- About three to four times a week, probably. We scrounge the other nights.
- I’m the kid and currently living with my mother to help her and my stepfather with their bills.
- TV and the internet. We used to eat dinner together a lot when I was a teen and child but now that I’m in my twenties, we eat together a couple times a mont.
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I cook 5-6 nights a week. I also expect everyone to sit at the table and eat at the same time, except for me. I prefer a later dinner, around 8 or 9, and they all need to eat around 5.
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We’re a family of 6-7, with one kid in college, one in kindergarten, and two in diapers, plus another high-schooler who visits occasionally.
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Our little ones are too young for activities so far, and the older ones tend to fend for themselves.
I always like a family dining together, because that’s how I was raised. I like the idle chit-chat about how your day went, what’s new, etc. My family seems to prefer watching movies or reading books alone, while they eat. I’ve sort of bullied them into sitting at the table and pretending to be interested in each other.
How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
6 is typical, though “home cooked” may include commercially prepared/prepackaged foods like ravioli or soup, usually improved.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
I do not live alone; I live in a family without kids.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
NA, but sometimes my work or my partner’s interferes with dinner, in which case we eat out or fend for ourselves at home.
If we’re both available, which is usually the case, one of us makes dinner and we eat it together.
Both of us are from families that ate (and still eat) sit-down dinners the majority of the time.
- Maybe one. Usually we eat out. It costs a bit more to eat out all the time, but not a lot, especially since neither of us is a big fan of leftovers. We eat together every night, though – we just don’t do it at home.
- Just my wife and I.
- N/A
- How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
We eat “home cooked” dinner anywhere from 3 to 6 days a week. Our schedules can be really crazy sometimes. Long field days, late getting home [normally we are both home around 6pm], forgetting to defrost something usually leads to going out to eat.
When I was a kid, we rarely ate out because we didn’t have the money.
- Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
It’s just me and the Mr.
- If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
N/A
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Probably 5-6 dinners/week (if we’re counting mac-and-cheese from a box as a home-cooked meal). However, the hubby and I have vastly different eating habits so we almost never have a meal that all four of us (me, hubby, two kids) all eat. Usually I prepare dinner for myself and the kids and hubby is on his own. We’re also not so good about eating at the same time at the dinner table. Usually The Simpsons is involved.
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Two parents, two kids.
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Kids’ activities don’t interfere - they’re too young. But, sometimes the hubby works past what I consider dinner time, and sometimes I’m on campus in the evening.
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
I make dinner 6-7 days a week. I rarely use anything that comes in a box - au gratin potatoes are made from scratch so long as I am at the helm. I have my occasional weak moments, though.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
My husband and I live with other adults - I cook for all of us, usually 4-6 but a dozen on the weekends is not uncommon (which may or may not include kids). There is an open door policy with dinner, as long as I get advance warning.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
N/A - although my husband is in night school so although I may cook those nights we won’t usually get to eat together. I sleep for a while then get up and heat dinner for him and chat. Tuesdays and Thursdays I get home in the early evening, so it’s something quick and easy. Wednesdays I commute with my husband, so I throw something in the Crockpot for everyone else to eat at their leisure and reheat when we get home (after 11PM). Barring those days and the erratic schedules of others we all eat together, and everyone knows dinner is on at 7:30-8.
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How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
6-7 days a week. Currently 6, as I go to school one night a week. We used to do a lot more tossing frozen stuff in the oven, but there’s been less of that lately. We hardly ever have frozen kiev or chicken fingers anymore. We take turns, generally I cook on weekend and since I tend to cook large there’s always leftovers as well as enough to put in the freezer for more meals. We don’t order in much anymore either. Too much hassle (seriously, it’s easier to make my own food than to wait for an hour for a probably incorrect or cold order). -
Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
There’s three of us. Mom, me and my son. -
If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
Too young for sports yet.
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
About 4, maybe 5.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
Me, my Beloved, and Zippy Cat(who refuses to eat alone.)
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
N/A
- How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Maybe 5 days a week. My wife and I like cooking together and we’ll each make a dish or two while we talk. Sometimes when one of us is particularly tired the other will do all the cooking.
I grew up with a family that never ate out (the first time I ate in a restaurant was when I was 15, although we very occasionally would buy hamburgers and eat them at home).
My wife used to eat with the tv going on, but I convinced her to keep it off. We keep dinner for conversation. My wife eats slowly, so usually will do the dishes while she finishes up.
