I used to eat out several times a week. If someone suggested it I was always down (unless it was near the end of the month and I’d run out of budget…). In January I did the Frugalwoods Uber Frugal Challenge where I severely cut down on eating out. I ended up only eating outside food twice for a total of $12.34: A friend lunch date at Chipotle (my suggestion 🙂 ) and a take out burger on 1/2 priced Wednesdays. Luckily this was the same month I started eating low-carb and as a result discovered that butter and cheese make anything delicious 🙂 .
When the frugal month experiment was over I went back to eating out, but quickly learned something: my enjoyment was a lot less than before. I’m not sure if that’s because cooking at home has now become delicious – usually more delicious than eating out – or because eating out is about 5x more expensive, but I wasn’t getting the same joy I used to. Less delicious + much more expensive isn’t an enjoyable combination. It is also more stressful than last year because I’m trying to stay under my calories until I lose another 14lb so I have to research what they have that fits within my calorie deficient and macros, then remember any substitutions I want to make and basically am not able to be my normal “happy go lucky” self :). Eating out – especially dinner, which is the go-to while a working woman, is difficult on a calorie deficient. Especially for a planner like me.
From another perspective, I haven’t bought an alcoholic drink outside the grocery store yet this year. SHOCKING I KNOW! We even went to a bar this past Friday with friends and I wasn’t feeling like drinking so I ordered water that looked like a gin and tonic. Everyone was fine with it – except my partner who knew the truth :). Basically no one cared. Besides not really feeling like drinking I couldn’t stomach paying $8 for a rum and diet coke that I can make at home for $0.75. Even $5 happy hour prices make me raise an eyebrow. It probably doesn’t help that I much prefer people’s homes and that cozy feeling over bars in general.
Overall I think this year is opening my eyes to new possibilities and ways I can enjoy myself for even less money. I think I’ll keep the eating out to a minimum until I:
1) Reach my goal weight and can let go of the calorie deficient
2) Find places that taste better than what I can do with butter and cheese 🙂
I’m going to keep my outside drinking low as well since it just doesn’t seem worth it to me. It’s fascinating to me that I’ve gone from talking about how eating out is one of my main vices on this blog two years ago to saying I don’t really want to eat out anymore. Let’s see what changes next!
I wanted to read this because I try to avoid eating out for 2 reasons: 1) I always feel let down and wasteful when the bill comes for my wife and I and I say, I paid $30+ for that! We could have done so many more fun things with that $. 2) I’ve started to see food as just a basic energy source. Why pay 5x the cost of the same energy source? For me, it ultimately boils down to: I have alot of big dreams I want to accomplish in life, and eating food isn’t even in the top 100. I’d rather save on my eating costs, so I can invest in accomplishing the dreams that really matter to me.
I’m with you on #1! And working on #2. Food is definitely fuel, but I also find it delicious and love to eat and try new foods. Eating food actually is in my top 5 dreams 🙂 . It’s really cool how people can differ on that stuff. Also this line is fantastic “I’d rather save on my eating costs, so I can invest in accomplishing the dreams that really matter to me.” Thank you for stopping by and sharing your perspective!