Dining Out – How To Spend Less?

Our Dining Out Expenses Are Too High

My friend NCN, from No Credit Needed, recently posted this question:

“What One Area Of Your Personal Finance Management Would You Like To Improve?“

For me, that would be being able to better control our dining out expenses. It’s the one category in our budget that I consistently have trouble controlling. It’s always way too high. Mrs. PT and I spend on average $400 a month on dining out or take home meals. Plus, we spend another $300 on groceries for eating at home. Ridiculous, I know.

Why We Dine Out So Much (my petty excuses)

It’s just the two of us right now (no kids), and we both work full-time. It’s easier, after a long day at work, to just pick something up on our way home or to meet somewhere for a nice meal versus cooking something and cleaning up. After all, no one has been at home all day preparing something. We do this once or twice a week during the week and another two or three times on the weekend.

Another reason we dine out a lot is because of our friends. Having a meal together is probably the #1 way we socialize with the friends we have. Lastly, I’m lazy and don’t usually bag a lunch for every day of the week. While these lunches are usually around $7, it adds up to a considerable amount over a month.

Ways We Try and Control Our Dining Out Spending

Budget and Withdraw Cash – I do have a budget in place. I am using a modified budget system which actually targets this expense. I shared this new method earlier this month. To attempt to stay within our budget we withdraw cash every two weeks and tell ourselves this is the only amount we can spend. We always seem to need more though.
Use Coupons- We use an awful lot of coupons when dining out. We usually find these in the mail, online, or coupon books. This past weekend we had a free pizza from a local restaurant. It was a nice meal for the price of the tip, and I had enough left over for a lunch this week.
Split Meals- With the exception of a few restaurants, when Mrs. PT and I are dining out we usually split a main course. This is becoming easier and easier as portion sizes get bigger at restaurants. Here in Texas we also eat a lot of Tex Mex so the free chips and salsa allow us to fill up quicker on one meal.
Maximize the Free Lunch – No less than once a week, my boss likes to head out for a business lunch with our team. This meal is usually picked up by my boss, so I never miss one of these.

What More Could We Do?

Even though we do use some controlling measures, it still seems like we spend too much dining out. Do you think we spend too much? Do you know of something else we could be doing to motivate us to spend less, or will this always be an area we could improve? Leave your comment below.

Other Thoughts

My Open Wallet
Get Rich Slowly
Gather Little By Little
Forbes

Photo: by moriza

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steve

As an addendum to my above comment:

I have carefully cultivated an attitude that is best summarized by the sentence, "Eating is what I do at *home*."

Repeating that to myself like a mantrum helped me switch my habits around a lot, and helped me resist going out to buy lunch at work on days when I had failed to pack one. On those occasions, I just repeated that thought in my head and waited until the day ended, then had dinner at the house.

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1) One thing I do it to make a double sized recipe or two over the weekend and then put the extra in the fridge. You can even put it in individual lunch-sized containers.

Then when I'm leaving in the morning, I just grab my canvas lunch bag and put in the container, a heel of bread or two, a piece of fruit, and maybe a mason jar of milk (if I'm out of milk at my company's fridge--I use the milk for tea I make during the day. Which is economic defense strategy #1 for me: "always have a snack and a drink available for breaks at work so you don't end up at the local coffee cafe")

2) I keep 2 tins of sardines (in hot sauce or mustard sauce) in my lunch bag and one in by backpack at all times. If things get really desperate, I can always go in the back room and wolf one of those down and follow it with a glass of filtered water.

(As you may be beginning to surmise, I am gonzo about avoiding spending money out of the house for food)

3) Over time, I have redefined my needs for lunch at work, and am willing to just eat a little (small bowl of soup and some bread) or go without and just have an extra cup of tea or cocoa (made from that mason jar of milk I keep at work) for the "break factor" and am willing to go a little "empty" in my stomach during the day. I realized it wasn't a disaster if I felt a sensation of hunger, and I can wait until I get home to eat. Mind you, this is a recent development, just since this summer.

Since learning to reframe the sensation of mild hunger and realizing that it wasn't an immediate threat to my survival (actual starvation takes between 10 and 14 days, as a matter of fact--a fact that helped me in reframing this) and defer eating when appropriate or convenient, I have also lost an entire waist size and can now fit in the clothes I wore when I was 25 (I am 40).

This has been a gradual evolution for me, but grocery costs that used to be around $220 per month are now slightly below $100 a month just for me. I have largely eliminated eating out, and it's down to less than once a month now. There are people who spend even less, between 50 and 75 dollars, which I would regard as a bottom limit for what you can spend on food.(If you're interested in how, check out Early Retirement Extreme).

ciao

Damsel - That's a great idea. We have a crockpot but don't use it for anything but queso.

I've heard a lot about this "all day" method. We need to try it. Thanks for the tip.

Damsel

Get a slow-cooker and start reading recipes. I work full-time outside the home. I am the main dinner-cooker in our house, and I absolutely would not survive without my beloved crock pot. I love that I can dump stuff in before I leave (even some things that are still frozen) and walk in the house at the end of the day to a meal that is 90% finished. I'm not joking when I say that I use it 3-4 nights a week!

Best of all, the cuts of meat that do best in the slow-cooker are the cheap ones! It's difficult to cook in small portions, but most leftovers freeze well. I freeze them into individual portions and take them for lunch.