Eating In

It started out as a suggestion from my wife, “Hey let’s keep track of how many times we eat out and how much we spend.” Ever the obedient husband I started posting what we ate when out and what we spent. It was fun in the beginning and then it became interesting. Now that our dining costs has topped the 4 digit mark, it not something we are real proud of. But why not?

Maybe we need a little perspective. We have eaten out a total of 57 times this year and have spent a grand total of $1,052.24. That works out to about $18.46 per meal or $9.23 per person per meal. Another way to look at it is that today is the 134th day of the year, multiply that by 3 squares a day and you get a total of 402 possible meals. That means we have eaten 57 meals out, but it also means we have eaten 345 meals “at home” or 86% of the time we Eat In. Not too bad. Wonder what the national average is?

One stat I found is from foodservice provider ARAMARK.

…2004… As a result, adults now consume on average more than 5.6 meals away from home each week, citing time, convenience and value as the top motivating factors.

If this is correct, 5.6 meals divided by 21 possible meals, is a little more than 27% meals eaten out compared to our 14%.

Another one is from the National Restaurant Association’s report Restaurant Spending — 2004.

Households consisting of only a husband and wife recorded the highest per-capita expenditures on food away from home in 2004 ($1,347)

Per-capita is a fancy way of saying per person, so take that $1,347 and multiply it by two, meaning that that husband and wife spent a total of $2,694 in 2004. At the current rate that Donna and I are spending, we will end up disbursing $2,866 on meals away from home in 2007. Factor in inflation and restaurant dining trends and it looks like we are about average.

So if we are near average in money spent, but eating out about half as many times as everyone else, we must be eating at pretty nice places or everyone else is just ordering off the dollar menus.

Still to make us feel better I will add another line to the “Eating Out” macro that will keep track of meals out in relation to possible meals.