Also, how often does your family eat out? Who does your family consist of?
Based on the way our family lives, sometimes things get really hectic. It is quicker and easier to just stop at the local fast food eatery than to make dinner and clean it up. Also, with both parents working full time, we tend to be pretty exhausted by the time making dinner rolls around.
We also eat out when there is a large group of our friends who want to visit for a bit. These tend to be a sit-down restaurants. Nobody really wants to cook for that large a crowd on a fairly regular basis (there are usually between 12 and 16 of us).
As such, we eat out about 1-2 times a week. This is me, my husband and my two school age kids. Once is usually fast food and possibly once at a real restaurant.
When I was a SAHM we never ate out unless is was a special occasion. My husband worked not too far away and he came home for lunch.
Now, it’s a different story. I’m working, he’s not, and he doesn’t cook unless you count the very occasional sandwich if it’s not too complicated. I don’t mind that, he hates food prep with a passion. However, some days I go to the gym and get home too late to cook. A couple of other days I’m watching our granddaughter after work. He goes out and gets something for both of us from a sub shop or Boston Market or a Chinese restaurant or a pizzeria. The few days that are left I prepare something quick, or serve leftovers from the weekend.
I eat lunch out because I just don’t feel like brown bagging a sandwich and it also gets me out of the office for a short while.
So there are maybe 3 meals per week that are home cooked.
We’re in a cycle right now of eating out way more than I’d like.
Mondays and Fridays we are taking classes and both of those nights I’m rushing to get out of work in time to not be late so I grab food and eat it (illegally) on the GO train on the way there. Theoretically hubby could eat at home but he usually is eating in the car while he waits at the station to pick me up.
In addition there’s usually at least one night a week when we’ve forgotten to take food out of the freezer so depending on how creative I’m feeling that either means eggs and salad or we order in.
We do go through a lot of these cycles and what I’ve noticed is that the busier I am at work the less planning I do for meals. Less planning inevitably leads to more eating out because if I’m already too busy to plan I’m usually too tired to think of an alternative when I get home.
The irony of course is the worse I eat the more tired and rundown I feel and the cycle gets worse until I suck it up and drag myself out of it. It’s better for a while until I am seduced into it again by the little devil on my shoulder whispering “It’s only one night - what could it hurt”
We (my gf and I) do not do fast food places. Pretty much once a week we go out for sushi at a place we really love. Depending on schedules, we eat out at other places twice a week.
On Mondays, either she or I will make a nice meal at home. That accounts for 4 nights and the other 3 are nights we each eat whatever (leftovers from Monday, etc).
It’s pretty typical in NYC to eat out/order in a LOT. Between the very wee kitchens, lack of dishwashers, universal delivery, and the fact that you can get good quality, fresh, prepared food cheaper than groceries, sometimes it hardly even makes sense to cook. But we don’t go in for fast food because our local options are way better than that (closest is Boston Market every now and then).
We cook about 3 nights a week and that’s a lot more than most people I know. Usually one of those nights is just reheating something I previously made and froze (like servings of lasagna or stew) or bought frozen (like spinach pie or burritos from Trader Joe’s).
Husband, wife, two little girls living in Manhattan. During the work/school week we eat “out” (which means ordering in) twice a week on a regular basis, then maybe hit a diner or sit down at the bagel place once during the weekend. Oh yeah, we get sushi a lot on Sundays.
Tuesday is Chinese night. My wife and the girls get in at around 5:30-6 so she doesn’t want to cook.
Friday is Pizza night. Pizza party! 'nuff said.
During the weekend we’re out and about, so unless we’re down to our last penny, we can’t resist hitting someplace. At the very least I go swimming with my girls on Saturdays and we quickly established a routine of hitting the bagel place on the way home for a late lunch/pre-dinner.
Then on the occasional Saturday night - “any ideas for dinner?” “no, you?” “I feel like having that gang penang from whatever that place is calling itself these days” so to the phone we go.
If we go out of town over the weekend, we’re pretty spent by the time we get back Sunday evening, so we phone it in.
And on said road trip the girls want a happy meal or whatever Burger King calls theirs, so there’s those…
When it was just my wife and I our usual places weren’t much more expensive than making it ourselves, but now that the girls like their own things we can’t use that excuse anymore.
