how often do you eat out?

[Bensmom]

poll on the way...

[eternalknot]

poll on the way...

 

Short answer, while I await poll: VERY.

 

ETA:

We have five kids in different sports, so there are 2 spring months and 2 fall months that are crazy hectic. We eat out at least once daily (in addition to my weekday Starbucks habit) during those months because we're running from one activity to another so even pre-packing things can be tricky since we'll be gone for 4-6 hours at a time. That and the prep work is the same, having dishes to clean up is the same, and frankly - during those months, the driving around and sitting and watching is just tiring in its own right LOL. We don't do much fast food, other than Chipotle {yum!} but we'll do a daily Sonic drive-thru for a snack of shakes or tots {yum}. We're vegetarian -and I hate Taco Bell!- so we're limited when it comes to fast food restaurants. We almost always do sit-down. We come together as an extended family most of the time, so we're still getting the family dining experience :) just someone else gets to cook and clean up.

 

Our other extracurriculars run year-round but can be more easily planned around, so we do eat home more - especially dinner. But going out for lunch really breaks up our school day in a nice, needed way and we love meeting up with my dad, brothers, and others on their lunch breaks. I'd say during those weeks we eat out 2-4 times per week for lunch, plus another 1-3 times per week for dinner. That'd average out to roughly once per day, but sometimes it's twice in a single day.

 

What may be unique about our situation is that my family has been in the restaurant business forever. We have family and friends who still own restaurants, so eating out is more than just practical ... it's social and networking and visiting, too. We do unofficial bartering for meals out, picking up kids on my son's baseball team and dropping them off at the family restaurant and staying for dinner; babysitting toddlers and being brought take-out when the children are picked up; tutoring kids at their family's restaurant and being fed while there :D ... we get good food that'd be the same stuff I'd cook at home, if I felt like it LOL.

 

I live with extended family, and we take turns taking care of dinner. Some of our eating out is also that person's treat so they don't have to cook ;) so lots of factors, but we do eat out very often - both meals and snacks/tea/coffee. At least once daily, usually more. That's how I voted.

Edited March 20, 2012 by eternalknot

[Chris in VA]

Not often, unless you count grabbing lunch while I'm working.

I took your poll to mean going out for dinner.

[Lily_Grace]

We eat out on Thursdays. It doesn't make sense for us to come home between activities when there's only an hour between mine and The Kid's and dh goes to his in the middle of that. Given the limited option of fast food we're all pretty sick of it, though. This week the plan is to swing by the grocery store for some easy meal food and go to the park for a picnic.

[Mynyel]

I said monthish. Barring the trip we took the first two weeks of March, we hadn't eaten out at all in Feb. We ate out 3 times in Jan. We aren't eating out the rest of March and hopefully April. So about once a month or so. :)

[DawnM]

It just depends.

 

First of all, do you mean meals only? We go out for coffee and a snack with homeschool friends more often than we eat meals out.

 

We eat out maybe once per week. SOmetimes more, sometimes less. This last week we ate out 3 times, but that is rare. It is usually less.

 

Dh's work pays for him to eat out once per day during busy season, but that isn't out of our pocket!

[KS_]

I said about once a month. Dh eats out often for business lunches and just because it's easier when he's at work, but as a family, it's not that often. There are very few places I like enough to spend the money - I can make most things I like better and cheaper at home.

[frugalmama]

We eat out very rarely unless I have a coupon to make it free or nearly free.

[Susan in TN]

About 3 or 4 times per month - I'm going by the family as a whole, although dh is more likely to eat out more often for a business lunch or to grab something for lunch when he doesn't have time to make himself a lunch to bring to work - I didn't count that (that would be about 2x per week). I am counting take-out food though (Chinese, pizza).

 

Because of our schedule this year, we're eating out more often on Tues. because we don't have time to go home to eat dinner between activities. Sometimes I'll bring a picnic dinner along, but about every other week we'll stop for some fast food.

 

About 3 or 4 times per year we'll eat out at a "sit-down" family restaurant for a special occassion.

[G5052]

We usually grab Chick-Fil-A or Subway on Saturday or Sunday as a treat, but a sit-down, everyone meal is much less frequent. Maybe once every other month or so?

[LaxMom]

Once a monthish. It would be less than that, but we've been taking advantage of the monthly "Parents' Night Out" at the Y, and we go out to dinner while the kids are there.

