Eating out budget.

[LexTysMommy]

I was wondering how you all budget money or spend money going out to eat a month.
Do you have a set amount that you try to spend under? if so, what is it and for how many people?
Or do you have set amount of days that you can eat out? Do you keep track of this?


Just curious because I find that doing daycare from my home I love to go out to eat! I think to get out of house, and not do the cooking! But I kept track last month and it was pretty big expense. Wanted to get system in tact for this but looking for ideas.

Thanks!

[thrifty gal]

We used to eat out a lot. But, since having to become much tighter, we only eat out once a week, and budget $15 per week. We are grocery shopping on Fridays, so we are gone all day, and really hungry. lol If not for this, we wouldn't eat out at all.

[JustJoy]

No budget here. It's very rare for us to eat out.

[PB&J]

We get take out once a week, on Fridays. Usually pizza, last week it was KFC. I try to keep it less than $25.

[Darlene]

I too love going out to eat sometimes but by making it breakfast or lunch and free drinking water keeps cost down. Keep your eyes peeled for coupons, sometimes kids eat for free of someone gets free entree etc.

[IntlMom]

I love to eat out, but we really try to limit it to once a week or every other week. We budget 75 to 100 a month.

[mikandmari]

I love to eat out for the same reason as you, to get out of the house... especially in the wintertime when I can't even use my deck or porch.

So we cut out all but the cheapest places... there is a nice little family restaurant/bar near us with a cheap happy hour. Cheese pizza & fries & a pitcher of domestic beer is just $20, plenty for me & my husband.

Another trick is to eat a light supper, then later in the evening (especially on weekends) go out for an appetizer & a drink, or just dessert. We still get the one-on-one face time with none of the distractions of home, but it costs very little. The waiters/waitresses don't mind because the night is winding down, and the no one else is waiting for the table!

Of course, I don't know if you have small kids... that would mean different strategies. Another trick I like is to go out for breakfast on the weekends, it's so much cheaper than lunch or dinner!

So I budget $50/month, but since I 'turned tightwad ' I haven't gone that high.

[ChristineLynne]

Our biggest budget buster has been eating out. Usually it's either because I'm stressed out and don't want to cook (and more importantly, CLEAN!), or because my husband is stressed from work and he likes to eat out to unwind.

So now I try to keep Lean Pockets and whatnot around, so I don't have to cook on those tough nights, and we limit our restaurant visits. Right now I have $100/month in the budget for fun stuff like eating out and movies.

[Amanda W]

We used to get fast food dinners around three times a week, but now we've got it down to once a week or less. We typically go out to a nice sit down restaurant once a month or so. We budget $75 per month.

[Its_Donna]

We budget $80.00 a month right now (40.00 every 2 weeks) for our Entertainment. That includes eating out, movie rentals, ice cream, etc - thats our entertainment fund. We have been very good about staying on budget...we still have $28 from last pay period; hubby and I had one date night within last 2 weeks and we went out to eat. Tomorrow we are going to the Flea Market and out to eat with our entertainment budget.

It's easy to stick with it once you get used to doing it....and using a cash envelope system makes it even easier.

[itsahumanzoo]

We try not to eat out more than once a week, but I think e've already eaten out 3 times this month. And we're going out tonight because I'm off work for once, and it's friday night. But we usually spend under $20 at this local mexican restaurant that we always go to.

[frugalandsimple]

I rarely go out to eat. I rather spend $10.00-20.00 on a book or CD than a plate of food. I also prefer to eat a home-cooked meal, including desserts.

[Early Bird]

We budget $100/mon, but we usually exceed that. For the 4 of us to go to our local Mexican place runs $45-$50.

[peanut]

We don't have a recreation budget. It all comes from our allowances. We each get $80/mth. and from that we save money, put it towards our hobbies, and cover any dining out costs.

That makes it sound like we don't do much eating out, but we actually do a fair bit. We just don't go out for meals. We go for tea and coffee, or for dessert and tea, or for ice-cream. Ice-cream for the two of us is under $10. Dessert and tea runs a max. of $16 at our favourite stop.

We make a point of finding nice affordable places to eat out. We aren't always running to the DQ. There's a nice upscale ice-cream store not far from us. Plus we know certain restaurants where we can buy a nice cheap breakfast or lunch for two for under $15. It's really not that hard to do, but you do have to keep your eyes and ears open and talk to people about different places to see what's suitable for you.

Things we rarely do are order in pizza (really expensive for low health value, and we like my homemade better) and Chinese food. While the Chinese food is cheap (again it's under $15 for the two of us), it often has soy on or in it that I cannot eat. Course, the benefit of Chinese food is there is often so much of it, we get 2 meals for the price of one.

Jean

[Neeley]

We eat out (a mixture of breakfast, lunch and dinner) between 4-5 times a week. We normally spend anywhere from $75-$100 a week - four adult meals. Our kids have not eaten off of a kid's menu since they were 7 or 8.

DH keeps track of all the money we spend and where we spend it on his MSN Money - he knows the exact amount. I don't ask because I hate the family MSN Money discussions with him - BORING!!!