Eating out vs groceries

[accountingsucks]

According to the way they calculate this, if your food split 61/39 then for every dollar you spend on groceries, you would spend 0.63 dollars on food in restaurants and this is higher than the 0.54 average. It sounds like you are above average. And a way above the average for this group.

Perhaps I am reading this wrong; but to clarify, for every $ spent on "food" 39 cents for me is eating out while the average Albertan is at 54 cents so I'm quite abit lower than the average but higher than the average here. Alot of my socializing is over beer/wings + taking girls out so that is probably why.

 

[HFWR]

Perhaps I am reading this wrong; but to clarify, for every $ spent on "food" 39 cents for me is eating out while the average Albertan is at 54 cents so I'm quite abit lower than the average but higher than the average here. Alot of my socializing is over beer/wings + taking girls out so that is probably why.

Take out girls? I'll have two to go, extra napkins please!

 

[DeborahB]

We tend to eat out at ethnic restaurants, especially Indian restaurants. Making a 5 course Indian meal is complicated - I can do it, but it's easier and cheaper at a restaurant. Here there are many that have a "special dinner for 2" (lots of courses) for $30 - $35. Usually we take home enough to have another dinner for 2 which makes it very economical. Sometimes we really luck out and they take some restaurant discount card we have, too.

As many others have said, we tend to not get drinks, or just get one drink each if it's alcohol, at restaurants - it keeps the cost down. And we take home leftovers from the huge portions.

I plan to do the lunch thing more when retired. I've notice the cheaper lunch prices - although the portion size is often smaller.

The other time we eat out is when I just can't bear the thought of cooking! Exhaustion, usually - but when I retire perhaps that will subside.

 

[mh]

I spend the time to make shopping/cooking at home an enjoyable , creative activity that's part of my day. Why reduce it to a chore when you can make a mini hobby out it ?
This makes all the problems of gratuitous eating out go away on their own.

Ok, time to end the sermon before i get too carried away here ..

 

[rmark]

We eat lunch out most days at work, with the leftovers for supper. Weekends I usually cook all our meals.

 

[Khan]

I go out to eat once or twice a year. Have lately had a craving for a reuben sandwich, might get one from local eatery; they said I can order ahead and take it away.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

I go out to eat once or twice a year. Have lately had a craving for a reuben sandwich, might get one from local eatery; they said I can order ahead and take it away.

Your are probably better off(limiting dining out). Reubens are my favorite restaurant sandwich. I order them once in awhile...some places are substituting turkey for corned beef and they are quite good, too. Dinner out for me is usually after an event, and it is nice to relax with my retired cousin or a friend and not have to rush right home(lets the traffic die down, too). Most of us live alone and it makes for more of a finish to the day to go somewhere nice once in awhile as a treat.

 

[Amethyst]

Other than at the box-chain restaurants, which I can only be dragged to for a work luncheon, I am not seeing the "huge restaurant portions" other people talk about.

On the rare occasions that we go to one of the better local restaurants, we are always amazed at the small size of the salmon steak or measly portion of shrimp, and the 3 asparagus spears or one broccoli floret on the side. We figure the restaurants are trying to encourage us to order more courses, so we won't go away hungry!

Amethyst

 

[Moemg]

I go out to eat once or twice a year. Have lately had a craving for a reuben sandwich, might get one from local eatery; they said I can order ahead and take it away.

I had a craving for Hot Pastrami ever since I moved from the Northeast and amazingly the cruise we went on in May had a deli that made great Hot Pastrami sandwiches . I was in heaven.

 

[DeborahB]

Other than at the box-chain restaurants, which I can only be dragged to for a work luncheon, I am not seeing the "huge restaurant portions" other people talk about.

On the rare occasions that we go to one of the better local restaurants, we are always amazed at the small size of the salmon steak or measly portion of shrimp, and the 3 asparagus spears or one broccoli floret on the side. We figure the restaurants are trying to encourage us to order more courses, so we won't go away hungry!

Amethyst

Well here in the midwest... there are very fancy restaurants with small portions, but mostly good restaurants with large portions. In fact it seems as though portion size is growing - maybe to maintain sales volume. As I understand it, the smallest part of the cost of a meal at a restaurant is the food itself. So bigger portions don't cost them much more and may buy return customers.

 

[Bikerdude]

We hardly ever eat at restaurants. I like to bake my own whole wheat bread and make brown rice, and other healthy foods and find restaurant food to generally be less healthy and less tasty. Our percentages are probably about 98 percent spent on groceries and 2 percent dining out.

+1. I eat out only when its unavoidable. Unless you spend considerable $$ or know a good local place you are basically getting a TV dinner (high in salt, fat, sugar and calories) cooked in a microwave by teenagers.

 

[Khan]

I mentioned a year or so ago I ordered a pizza; I'd forgotten how salty that stuff was. I was thirsty for two days.

 

[haha]

I had a craving for Hot Pastrami ever since I moved from the Northeast and amazingly the cruise we went on in May had a deli that made great Hot Pastrami sandwiches . I was in heaven.

I almost lost my mind when I first moved to LA from the east. Then I found Canter's, on Fairfax. I think they even imported waitresses from NYC. I am not sure that it is still the same, but it is still there anyway.

Ha

Canter's Deli - Los Angeles, CA, 90036 - Citysearch

 

[Spanky]

Eating out can cost less than groceries if you play your cards right, at least here where the restaurant business is quite competitive.

That's certainly true in Monterrey Park, CA where a typical Chinese entree costs less than $5. The competition is fierce as there are so many Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants.

