Asking the question as it seems to be a recurrent issue among finance-aware people.
Also if people have tips to save money on eating out or cooking, feel free to share!
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 :)
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 want to start doing more oven roasting, but my oven takes absolutely forever to heat up. I’ve even replaced the coil inside of it (electric stove). I’ve been debating on buying one of these new stoves that has two ovens, like a tiny one that should heat up fast and then the bigger one.
We bought a countertop convection toaster oven that preheats within ~5 minutes. As a family of 2, it has pretty much replaced our oven usage, but a larger family might not like it as much. It can fit up to a 9x13 pan so that’s a small sheet pan or most casserole dishes.
It’s really nice that it doesn’t make the kitchen hot. It can also air fry decently, not as nice as a standalone air fryer, but it’s way more versatile. Ours is a ~ $300 Calphalon, pricier than most, but we use it almost daily, and the cheap Oster one we had before only lasted about a year. I’m sorry this sounds like an ad.
Also consider a toaster oven. They come in sizes up to 12" or so, definitely big enough for 9x11 pans, and the small chamber means they heat up super fast. I have a gas range, but I keep an induction hotplate on top of one burner and a toaster oven, with convection, in the next room for smaller jobs. Keeps the CO2 and the heat down in the summer.
My fiance and I eat out about once a week, and we often choose local places where we know we’ll get 4 meals off of a $15 platter of food. It’s certainly not as cheap as cooking at home, but sometimes you want a giant pile of orange chicken, and not the bother of prep/cleanup.
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!
