Hello peeps! I (30M) am aggressively saving to buy a house. I have really reduced my overall spending, especially on clothes, concerts, Amazon, etc. The biggest line item right now is restaurants, I’m at like $400-500 right now but I’m trying to spend less.
Do you advise to just have that as my “frivolous” category or does anyone have advice on how to curb the desire to eat out? I feel it’s a dumb question but why not get someone else’s take.
How to eat out less as someone who enjoys the experience
byu/Confident_Rate2689 inFrugal
Posted by Confident_Rate2689
27 Comments
Do you live near any places that do coffee and cake? Just go for dessert or something?
Get into cooking! You still get to be a foodie but save tons of money and pick up a very useful skill set.
Or, get takeout at lunchtime to eat later at dinner time.
During the pandemic, I found a bunch of YouTube chefs and watched their videos. I learned a lot about things the pros do to make food taste good. I learned to make all my favorite restaurant dishes myself. Now I rarely eat out. I enjoy the food I make better than what I’m served. I don’t have to pay a lot, I don’t have to pay the restaurants’ employees (tip culture should die – if you won’t pay your employees then you don’t deserve to be in business), and if I forget to bring something to the table, I can jump up and get it before my food gets cold.
If I want to dine with others, I host a potluck and let everyone bring their favorite food. Since we’re not in a dumb restaurant with loud music, we can hear each other talk and actually have conversations.
Apply energy to learning how to cook decadent dishes, particularly if you do or would like to have a romantic partner one day. You will obtain the ability to provide delicious dishes, often in the same or less time than it would take you to get to the restaurant, await your meal, and return home.
In terms of potential future partners, you will also have a killer romantic skill. No matter the gender, being able to provide a delicious meal for a partner is always impressive and when dating, it can dramatically improve the frugality of dates. Not to mention, if you do it right, meal prep with a partner can be anything from a fun and wholesome exercise to a prolonged foreplay.
I highly recommend taking more time to make home cooked meals. It will end up saving you money. You can buy more in bulk to help save money as well.
I get enjoying eating out – is it social or convenience or variety of food or you like being served?
If it’s social, start having potlucks or invite friends for simple meals (fall is soup season!) If it’s variety, try new recipes at home. If you like being served, give yourself one night out a month at someplace middle grade or 2 nights out at a cheaper sit-down place. Convenience means you need to meal prep or be more prepared.
Where is your desire coming from?
If you like to enjoy diverse cuisines or just fine dining as art, maybe try to get into improving your own cooking, or buy fancy ingredients for a charcuterie board or something. If you use restaurants to socialize, invite your friends over to your place for dinner or organize a picnic at a park or explore different free events/museums/etc in your area. If you just don’t want to cook or do the dishes when you’re tired after a long day, stock up on frozen pizzas and bagged salads and maybe even paper plates.
Take pictures of your favorite restaurant meals. Make them at home.
By making ur own food at home? Unless ur so successful that ur getting more money per hour spent cooking or XYZ then u should just hire a chef or maid and earn money in the meantime because ur offsetting more then your earning. But then I suppose u wouldn’t be in this thread. So just cook for urself, it’s healthier, can be relaxing and a learning experience. U can also make it taste better then what they make in the greasy old mc grease restaurants.
Building on the great ideas so far, there are a couple of YouTube sheds that can bring you home cooking to a new level without being too hard. I like Brian Langerstrom as he has a few videos where he shows you what to buy for a workweek of lunches and dinner. Joshua Weissman has done many videos called just like fast food but better. Both fairly young and not showing fussy cooking techniques.
Two thoughts.
Allow yourself (assuming just you) one meal a week at with a $30 cap, including tip. Depending on your taste, decent meal.
Or, limit to once a month at up to $100. Pretty good meal for one.
This doesn’t deprive you totally but puts limits.
The other thing I’d ask is why do you like eating out? The varied cuisine? The ease and convenience? The overall experience and ambience? The social aspect? If you can figure that out, you’ll be able to devise some strategies to meet that at home
Yeah. you have to adjust.. sucks to be you.
* I cook the foods I love to eat
* to lazy to cook
* no time to cook
* can’t cook the ones I want to eat.
* spend
I went throug this sometime last year or mabye a year a go – been a while (300 a week on takeaways/restaurants).. now it’s a mindset – -do you want the money in your pocket or indulge (cant’ give you that answer. I break patterns but at least i’m not spending 300 a week.
this year it’s the smokes.. $110 per week per packet. Trying to extend it to 3 weeks or at least one month.. better if I quit but meh you now the rest of the story.
In all honesty, learn to cook. It’s healthier and a lot cheaper.
If by ‘restaurant’ what really you mean is a fast food joint, then you can probably drop your food expenses by at least 50% to 60%.
Limit how often you can eat out. Whether that is once a week, twice a month, or once a month. That way you should be able to increase your saving without giving it up entirely. Might even tie it to being a reward for meeting specific goals.
Start a dining circle. Six friends willing to throw a dinner party. A dinner for six can be cheaper than a night out. And just as satisfying. And most of the time you are eating free (when its not your turn to host)
I’ve been thinking about starting a dinner club where we all share meals at each other’s houses
Keep a diary of all meals out — super simple by just taking a picture.
If you have a cocktail/alcohol, consider only one or none.
Consider portion sizes by sharing or skipping an appetizer, splitting a main course, ordering side dishes.
Skip dessert at the restaurant and have something at home.
How I stop eating out so much is when I had a job and I had to go into the kitchens to review them. The dining rooms were clean and the kitchens were nasty as hell. I started saving so much money making my own lunch and not going out to dinner.
Depending on the weather were you live, picnics in parks or even on your lawn can be fun.
Take a month to appreciate how much you *are* saving with the other efforts.
Then look at the budget and decide if the testing out total is reasonable, and if the overall category of ‘fun’ needs to be increased to have storage for other things, and if so did that man the food portion needs to drop.
We started saving by meal prepping. For the few restaurants that are worth spending money on, we’ve just been going to lunch instead of dinner. Same food, 25% cheaper. And my husband doesn’t get alcohol when we’re out. It is WILD how much money we saved.
I would eat McDonalds on the way to dinner, then just get an appetizer at the restaurant. Saves money, still get the experience.
You are not going to go from spending $500 a month to eating at home like these people are suggesting. You need baby steps. A $250 a month bill is better than then $4-500
When I tightened my belt, I limited to only one streaming service, eat out only one meal mon-Fri and one on the weekend (I don’t know why I separated it think it feels more like a joy or something to look forward to, I know silly). No amazon shopping this was a toughy, paid most everything I could with cash. I will say once you get into the groove of food shopping and cooking/meal prepping at home it’ll feel like huge accomplishment at least for me it did. You’d e surprised how much money you’ll save
Learning to cook is vital to this. Learn a new recipe, try it out, have fun with it.
Picnics are also a great idea. You still get out of the house and have a special event.
Pot luck dinners can be fun too.
Picnics! Lots of great places to go
No more restaurants. Learn to cook even if you hate it.
I was skimming the comments and it looks like you go out every week? Can you do it maybe every other week and then treat yourself to something less expensive on the weeks you don’t go out for a meal? Like second Saturdays are reserved for friends and a new restaurant but third Saturdays are for baking a cake at home and sharing it with someone you love?