Wide Open Wallet
An honest look at family finances
Why we eat out.
Author: Ashley16 Sep
I’ve admitted several times that we eat out quite a bit. We spend about $400 a month eating out. Yeah, I know that’s a lot. Four hundreded dollars a month! When I really think about it like that… wow. That is almost the van payment. I could be making double payments on the van! I could be contributing more to our IRAs. I could start a college fund for the kids. The possibilities are endless…
I immediately start guilting myself into giving up eating out. I know it’s not reasonable to think we aren’t going to go out to eat at all…. ever again. So I’ll mentally plan for $100 a month. Ok, we could do that. That would be enough to eat out as a family once a week if we are careful about where we go. McDonalds or Pizza or something. It’s doable.
So that means no lunches out during the week. Tough one. I eat out two or three times and so does my husband. So that means I’m going to have to buy more lunch stuff. I estimate that would bump my grocery bill up about $50 a month. Lunch meats, extra bread, maybe chips, extra drinks, ect.
That leaves $250. Still a significant amount. But here’s the thing… It also means that the only reason for me to leave the house is to go grocery shopping. Maybe go to the mall or something and walk around. Blah. I like to leave the house! I don’t want to only leave twice a week. Once to go grocery shopping and once to out to eat on the weekend. Um… no thanks. And I know my husband likes to go and get out of the office. Who wants to eat lunch sitting at their desk? I know I didn’t when I was working.
It means every single dollar, save the $100 I’ve left for eating out, is going to something practical. Nothing fun. Debt, bills, savings. That’s it. Now, if that’s what you have to do for a while because you’re in a tough spot, then that’s what you have to do. I know fun is a want, not a need. But I also don’t feel like that is the spot we are in. I think there should be some room for fun in our budget.
So at the end I always end up leaving our eating out budget just where it is. I’m just not willing to make that sacrifice. Do you have anything in your budget like that?
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12 Responses for "Why we eat out."
Eating out is certainly one of those items for us as well. If saving money was our only goal, we’d limit food to UN rice rations and water. But food can be fun, and so can eating out, so it stays in our budget.
I budget ‘going out’ money which can be eating out, movies, etc. I also give myself an allowance for whatever, usually books, knitting supplies, video games, etc. I get my hair done at a nice salon because I love my hairdresser. All together these add up to about $275. While it’s less than your $400, it’s all just for me.
This post is really surprising to me. I would never spend that much money on a luxury item, given that I’m in debt. We have a specific amount of money allocated each month to ‘entertainment’ and also to ‘food’, and if we eat out the money has to come from one of those allocations. Anyway, we eat much healthier when we’re at home rather than at a restaurant.
Why do you feel that you need to go out all the time? Must you always spend money when you leave the house? It almost sounds to me that you don’t have enough to keep you occupied. Wouldn’t some of that money be better used to pay for a course for you to take, or some other sort of activity that would enrich your life?
I hope I don’t sound too negative because I don’t mean to be. Your money is yours to spend, and really none of my business.
As long as you can afford it, I don’t see a problem with it. We have the same issue though ours goes in spurts. Some months we will eat our more frequently than others. I am pregnant with our second child and have been very ill this month so we have eaten out quite a bit. Next month (as long as I am feeling well) we probably won’t eat out too much. Eating out (at least for us) is the one thing that I enjoy the most. Unless I have to I always have a place in the budget for it!
Hey everyone, thanks for your comments!
InDebtToo: We don’t have an entertainment budget. Actually the eating out budget is labeled “dates”. But we spend it all on eating out for the most part. I know it’s a lot of money. I’m admitting it’s a lot of money. Too much. I know. We don’t spend money every single time we leave the house. We go to the park, the pool, the play area at the mall, friend’s houses, walks, ect. I just really like to eat out. I would rather go to dinner then go to the movies, or mini golf, or bowling. All of which cost way more for a family of 4 then pizza at the local pizza shop.
I understand what your saying about not having enough to do, and that has certainly been the case at other times in my life. But right now I feel like I have tons of stuff to do but it’s all in the house. Cleaning, writing, school work (I’m already taking some classes) I still like to get out of the house, meet a friend for lunch, or just let the kids play some place that has a play area. Our local pizza place has a kids play area, so we head over there and they can play and I can study without kids underfoot, or talk to a friend or whatnot.
And you don’t need to say it’s not your business. I made it everyone’s business by posting it on the internet.
You are always welcome to share your thoughts.
I can say you are super busy. I can understand why. I think that rather than going from $400 to $100, you should scale back slowly. Sounds stupid but honestly it’s easier. That what I did and my DH barely noticed.
At one point when I lived without a budget or tracking our expenses were spending $1k/month eating out. Yeah we had no debt, but heck we sure could have been doing something else. This went on for about 3 months.
So from there I said we’re going to cut it. And we did, slowly. I went down in increments of $100. Actually I cut it to $750 immediately and then $500. Then slowly in $50. Now I can do $200-300/month or less if we really try.
I think that going to $350 and $300 will help develop a routine. Then you can get it lower. Cold turkey could be hard.
Hello,
I have a place in my budget for eating out (and it is more than my grocery bill) as I dine out much more often than I eat in. I allot $150 a month for eating out, which is $5 a day. That may not sound like a whole lot, and I’m not sure where you live, but as I live on a college campus, there are many ways to spend that, and still eat reasonably healthy as well. Sometimes I want a nicer meal so I’ll spend 10-15 bucks but that means I have to eat in on those days.
This is working for me, I hope you can find something that works for you.
cashinthecity.blogspot.com
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When I was working, I took my lunch to work, ate at my desk, then went out either to run errands or on a walk during my lunch hour. Not only did I eat healthier, but I either got things done or got some exercise (usually the latter) and felt a lot better and more energized when I went back to the office.
As for leaving the house now, as a stay at home Mom, I leave the house for things like playgroup or to go to the park or to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Certainly not just for grocery shopping. Ick.
We budget $50 for eating out for the two of us… and we each get 2% of our income for “fun”. Income is up, we get more to play with. Income is down, less to have fun with.
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I think you’re actually very smart to set aside some budget for things that are just too painful to let go. It’s difficult to be consistently doing something when you can’t have “fun” once in a while.
If you just keep saving, saving, saving, which, by the way, you have associated with no fun in your brain, and at the same time trying very hard to let go all the things that you’ve labeled as “fun”… then inevitably at one point your brain will say, “Ah, heck it. This is wayyy too much painful. What’s the point?”
If you’ve heard of the Body for Life program, where the author shares his diet program with the reader, he emphasizes very important thing: set aside 1 day in a week to “let go” and eat what they want. That’ll actually work a lot better than just stopping eating junk cold turkey.
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