 

[Finance Dave]

We eat out 2x/week, so from a frequency standpoint it's low. But from a $$ standpoint it's high, because we go to nicer restaurants when we go out.

I believe that if a person went to White Castles/Krystals or McDonalds every meal and only ordered from the value menu, they could probably eat out for LESS than grocery shopping.

The problem with doing that is that your health would likely suffer tremendously, which would cost you more in the long run.

We can afford to eat out, so we do it. But I agree with another poster above that the first thing we cut when the economy went down was our eating out. Cutting out one meal a week saves us about $180/month.

 

[W2R]

That's certainly true in Monterrey Park, CA where a typical Chinese entree costs less than $5. The competition is fierce as there are so many Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants.

The same is true here among most small family run neighborhood restaurants here, whether they are Chinese restaurants or Cajun/Creole restaurants that serve our local New Orleans food. At the latter we can split a shrimp po'boy for $4 each, or get a cup of seafood gumbo for $5. To get a full dinner will cost more but it is too much food.

Tonight for dinner we split a grilled chicken sandwich, made with freshly baked French bread, and with fresh lettuce and a slice of fresh, locally grown Creole tomato. It was $3.50 each.

But, we ordered iced tea instead of water so that plus the tip jacked up the price a little.

 

[Nords]

The problem with doing that is that your health would likely suffer tremendously, which would cost you more in the long run.

Or quite a bit less in the [-]cardiac[/-] short run...

 

[audreyh1]

Eating out for us is a priority. Well - only if there are places worth eating out, because we eat well at home too. It really depends whether we are in an area famous for good restaurants or not. I really enjoy being waited on by a good waiter as well as enjoying good food.

Our grocery bill goes up when we are somewhere with mediocre restaurants (and unfortunately there are large swathes of rural areas just like that). We'll fine dine at home, and I'll pay up for better ingredients when that happens.

We are already retired, therefore not trying to save for the future by economizing of food.

Audrey

 

[happy2bretired]

I mentioned a year or so ago I ordered a pizza; I'd forgotten how salty that stuff was. I was thirsty for two days.

Me too. I ran over to the grocery store deli last night for a couple slices of pizza. I haven't had any pizza for quite a while and boy were they salty. I ate the pizza with a big plain bunch of spinach trying to balance out some of that salt.

 

[HFWR]

Granted, I haven't done much "fine dining", but most of what I have done was more pretense than anything. A medallion of meat, a few sprigs of arugula, and a squirt of raspberry truffle reduction, and, viola, that'll be $50 (or more)...

Don't see the charm.

 

[audreyh1]

The same is true here among most small family run neighborhood restaurants here, whether they are Chinese restaurants or Cajun/Creole restaurants that serve our local New Orleans food. At the latter we can split a shrimp po'boy for $4 each, or get a cup of seafood gumbo for $5. To get a full dinner will cost more but it is too much food.

Tonight for dinner we split a grilled chicken sandwich, made with freshly baked French bread, and with fresh lettuce and a slice of fresh, locally grown Creole tomato. It was $3.50 each.

But, we ordered iced tea instead of water so that plus the tip jacked up the price a little.

Southern Louisiana is one of those areas we eat out a LOT. Even the humblest place seems to have great food. We extended one stay near Lafayette an extra week, even though the campground itself was marginal, just so we could revisit every single restaurant we had enjoyed the previous week. Yum!!!!

Audrey

 

[audreyh1]

Granted, I haven't done much "fine dining", but most of what I have done was more pretense than anything. A medallion of meat, a few sprigs of arugula, and a squirt of raspberry truffle reduction, and, viola, that'll be $50 (or more)...

Don't see the charm.

Yeah, you have to weed out the places that really do provide value. There are plenty of fine dining places that really do deliver in taste and quantity. Lots of pretenders out there though.....

Audrey

 

[kcowan]

According to the way they calculate this, if your food split 61/39 then for every dollar you spend on groceries, you would spend 0.63 dollars on food in restaurants and this is higher than the 0.54 average. It sounds like you are above average. And a way above the average for this group.

Perhaps I am reading this wrong; but to clarify, for every $ spent on "food" 39 cents for me is eating out while the average Albertan is at 54 cents so I'm quite abit lower than the average but higher than the average here. Alot of my socializing is over beer/wings + taking girls out so that is probably why.

OK then your numbers were wrong. Instead of a 61/39 split in spending, you have 1.0/1.39 = 72% groceries and 28% dining out (if you can call wings and beer dining). Not a big difference but what would we expect from accountingsucks!

My wife and I distinguish dining out from eating out. Dining out usually involves a medallion over aparagus spears with some wine, for example. Eating out means Applebees (or similar) with a bring home meal of leftovers. A meal for two is usually enough for four or more.

Does the amount spent on the portion that is brought home count towards dining in?

 

[Chester_A._Riley]

Quicken sez I had a ratio of 35% dining out to 65% groceries for the last 12 months.

 

[Ronnieboy]

Spanky, you're living "high on the hog" if you spend $100 to take the family of four out for dinner! DW and I go out at least twice a week, it never costs over $25 for the two of us. That includes the tip. We stay away from drinks and usually order iced tea. I guess it's our upbringing. The idea is to take a break from the kitchen, not seeing how much money one can spend. However, it's nice to see you take the family out and give mother a break.

$100? easy to do. Me and the 3 boys went out to Olive Garden for Father's Day and spent $80. No wine, but we did have lemonade or pop.