Cutting the Cost of Food — Eating Out

On Saturday I talked about cutting the cost of food by shopping wisely at grocery stores.  With that post going so long I decided to address eating out today.

Eating out was the main area that my wife and I were overspending when we first got married.  When both spouses are working it is very easy to just order food instead of coming home and cooking.  This is the reason that our eating out budget is still a large part of our overall food budget.  We did start to get smarter about the way we eat out.

The first idea people get is to eat out less.  This always works but it doesn't necessarily make life very much fun.  The reason I am frugal is so that I can do more fun things with my money.  So instead of eating out less we changed the way we eat out.  Instead of going and getting two meals many times we will order one entree and split it.  The size of meals now is so large that this can be done very easily.  If we do order separate meals we both try to leave half of whatever is ordered so we can take it home.  To me this is getting to eat out twice since I do not have to cook either time and it cuts the per meal cost of eating out.

We are not big coupon users when it comes to eating out.  Since up until recently there haven't been many coupons for good restaurants we have pretty much ignored the coupon side of things.  That being said we do use gift certificates frequently.  If you visit this blog frequently you will see me put deals up for restraunt.com.  I absolutely love this site.  You can log on anytime and purchase a $25 gift certificate for $10.  Most places will require you to spend around $35 to use the certificate.  Since we are not big eaters we have had to stretch what we order to fit this sometimes.  We usually come in within $2 of 35.  That being said, during a regular meal out we will spend around $35 after the tip.   When we dine with a restaurant.com gift certificate the price drops to around $27 out of pocket.  That is a 23% savings.  The real deal comes when restaurant.com runs a special.  You can end up paying as low as $4 for a $25 gift certificate.  When that happens I will buy $100 worth of gift certificates for $16.  You can use $25 at a time and the cost after tip for a nice dinner for two is about $20.

The big adjustment we made was not getting regular fast food.  Fast food is really expensive when you break it down.  So instead of picking something up at Subway or McDonald's we will get a pizza from Little Caesars.   This is a great deal because you get a large one topping for $5.  One pizza is enough for both of us for dinner and my wife's lunch the next day.  That breaks down to $1.67 per meal.  We also have a local restaurant that sells stromboli for $6.  One stromboli feeds both of us. By keeping your cost per meal down you can enjoy eating out a few more times each month without blowing the budget.