[Dmmetler]

A few times a week, but usually things grabbed out because of dance/gymnastics schedules. McAllisters, for example, will be dinner tonight, as it is almost every Tuesday, because kids eat free and because it works well before going to the dance studio for class/rehearsal.

[*********]

Kinda depends on what you mean by 'eat out'. Does that mean any meal that was prepared by a restaurant? We get take-out pizza once or twice a month. Fast food like McD's or Taco Bell is VERY rare. Taking all of us out to a sit down restaurant is a few times a year. I voted once a monthish.

 

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

[Jenny in Florida]

I voted once a month-ish, but that was kind of an average.

 

At the moment, we're on a stricter-than-usual budget, for a variety of reasons. So, we're not eating out for full meals pretty much ever.

 

My husband, though, does buy lunch a work a couple of times a week.

 

And maybe once every few weeks I might grab my son an order of fries from a drive through if we don't have time to get home in between rehearsals and I didn't plan ahead and pack anything.

[QueenCat]

Dinner- once with the whole family, once just me with friends

Lunch- usually once, possibly twice

 

The above does not count Starbucks/coffee shop for a snack w/a friend. The above is "average", sometimes it's more, rarely less. Almost always "sit down" restaurants, not fast food.

[Cinder]

We average a weekly eat out or take out meal.

[nukeswife]

I voted a couple times a week.

My dd has vision therapy every Monday from 10-11 am, we always go for a Mom and Me lunch after that (she looks forward to it every week because there are places we like that her brothers don't) Then later that day my youngest has gymnastics from 5-6pm, so I take him for Mom and Me dinner that night on the way home. The other kids like this because they get to stay home and make something simple for themselves.

 

Wednesdays is bowling day and we always go to Texas Roadhouse or Olive Garden on the way home for a nice family dinner.

 

Those are definite eat out times during every week, now many weeks there are more because we'll catch lunch out on the weekends or order a pizza or I'll take my oldest for a Mom and Me meal on a day he'd like to go with me running errands.

[DawnM]

Yes and no.

 

We just have a set amount we are willing to spend per month on eating out, when it is gone, it is gone.

 

We try to eat out frugally. Our local sit down (TGIFridays type place) had a deal on Leap Day to buy $50 gift cards for $29. We bought 4 and will use them at least 4 times to eat there.

 

I got $120 worth of Gift Cards to Boston Market for $60 from Saveology. Last week I had a coupon for BOGO meal at Boston Market. We got two large individual meals and the 4 of us (dh wasn't there) split it.

 

So, between, getting the gift cards for 50% off and getting the meals at another 50% off, we got enough to feed four of us for $4.25, 75% off.

 

That is how we eat out!

 

Kinda depends on what you mean by 'eat out'. Does that mean any meal that was prepared by a restaurant? We get take-out pizza once or twice a month. Fast food like McD's or Taco Bell is VERY rare. Taking all of us out to a sit down restaurant is a few times a year. I voted once a monthish.

 

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

[KS_]

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

 

That's totally how I feel, and it gets to dh sometimes. He likes going out and if it were up to him, we'd eat out more. But I can't help think of the cost, where the money is going to come from (something else has to be cut to pay for it), and it makes it difficult for me to relax and enjoy it. Plus if the food isn't really good, it makes the experience that much worse - I know I could have done a much better job.

[amyable]

I voted less than once a month, but it's more complicated than that.

 

*Maybe* twice a year dh and I go out and eat a meal out together, as a date. We almost never take the family with us due to multiple kids with multiple anaphylactic food allergies. :glare:

 

Maybe once every three weeks or so we bring in food from Subway or a pizza (where I still have to cook because of a dd with dairy allergy). Maybe once or twice a month we'll feed the kids dinner and go on a "home date" where dh will bring in food from a slightly-better-than-fast-food place like Chilis. :) Occasionally I'll be in a bad mood on the same day that I accidentally don't make enough food for all of us, and I'll skip dinner to get my secret vice: a big mac and fries. :lol:

 

So like other PP said, it depends on what you mean by eat out. :) I guess it evens out to once every two weeks or a little less often we are eating food I didn't cook.

[danybug]

We eat out a lot. It is a luxury my dh affords me, since I do not really enjoy planning and cooking meals. I would say the average is probably 3 times a week. But that also depends on what you are counting. The two days dh has off each week we will go out to both breakfast and lunch sometimes. But dinners I would say two times a week and then maybe one ordering in.

 

And I am assuming the poll does not count my 5-6 times a week Starbucks habit ;)

[Jenny in Florida]

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

 

Absolutely!