Both of us are decent cooks, and we have a very practical kitchen, but there’s just a wealth of tasty options a phone call away that are too hard to resist (unless we have a good reason to).
I probably eat out twice a week, my husband slightly more. We don’t have kids, so we’re perfectly comfortable heating up a frozen Kashi meal or something during the week, or spending a couple of days eating a roast chicken, or having eggs, or whatever. We don’t cook elaborately during the week, and if we do, we have days of leftovers, so very little intensive meal prep gets done after work, but I don’t generally eat out during the week. My husband will get fast food, pizza, or a sub if the leftovers give out and I’m not cooking, probably around once a week.
On weekends, we tend to get lunch or dinner out when we’re running errands or shopping, so we usually eat out on Saturday or Sunday, or both. Occasionally, it’s fast food, but usually we stop at the local Thai place or one of the brewpubs for a sit-down late lunch (which also usually provides a meal the next day). Weekend eating out we do because we don’t feel like going all the way back home to eat.
A few times a month for us, maybe? (Me, wife, 2 kids.)
Sure we’re busy, but it doesn’t take too long to whip up a decent meal. I try to get in the habit of cooking a few different types of meat on the BBQ on the weekend, and then it’s a matter of warming it, adding a salad, etc. and clean up is also quick.
We live about 20 minutes out of town though, and so running to Wendy’s or Burger King isn’t really overly convenient.
This week was a total anomaly - we’ll eat out four times this whole week. Crazy! Usually it’s twice; once on our dime and once on my parents’ dime. I go out for a happy hour once a week and usually order 1, maybe 2 half priced appetizers and maybe but not usually a discounted drink. We’re big into coupons and specials and so on. One of our favorites is $25 for 2 entrees, naan, and an appetizer at our favorite Indian place.
I think people eat out a lot for various reasons. In major cities it often makes sense for a couple and maybe one kid, like Hello Again said.
But most people do it (I’m thinking families with kids) because they’re lazy and don’t know how to meal plan and cook for several days in advance, like on the weekends or a night they’re not busy. They don’t know or think to make “breakfast for dinner” sometimes. They don’t think to make stews or soups in advance or even simple sandwiches. They blow wads of money on dining out and have less than 6 months of savings. Last night on the way to a small Italian joint with one of our friends, we passed an jam-packed Olive Garden. On a Wednesday night!
People who are initially dating also eat out a lot, for obvious reasons.
Smaller family sizes makes it more economical, and busy schedules make it more attractive. Really, it’s just about specialization of labor- there was a time when we did all of our household tasks, from canning to mixing up shoeshine, at home. As society has developed, we’ve delegated more and more of those tasks to professionals so that we can focus on our own specialized labor. Why have 50 amateur cooks each going through the whole process when one professional cook can serve them all much more efficiently and do a better job of it?
Going out is actually a pretty economical form of entertainment. I can spend $10.00 on a movie, and I’m entertained but I’m still going to need to spend money on food. When I spend $10.00 on a meal, I get both the food and the entertainment value.
Depends on what you define “eating out.” Does rotisserie chicken count?
Anyway, I eat out about once a week, usually lunch with the family at our favorite Indian joint on the weekends. Sometimes we’ll get takeout one night, making my “eat-out” total twice a week. We’ll also go through a cycle every month or so where we eat out 3-4 times in one week for dinner alone, then stop for a month (thank goodness).
My husband eats out almost every day - he never takes his lunch. His work culture is very different from mine, and so is his access to food. Most alternatives for me to a lunch brought from home are fast food. The closest food joints for me at Wendy’s, White Castle, Arby’s or Target. My husband, on the other hand, works somewhere that has a grocery handy, plus sit-down restaurants, delis and the obligatory fast food place.
I try really hard to make all our food for the week on the weekends or to freeze things as I go because I really don’t feel like cooking on work days - it’s so time consuming, with kids it’s stressful on multiple levels (we’ve got a baby and a four-year old and precious little time to spend with them) - guilt because you’re cooking and not paying attention to them, stress to finish meal prep in time so they don’t lose it because they’re hungry, trying to keep everyone out from underfoot while you’re trying to do something with a hot oven, knives and a stove, etc. I can definitely understand why some people eat out a lot, but it gets expensive and it’s so easy to make bad choices.
