How many nights do you eat out in a week

[Car-Guy]

At least twice a week, often more.

 

[EastWest Gal]

DH went out after band rehearsal weekly before pre-pandemic. He's back to that pattern. We rarely went out the last few years as a couple. Sous vide ruined our enjoyment of steakhouses. I cook better Indian than a local Indian restaurant, less salt and more flavor.

We did Indian food takeout a couple of months ago and were SO disappointed.

 

[Dtail]

We order in or eat out dinner usually 3x weekly.
Eat lunch out around 1x weekly.

 

[NW-Bound]

Occasionally, I like to go out to eat if I suddenly crave some dishes.

Most of the time, we cook whatever we like to eat, because cooking is part of the fun. With the Web, one can learn to make any dishes.

This reminds me that I need to make another try at Adana Kebab. My 1st try a couple of weeks ago was a disaster. This time, I am going to cheat by mixing in a bit of flour to make the meat stick together better. Additionally, I will just use flour tortilla, rather than getting the genuine lavash bread, which is tricky to handle.

 

[euro]

zero for us - takeout maybe once a month.

 

[brett]

Since returning home early from Mexico in late March 2020 we have eaten out once. We have done 5 or 6 take outs.

Restaurants are opening this week where we live so we now have a list of where we want to go.

Pre covid we traveled four or five months a year. Always eating out. So we tended not to eat out very much at home. When we did it was either Thai or Italian.

In normal times, perhaps twice every three weeks.

 

[Walt34]

Zero dinners in years. I've been to one lunch in the last year and a half and that was last month.

However, since our 33rd wedding anniversary is later this month, I have been informed in no uncertain terms that we are going out for a steak dinner then.

 

[Ronstar]

In the past year and a half we’ve been out to dinner twice.

About the same here. Maybe 4-5 times in the last 1.5 years at most. We do eat out lunch more. Maybe once a month.

 

[Golden sunsets]

Prepandemic, perhaps 2xmo, mostly lunches. Since the beginning of June, 3 x week, more dinners with friends, which translates to a much higher cost/outing. Looking at our June bills, we blew our prepandemic spending out of the water..... finally back.

 

[Montecfo]

2-3X per week.

 

[QuinnB]

Throughout most of last year and early this year, zero.

Since getting the jab, maybe twice a week, quite often as drive through fast food though.

Otherwise, once every other week as actual sit down meal in a restaurant.

 

[Nick12]

Zero for dinners and our dinners are light. On occasion go out to lunch which is our big meal.

 

[audreyh1]

Food is so good at home. We have great nearby suppliers of fresh seafood, meat, veggies. We splurge on the best ingredients. Meals are almost entirely made from scratch. Very wide variety of recipes, even some ethnic.

It’s simply gotten to the point where restaurants aren’t as good as what we make at home, and we also know exactly what is in our food.

 

[Sue J]

Once a week.

Every Friday our older son comes over and we get takeout for dinner. It's usually pizza or Mexican or Mediterranean or burgers or Chinese. We try to order from local places rather than chain restaurants. I cook all week so this is a nice break and the portions are so large that we usually have leftovers on the weekend.

 

[Rambler]

I’ve always been a pretty good cook, and started cooking more often after FIRE, since DW took the bulk of everything home related while I was working and globetrotting. But, we ate out once or twice a week, depending on what was going on. During Covid, we tried to get takeout once in a while to help keep the economy going, but it wasn’t the same, and I ended up cooking even more. I learned how to dry age my own steaks, cure and smoke bacon, perfected my rib technique, learned how to Sous vide, and DW worked on her baking skills. Now DW won’t even bother ordering a meat dish if we eat out, since what I cook at home is most often better than any restaurant (locally anyway). And her bread is fantastic. We’ve begun to travel a bit more, so of necessity we are eating out a bit more. On top of that, I’m getting bored and find that I want a break a couple times a week. When we go out at home, though, it is usually for lunch, and then we’ll skip dinner or have a bowl of cereal instead.

 

[qwerty3656]

2-3 times per week

 

[rk911]

Vs. cooking? I’m really trying to cut back on eating out.

if you count take-out and eat at home 2-3 times per week.

 

[old medic]

We eat out quite often.... more than we should, but we can afford it now. Most often its because we are at work. Vary rare its fast food drive through... but do enjoy a good time going out a time or two a week. I also will buy groceries and cook a meal for the crew at work.

 

[aaronc879]

I usually never eat out but if I could reasonably afford it I would eat out daily. Only you can decide what you can afford and what your priorities are. It's perfectly fine if you want to eat out several times a week if it's affordable and is important to you.

 

[Amethyst]

Almost never. Eating out, with tax and tip added on, is a terrible money suck.

Recently, Uber Eats offered us a $30 discount to try the service. One problem is that most restaurants deem where we live "too far to deliver" (we're 7-8 miles from most of them), so choices are limited. But even food we like, and even with $30 off, seemed like no bargain once it was spread out on our plates. All I could think was, "I'd have used lots more vegetables, and this is really salty."

 

[ocean view]

Zero. Maybe 1 per month.

 

[jollystomper]

Including lunches and dinners, we eat non-home-cooked-by-us food (eat at restaurant, or takeout, or social occaisions) 2-4 times a week.

This includes picking up lunches at the local senior support center. Some of the items they cook are pretty good, and they sometimes use a food truck company to provide the lunch. Cost is a donation of what you can afford. We do donate and feel a little guilty - we do not need the meal but there are seniors for whom this might be the best meal of the day - but the center folks encourage us to participate, as they have to cancel the meal if not enough people sign up.

For almost all of the takeout/restaurant dinners, a single serving is the equivalent of 2 (for DW sometimes 3) meals, in full or in part (e.g. augment leftover portions of the meal with healthy home cooked stuff).

When we cook it is usually enough to last for 2-3 days (that does depend on whether any of our kids - sometimes with a friend or 2 in tow - stop by ). So even on weeks when we do not get any outside meals, we are only cooking 2 or 3 days and eating leftovers on the other days.

 

[Scuba]

Pre-COVID, we ate out 4-6 times a week, usually 2-3 lunches and 2-3 dinners. Almost never fast food. However, post-COVID, we haven’t eaten out nearly as often due to a combination of factors:
- Staff has almost completely turned over since COVID and we have found that some places just aren’t as good as they used to be
- Some of our favorites are still closed
- Labor and food costs have increased considerably, so a moderate dinner out with one or two cocktails each is now well over $100. Much more if it’s a fine dining restaurant. It doesn’t seem worth it to pay that much for just a typical meal out at a moderate non-chain restaurant.
- We are trying to lose our 2020 and 2021 extra pounds and cooking at home is best for that. Plus, I enjoy cooking.

As people start socializing again regularly, we will probably have more meals out again, but as much as I used to enjoy the experience of eating out, I’m not in a hurry to get back out there until restaurants are able to hire and train adequate staff.

 

[sturbridge]

0 for me. The good restaurants are gone for the most part. I'm a pretty good cook with a veg/herb garden for fresh ingredients and a vegetarian spouse. I do go out when meeting friends and I'm often disappointed with either the quality or the price.

 

[Nick12]

Our neighbor and his family go out to eat in restaurants three meals a day for the last 20 years. I estimated my neighbor has spent over $240K in just eating out.