate. So we might be spending $10 to make a meal for two at home or $20 to eat out together. So eating out ~twice a week vs. ~once a week barely registers on a typical monthly food spend.

We eat out about once every 2 weeks. We used to eat out quite a bit as I got really bored of the food at home.

I do really enjoy cooking, but its hard to come up with meal ideas. We then started getting meal kits (Gousto) and now we’re really happy to eat at home as the meals are fresh, easy to cook and always different. I could get the ingredients cheaper, but its very convenient as a meal kit and theres no waste.

Because the meal kits are very tasty, it does mean however when we do go out we find cheaper places are now poor quality, so will go somewhere nicer to eat. Still cheaper than eating out as much as we did before though!

I eat out only once or twice a month and usually it’s with friends or family if we do go out.

Reasons to go out include socializing or trying foods I wouldn’t cook at home.

Reasons I tend to prefer pickup rather than dining in the restaurant include a better atmosphere at home and not having to deal with the hassle of tipping which jacks up the cost of food by 20% or more.

A lot, and a lot, but it doubles as entertainment budget for us. We try to limit it down to once a week but there’s often a week or two where it’s as high as 3 times a week. Our monthly budget for eating out is usually around $400, but we run under that most months.

constantly!

I almost never eat out. I prefer home-cooked food. I’m not sure about the financial impact.

She loves it and doesn’t charge me, so my finances aren’t impacted.

AMA.