 

In the old days, when we were both working and had no kids, eating dinner out a few times a week was simply a given, and I loved it.

 

Nowadays, though, I'm always doing to math in my head. My son has gotten extremely tired of me going through the calculations with him any time I hit the drive through for an order of fries for him.

[Heather in Neverland]

Dh and I go out to lunch together nearly every day at the restaurant across the street. We eat out as a family for dinner maybe once a week.

[Krista in LA]

When dh is traveling for work, we tend to eat out quite a bit but order things like Chinese or pizza so there's leftovers to last us a few days. My kids are picky and I hate cooking for just them - it would be macaroni and cheese every night. When dh is home, we eat out on Boy Scout meeting night and probably once more on the weekend.

[Heather in Neverland]

.

 

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

 

well, here it is actually far cheaper to eat out than it is to cook at home so I end up feeling MORE guilty on the nights that I cook "American" meals at home because of the expense!

[KirstenH]

Way too often. Every time DH stresses about money, I point out that we have a good $500 or so a month we could probably cut from the budget just by NOT eating out, and that's not even counting the gas it takes to get there and back (we live almost ten miles from town). Ugh, we really have to work on this.

[kokotg]

We do chick-fil-A once a week right now because we have a crazy schedule of kid activities on Wednesdays that keeps us out from 4 to 9 in the evenings....but an actual restaurant we might do once or twice a month. Used to be more, but then we all cut out gluten, which makes it more complicated to eat out....and it also means we're spending more on groceries, leaving less money for restaurants.

[Night Elf]

Twice a week. DH and I have a dinner out alone on Tuesday nights, our WW weigh-in days. :D And then on Friday or Saturday, we bring in for the whole family.

[SKL]

Depends what you mean by "out." Like yesterday, I picked up oatmeal at the McDonald's drive-through for the kids to eat in the car on the way to swimming. Tomorrow they will scarf some snack in the car on the way to the museum. When weather allows, we have a picnic at the park rather than eat at home. In addition, we usually pay to eat at an indoor table away from home about 2x per week, give or take.

[Amy in NH]

Kinda depends on what you mean by 'eat out'. Does that mean any meal that was prepared by a restaurant? We get take-out pizza once or twice a month. Fast food like McD's or Taco Bell is VERY rare. Taking all of us out to a sit down restaurant is a few times a year. I voted once a monthish.

 

I wonder if others feel as conflicted about eating out as I do. It's such a nice break to not be responsilbe for the occasional meal. But then I always think of the wasted money, and how much less expensive the meal would've been had I made it myself. :tongue_smilie:

 

:iagree:

[HappyCrazyMama]

Well we live 70 miles from a real restaurant, so we do that once a year or less. We can get burgers and fries (not from a chain fast food place but mom and pop type) that happens a couple of times a year and really we can't afford it. Whenever we go out to eat I'm always thinking about how much food I could of bought with that money.;) Not that I wouldn't like to eat out more though.:D

 

ETA- I just remembered we can get take and bake pizza at the local coffee shop, we've done that once.:)

[desertmum]

Every Friday we go out for Friday Brunch and pool (Friday here is like Sunday -church day). The children get to play together and we grown up exchange gossip and news. At some point during the week we go for a grilled Lebanese dinner. Yes, I can grill something at home but it doesn't come out the same, and our little town in the UK doesn't feature a single Lebanese restaurant so...

[plath]

Once every two weeks if you count take-out like pizza. Less often than monthly if you just mean a sit-down dinner in a restaurant. If you count just take-out coffee, then weekly though :) (and dh gets take-out coffee almost daily)

[beaners]

We occasionally grab McDonalds or Chipotle after visits to the OB or pediatrician if I forget to bring a snack in the car. We go to the Chinese buffet with sushi and crab legs with the children for our anniversary or adult birthdays. We eat at my husband's restaurant if we are out that way, which isn't very often. Including all of those it works out to about once a month.

 

My husband brings home food from work for me occasionally too, although that's a bit of a tradeoff. He gets meals as part of his compensation, but he is on a rather limited diet right now. If he's tired of his choices at work, he will bring something home for me and I will cook a meal for him that he can safely eat and enjoy.

[Catwoman]

We usually eat out about once a day, but more than that on weekends. (It's not unusual for us to eat all of our meals out on weekends.)

