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i have to say i have eaten some pretty great food the last few weeks . i am on a consulting assignment out of town and as a perk i get an open ended food budget for meals when i travel for myself and my wife . .
every dinner meal the last 3 weeks has been eaten out in a restaurant . one more week to go and the eating fest winds down .
so far for dinner all the restaurants i have been to were far better than anything we can do at home . breakfast and lunches are nothing special but dinner has been pretty damn good every where i have been .
my wife goes with me and she loves it . no cooking to be done , beds to be made and no cleaning .
i am finishing up my tour of duty this week and then we are headed to a luxury resort for a few days on the way back home just to unwind from the frantic pace we have had the last 3 weeks . all meals are included and they have some pretty good chef's .
Last edited by mathjak107; 07-15-2017 at 06:11 PM..
Ordering out is definitely a waste of money which is why I decided to remove the UberEats app from my phone. They now have a $5.00 booking fee along with sales tax and delivery which is a extra $10.00 added to the amount of your food which is too much money.
It can be a waste of money if you don't budget properly. You need to live within your means. My wife and I eat out one to two times a week. I have over $50,000 of savings. You just need to see where you can save money and what budget you're working with.
When I was single, it wasn't that much more expensive to eat out than it was to cook at home for one. Cooking at home is only healthier if you're cooking from scratch, and cooking from scratch isn't very practical if you're cooking for one, especially if that one is a 115lb woman. I either had to eat the same thing for a week, or throw a bunch of stuff out.
I don't eat out much anymore because I'm married now, so we're cooking for two and my husband eats way more than I do, and he likes to cook. Plus, most restaurant meals are just large quantities of cheap ingredients slathered in fat to make things appealing to the majority of diners. When we do eat out, we tend to go to more upscale restaurants where we can get fresh vegetables creatively prepared as part of our meal. Nicer restaurants tend to serve smaller portions of higher quality food. That's how I ate when I was single, but it gets expensive with a spouse who needs 2-3x as much food and drink as I do!
I am a guy, so guess I fit your description of the 2-3x as much food. I also notice women in general tend to really dislike eating leftovers, whereas men tend to be more indifferent towards it. Not too sure why that is... but just an anecdotal.
I used to think the way you thought, but in actuality, it's way cheaper to cook at home for one, and the issue of leftovers isn't that bad. Eating leftovers every single meal for consecutive days is a sure way to hate cooking, even if the food is good.If you're looking at dinner, you cook things that you can freeze into single servings after making it, or doesn't suck being eaten as a leftover. I typically cook 4 servings for dinner, one is eaten that night, so there's 3 servings for later. Also what you can also do is sort of a compromise situation, eat out 1 meal a day.
For breakfast, I cook 3 servings, 1 to eat now, and 2 servings for the next 2 days. Typically breakfast meats aren't bad when reheated, and if you're reheating eggs, theyre best soft scrambled. For that particular meal, I make eggs however I feel like it, usually over easy.
If there is any meal of the day to prepare yourself, it's breakfast. No matter what the breakfast item, going out to eat breakfast bagels, hot cakes, eggs, meats, whatever is extremely expensive compared to the cost preparing yourself. I think a standard breakfast of a starch, meat, eggs probably costs less than $0.50 to make yourself and pretty simple to make, but restaurants probably charge $5-7 (YMMV depending on where you live of course). And fast food breakfasts such as mcdonalds, are extremely unhealthy (and still cost more).
I never send out for food and only now and then if out and about do I eat out or get a carry out from a cafe or restaurant, I find it a big extravagance but each to their own..
I met a woman recently who said she hardly eats out as its a massive waste of one's money regardless of enjoyment because she said you can cook it yourself at home for quarter the cost.
I disagree as I think it's an enjoyment just like anything else. I love eating out, love experiencing dishes cooked like I can never cook them or even care to spend the time and effort, experiencing the social aspect of it etc. I must've spent tens of thousands eating out in the last decade but enjoyed it greatly... why is this a waste of money?
I disagree with her as long as you can afford it. If you can't afford it no matter the enjoyment you get from it and/or how disagreeable it is to cook at home, it would be a huge waste of money. She is right in that regard--it is typically incredibly expensive to eat out (from my experience, compared to what you can get from a meal at home).
If however, you can afford to eat out a lot and it is far superior to cooking at home (like the thought of making a home-made meal is a real pain) then I don't agree that it is a waste of money since what you are buying is the enjoyment part of it (which is what we do when we spend money on hobbies, since many people who aren't into what you are personally into would find it to be a waste of money).
For me personally, I really don't care to go out to eat very much. I think it takes too much time since I can generally get a home-cooked meal prepared (on average, since I often have lots of left-overs) in a fraction of the time it would take me to eat out (at least at a sit-down place; though fast-food may take less time, I think it's still more expensive than eating meals at home). We generally only go out to eat on special occasions, when we're too tired or time-constrained to get something together at home and we don't have anything fast to prepare, or when we want a change in what we eat that we typically don't get at home.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rya96797
I also notice women in general tend to really dislike eating leftovers, whereas men tend to be more indifferent towards it.
I don't get how people don't like leftovers--it's a meal that's still edible! And it doesn't take as long to prepare as when you first made it!! The majority of my meals are from leftovers, or at least half (if you count the hot dogs, hamburgers and frozen pizza); I typically make a crock-pot dinner and have a week or so of leftovers. I'm a woman too. I'm just not sure how people survive without leftovers, to me that's just a huge expenditure of time and money for no good reason!
Quote:
Originally Posted by starla
When I was single, it wasn't that much more expensive to eat out than it was to cook at home for one. I either had to eat the same thing for a week, or throw a bunch of stuff out.
You can generally freeze part of what you made (actually I don't know of anything you can't freeze). What I used to do is make about three crock-pot dinners at the beginning of the month, and then switch out the left-overs in the freezer so I'm not eating the same thing for a week straight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by starla
I don't eat out much anymore because I'm married now, so we're cooking for two and my husband eats way more than I do, and he likes to cook. but it gets expensive with a spouse who needs 2-3x as much food and drink as I do!
I lucked out in the marriage department in that regard. My husband often eats less than I do (and I don't eat a whole lot). We also have quite different tastes for food, so what will often happen is that he'll make his own dinners and I'll make mine (he frequently eats only once a day too). When I make one of my crock-pot dinners, he'll often have a day or so of it but leave most of it for me.
Last edited by Basiliximab; 07-17-2017 at 05:07 AM..
If a person enjoys it, probably worth it. I don't and eat about zero times a year. It's maybe once every 2 years, usually fast food anyway so I spend $3 to $4.
If I'm going to eat, it's going to be quality. I'd rather spend $10 for 2 Culver's Double Deluxe Burgers than $6 for a value meal from McDonalds. Better yet.. just buy 5 pounds of low quality beef from wally world and grill it all up at once with applewood chunks on a Charcoal Grill.. no restaurant makes better burgers than I make at home.
I do eat out, mostly at buffets of which I have my favorites nailed down. What I don't do is spend $40 or more for a piece of steak at a high end restaurant. Law of diminishing returns. I can make as good at home for half or less the price and not have to deal with tipping, other people, etc.
Stuff like crab legs at casinos and other things I can't easily make myself I'll eat out, like indian food or whatever. Nothing super expensive. Most people on here make far more money than I, though. In general most forum people are millionaires.
I still believe in general, food and restaurants are much cheaper than spending money on expensive money and maintenance that come with it.
Recently i had to replace some windows trims and it costs me couple of grand, imaging how many good meals I can have with that?
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