How to Afford to Eat Out

At the end of a long week or in the middle of the week, it is a common practice to take a break and eat out. Everyone enjoys letting someone else prepare, cook, serve, and clean up afterwards. Sadly many people have given up eating out weekly because of needing to cut back on expenses. Though maybe weekly trips to local restaurants may not be able to be fit in the budget, eating out still can be affordable. It is possible to go out to eat while staying within your budget. By changing the beverage you drink when you go out to eat, you can save money and may be able to continue to eat out once a week like you have always done.

Studies have shown that the average American eats out 16 to 26 times per month. This means that most people eat out at least once every other day and some people eat out almost every day. Usually this is for lunch while at work, but it is also for lunch on the weekends and dinners. It can be expensive to eat out this much. Thankfully though, there are ways in which you can cut hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off of your yearly food budget while still eating out regularly.

One secret to saving money while still eating out has to do with watching what beverages you are consuming with your meals. If you are able to enjoy your meal with a glass of water with lemon, you can save a lot of money. For instance, if you were to eat out 20 times a month and have either soda or ice tea, which cost around $2 per drink, you will spend around $40 per month on beverages alone. If you add this up, over the course of the year it will come to around $480. Now, just imagine if there were two of you at each of these meals. That would be a total of $960 per year on beverages alone. This is almost $1,000 in just drinks. Even if you don’t skip a beverage every time you go out, try skipping a beverage some of the time. By doing so you will save yourself a lot of money every year. Just think about it – you could actually place $1,000 in your bank account each year by simply drinking water whenever you go out to eat. Since most families have four people in them today, you could actually be saving as much as $2,000 per year.

Maybe you like a glass of wine or other cocktail with your meal. If you drink alcoholic beverages, the amount of money that is spent on beverages shoots up drastically. There are a couple ways to bring down the cost of eating out when you normally drink alcoholic beverages with your meal:

• Change to soft drinks, water, or tea
• Limit the number of glasses of wine or cocktails
• Buy a carafe or bottle of wine instead of by the glass
• Eat out during happy hour when drinks cost less

The best part about all of this is that you don’t even have to change the number of times that you choose to go out to eat to reduce the cost of eating out each month. You will still be able to save a substantial amount of money without even changing your lifestyle. Besides saving money, drinking more water or less alcohol can contribute to better health, too!

When going out to eat you can make use of coupons like the ones that Mama Jennie’s Italian Restaurant has available online, to save even more money when going out to eat.

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