Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm married, and we've still found that eating out is cheaper. I cook at home because I enjoy it and because it's healthier for us, but...overall, it's cheaper to go out to eat.
Would you mind giving some details? I'm genuinely interested how that's possible.
Granted, we are a family of six, but we can't go out to eat for <$50, and that's with all of us getting water. It's usually more like $75+. This is at "typical" restaurants like Olive Garden, Golden Corral, Pizza Ranch, Chili's, etc...I'm not talking about fast food joints. My girls (3 of them) will usually take home leftovers and they'll have that for one other meal.
On the other hand, I made a huge batch of chicken parm the other night and that was probably $25 worth of ingredients (if that)...and it made leftovers for two days. For all of us!
Am I just really that frugal? I do make and can my own marinara sauce, other than that everything was off the shelf.
Things are tight here but I'm making due with a $150/wk food budget - for 4 people, two BIG males (one a teen) and two "not little" females. 12 meals a day, 7 days a week, plus snacks
Me too...one poster said ground beef for $2.99 a lb?? She either hasn't bought ground beef in some time or I want to know where she shops.
The 80%, which I don't buy because too much fat here in NJ is over $5 a pound unless on sale and it hardly ever goes on sale in the summer....burger season
That was me. I bought the "meatloaf mix" at a ShopRite in the Philly area about two months ago.
Gardens are great, but the vegetables they produce are definitely not free as any home gardener will attest!
I second that. It grows or it does not grow after you put a lot of money and effort into it.
Last night was short pasta, ham, mushrooms and salad - about $5/plate.
Tonight will be chicken salad with grapes/celery/pecans - about $5/plate.
Tomorrow will be filet mignon for SO and shrimp for me, salad, bread - about $25/plate.
Going out without wine would run in the area of 20 and 100$. Maybe I should charge overage on weekends.
Me too...one poster said ground beef for $2.99 a lb?? She either hasn't bought ground beef in some time or I want to know where she shops.
The 80%, which I don't buy because too much fat here in NJ is over $5 a pound unless on sale and it hardly ever goes on sale in the summer....burger season
Fry's (Kroger's) in Arizona has 93/7 ground beef on sale for $2.99/ lb in a 2# roll this week.
Last week, the local IGA had 80/20 ground beef on sale for $2.79/ lb in 3# packages, store ground.
Neither of those stores are as inexpensive as Winco Foods, but that is too far to go regularly.
Living in New Jersey or Hawaii or Alaska is a choice ...
Here in TX, I'm in the heart of "beef country" and it's rare to see 80% at less than $3.99/lb - which is what I can buy it for in 1 lb chubs at Aldi. Brookshire brothers had 2lbs for $2.99/lb just before the weekend of the 4th, but by the time I got there, they only had one package left.
Very little beef in our diets these days, with these prices
I know it would cost me at least $20 to make a plantain lasagna. Plantains in my area aren't cheap. Lasagna of any kind is not cheap to make. However, once it was made, I'd have 8 very generous portions of lasagna; bigger servings than you'd get in a typical restaurant.
When you cook at home, you do not make a $20 meal every night. You have to average the costs to see how you are doing.
Most of what I make at home is both better and less expensive than at a restaurant. A few things cost more like my pizza. But you can't compare my pizza to restaurant pizza; they aren't the same thing at all.
OP, you have to figure the cost of one serving and compare that to the restaurant price, not what it cost to make the whole thing.
Hmm, plantain lasagna? Well, what does it take to make one? Google to the rescue! Okay, here's a rough recipe and I'll put some rough estimated prices in front. Note, however, that these are Hawaii prices so they will be steeper than you're used to:
$5 - 1# ground beef
$2 - 1 green bell pepper
$1 - 1 onion
$2 - 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
$2 - 1/2 cup raisins
$1 - 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
$4 - 2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend (8 oz)
$1 - 2 eggs, beaten
$1 - 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
$3 - 4 ripe plantains, cut horizontally into long slices
1 cloves garlic
2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
2 teaspoons Adobo seasoning
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
The seasonings garlic, oregano, vinegar, etc., should already be in your cupboard and you don't use much so I didn't list anything for them. So, yeah, you can use over $20 to buy the ingredients for one recipe. BUT THE RECIPE IS SIX SERVINGS. So, each serving is roughly $3.50. And that's using inflated Hawaii food prices.
That's true, it was enough food for two days, but still it's not as cheap as people make it out to be. You will save a bit of money by eating at home, it's not like you're going to be saving thousands of dollars a year like some claim
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