 

It sounds like a lot, but we often go to casual places, so it's not like we're spending hundreds of dollars a day on eating out. The only thing we don't do often is go to places like McDonald's, because my dh hates fast food places. (He will go to Panera, but that's as close to fast food as he'll eat.)

Edited March 20, 2012 by Catwoman

[nono]

One sit down meal per week, unless we're working on both houses, and then we'll bring that up to twice a week. I make a mess when I cook, so it's kind of necessary to have a night or two off my my torching the entire kitchen to keep us sane. :) Esp. if we're already exhausted from physical work projects.

 

We're fortunate that in addition to the high-end dining rooms that cater to vacationers, we have some excellent bars (no atmosphere) which employ chefs, who make from-scratch recipes at reasonable prices.

[KrissiK]

I don't really keep track. We don't do it often at all. Depends, really. And, it depends on what you call eating out. Is bringing home a pizza from Costco, eating out? I would probably define eating out as going to a restaurant - even if it is fastfood. In that case, it's definitely around once a month, if that.

[AdventureMoms]

Not often, mostly because the twins are just too crazy to manage in a restaurant at this point. We hope to eat out more often when they get old enough to not each require 100% attention of an adult.

[Splinter]

Way too often. We go to a nice sit-down restaurant about once a week, usually on Sundays with my parents. We have Subway or Quizno's one or two nights a week when we're busy running to different activities, and lately the boys and I have been going out for lunch, just to get out of the house. Probably 2-3 lunches per week. So, 5-7 times?

[~Tara~]

Every Saturday morning we go for bagels. Usually it is the whole fam, but sometimes we go in shifts due to kids wrestling or hub needing to work.

 

I grab a lunch out here and there, with or without some of the kids. Hubs eats out much more.

[ocelotmom]

Two members of the family will eat out together about once a week (we do individual trips with the kids and occasional dates). The whole family eats out maybe once every 2 months.

[Donna]

Our whole family rarely eats out together. I think we had lunch out together last weekend and it was the first time since August when we were on vacation.

 

Dd and I eat out the most together and that's at least 1-2 times per week. I try to keep it to a minimum but there are 1-3 days a week depending on the week where we just aren't home most of the day and have to eat out between activities.

[Marie131]

Almost never.

 

First of all, our oldest kid is 6 and they are all boys so eating out as a family is not fun. Secondly, we have many food allergies in our family so it is very difficult to eat out. If we eat out as a family, it is usually sushi and it's take out because it's something the whole family can eat and we don't have to worry about the kids disturbing other diners ;)

 

Dh and I eat out together once in a while for a date. But not often. Maybe once every 2-3 months.

[FaithManor]

Once per week for ds and boys. NONE for me. Gluten free is a dangerous thing with a restaurant...unless you eat a salad plain and are sure that they didn't toss the croutons on then pull them back off, etc.

 

Faith

[QueenCat]

And, it depends on what you call eating out. Is bringing home a pizza from Costco, eating out?

 

I don't count picking up pizza from anywhere eating out. If I didn't get to go out, then it's not "eating out". For us, eating out is not part of the food budget. It's "dining", and part of our recreation budget. I have no guilt about the money. It's stimulating the economy. I would only have guilt if it was something I couldn't afford.

[Melissa in Australia]

a sit down meal - never

 

about once every moth or so we get chips for lunch. this is the day we drive 100 km to the town with the large shopping centre.

[Audrey]

I answered about once a week for us as a family. I eat out more often than that if you count lunch while on the road working.

[PinkInTheBlue]

We usually eat out about once a day, but more than that on weekends. (It's not unusual for us to eat all of our meals out on weekends.)

 

It sounds like a lot, but we often go to casual places, so it's not like we're spending hundreds of dollars a day on eating out. The only thing we don't do often is go to places like McDonald's, because my dh hates fast food places. (He will go to Panera, but that's as close to fast food as he'll eat.)

 

:iagree: This is a pretty description for us as well. My husband works at home, so getting out for lunch everyday is how we unplug him from work and break up the monotony.

 

Edited: Except breakfast. Those are home :)

[Coffeetime]

Once a week, after church, we'll either take the family to fast food or grab a take-n-bake pizza.

 

Once every month dh and I will try to go to dinner alone.

 

And once every month I try to go out with girlfriends.

[Barb_]

We used to eat out a lot more but in recent years I've noticed prices going up, quality and portion sizes going down (which in and of itself isn't a bad thing necessarily, but coupled with rising prices, well....), and televisions EVERYWHERE. I don't really eating out the way I used to.