I’m a single person living alone (well I have a roomie who is a vegan and we don’t share food) so I’m not into cooking as much as I could be. Having fresh ingredients around is hard and making a meal for 4 then being stuck with it for 4 days sucks. And a half hour plus of prep and cleanup (no dishwasher) for 10 minutes of meal to eat in front of the TV is a drag.
That being said, I usually only eat out once or twice a week. Pizza for sure on Friday and maybe Subway another day, or dinner out with friends once or I’ll even go pick something up from a sit-down place.
It’s actually easier for me to get fresh veggies and meat this way, by eating out. Otherwise, stuff like salad ingredients and potatoes perish before I can eat them, and meat gets freezer burn. My life works better with an all-pantry diet but it’s a more rounded diet if I eat out.
The bad choices part is the worst. If you and your partner/hubby/boyfriend are picking a restaurant, you know what you like and you’re going there for specific dishes. But if someone “owes you a favor” or “wants to try a new place” or “wants to take you out” or you’re doing it to save time, you’re kind of screwed. I volunteered for a political candidate last month. He was a great guy, lost terribly (he was an independent) and now wants to take me and a few others out to a stereotypical American place with pub food. I took ten minutes to read the menu online and found just one healthy thing: grilled fish tacos. Guess I’m having those tonight! :dubious:
When the OP says we’re eating out more, are we talking about more than we did, say, 30 years ago? Or is there a recent spike in people eating out? I’m confused.
For me, personally, I have been eating out less. I used to get take out twice or three times a week (almost always on the weekend). But I’ve gotten bored with the selections close to me, I’m not adventurous enough to go to places I’ve never gone before, and I’ve diverted my disposable income to other things besides food.
But I can see why people go out to eat more. It used to be that home economics was offered, maybe even mandated, in high school. Not any more. So a lot of people do not know how to cook. And many women are not SAHM, so when 6:00 rolls around and everyone comes home to empty house, it just seems easier to say, “Let’s go to Friendly’s!” instead of whipping up a home-made meal that will require preparing, standing over the stove, and then cleaning all the dishes. It’s easier to have someone else do it.
There also more choices out there. More chain restaurants, more American-friendly ethnic choices. Portions are larger, too. Look at a box of Hamburger Helper. That’s supposed to feed a family of four, based on the commercials. If there was a Hamburger Helper Restaurant, everyone would get servings twice the serving size printed on a box. There also seems to be more buffet restaurants than there used to be, when I was growing up. I don’t remember ever seeing a Chinese buffet place as a kid. Now they’re practically on every corner.
We (the family) eat out once or twice a month. I work only 32 hours a week, so I have more time to cook, and I enjoy cooking. I am the kitchen gatekeeper. When I have couple days off I’ll make nice big meals with plenty of leftovers to get us through the work days with something microwaved and little clean-up. On nights I work late, the wife and kid often eat fast food. I don’t eat fast food myself. Then I’ll go out for drinks and eats after work with friends a couple of times a month, and eat lunch out a few times a month instead of bagging it.
I’ve had three job interviews in the last year where I was interviewed while at lunch and/or dinner. But other than that, I haven’t been to a fast food resturant in years, and the last sit down place was a Dennys in July of 2007. Before that the last “real” resturaunt was in Dec of 2005
When I had a nice job I used to go out with a bunch of co-workers. Each month we’d pick a different resturant to try. That was pretty fun.
it’s rare for me to go out for dinner, unless i’m working one of my community theatre shows, where some of the cast and crew go out once a week for drinks and snacks during rehearsals.
I’m single and I rarely cook, as I don’t do leftovers and making a meal for 1 is inefficient. I eat out daily. It’s faster and cheaper to get a couple cheeseburgers and a $1 diet coke on the way to work than it is to make a frozen dinner.
Not the best for my waist-to-hip ratio, perhaps, but I’m not overly concerned with health.
Same here. I do have some food at home that I’ll cook when possible, but the nature of my job is such that getting 30 minutes to eat lunch is difficult. So I have a decent-sized breakfast and by the end of work I’m pretty ravenous, which does not often permit me the patience to drive home and spend an hour putting dinner together with a needy cat wailing at me. Instead I stop on the way home and have a nice, easy, relaxing dinner. It does cost a lot more than making food, but I haven’t yet found eating at home to be a sustainable practice for just myself. With two people it’s a vastly different story.