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Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
There’s just the two of us. -
If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
N/A
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
- We eat home-cooked meals every day. The only time we go out to eat, is when my husband is home, and then it’s not every time. Usually we just go out for anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
- It’s our daughter, my grandmother, myself and my husband, when he’s home, which is about 3 days every two weeks. Sometimes friends come for dinner, too. I always make more than we can eat, so it’s not ever a problem having an extra mouth or two to feed.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
- No. Our daughter is out of school now, and if she’s not home for meals, she’s out with friends or working, but it doesn’t interfere with the meal. We still eat at the usual time.
- How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Once, breakfast on Sunday
- Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
Husband, no kids
We work different shifts, and it’s rare that both of us are home with time enough for a meal during the week.
But, when I had kids at home, we had supper at home every night, and breakfast-lunch-dinner on weekends. The kids had no money of their own for meals away from home, so if they wanted to eat, they had to be home.
So, the poll:
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Probably only four, it depends on what we’re doing. We take it in turns to cook and the intention is that we cook Sunday-Wednesday. I usually plan to have leftovers from Wednesday night for a meal on Thursday because I need to get to my language class so I have very little time to cook, eat, wash dishes etc. Friday night is grocery shopping night which entails collecting Chinese on the way home. Saturday is often either eating out because it’s our weekly treat, but again it depends on what we might be doing during the day. Sunday is the day I usually put a crockpot on for soup, which is lunch for most of the week.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
There’s just me and 'im indoors, although the cats are very interested in what we’re cooking so we usually have two mogs doing the big-eyed pitiful looks. Shadow is particularly interested in anything that involves bacon, which he prefers raw to cooked. Ophelia is a big chicken fan but has been known to give lamb the time of day.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
Kids? :shudder:
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
I rarely eat out or get carryout/delivery. Lately I’ve been having lab meetings once a week at 8:30PM (really fun when I wake up at 6:30AM), so I’ll buy food then, but otherwise I eat something at home that I cooked at home.
I only cook one “real” meal per week, usually Sunday. This becomes my lunch food for the week. The rest of the week I’ll eat something simple, like an egg sandwich.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
I live with one of my co-workers.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
She’s not a kid, but we work pretty much the same hours and usually have dinner together after work, ~9-10PM. We make our own food separately though.
If you’re in college, feel free to tell us about your family meals at home.
When I lived at home we pretty much always at a home-cooked meal together. Sometimes on Friday my father would pick up something to eat on the way home from work. The meals weren’t always complicated. At one point when my mother was sick and my father was often working late, cooking would be up to me. This would usually be pasta or omelets or the like.
BooFae, you crack me up.
I have enjoyed reading everyone’s responses so much; thank you! I’m naturally nosy (as is everyone here, natch) so it’s been an interesting peek into everyone’s personal eating lives.
And of course I consider Kraft Mac 'n Cheese a home-cooked meal. It’s one of the four main food groups, no? 
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Probably seven. My schedule means I’m not home for supper on Tuesdays; my husband’s is variable due to his clients’ whims and he will not be home for dinner perhaps two nights of the week. Odds are good he won’t get take-out but eat when he comes home. Even when I’m at work, I don’t eat take-out except perhaps once a month; I take my dinner with me. If you want to know how many nights a week we eat dinner together, that would probably be five or six.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
I am married and we have two children, nearly three and nearly fourteen.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
The older boy’s activities are a club twice a week which ends before dinner time, and martial arts with his dad twice a week. Sunday nights, they eat dinner after their martial arts class, as it begins at 6:00 and eating too close to it is not a good idea. We still eat dinner together on those nights.
So, the poll:
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Every day, breakfast and dinner for me and the kids and lunch and dinner for Dearly Beloved (he takes his lunch to work and most often it’s leftovers. Does that count?).
- Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
They have footie practice once a week at 6 and swim lessons once a week at 5. It’s a great year this year, though they play on different teams and swim in different classes I somehow managed to get it set up so they are doing it on the same day at the same time (yay). Once a week Eldest has Speech Therapy in the late afternoon.
Usually on those days we eat something I made double on some other day and have in the freezer. Maybe once a month I will throw in the towel and send Dearly Beloved out for take out. But you know, by the time he can go and get back I can usually come up with something and I am not wild about take out. Usually we have take out when I have forgotten to take anything out of the freezer or am otherwise so tired I find making french toast to be unreasonably demanding.
We eat dinner at home nearly every night. We go out to dinner maybe once or twice a month. My wife works late two nights a week, and I wait to have dinner with her.
We have my daughter two weekday nights plus alternate weekends. She sometimes eats earlier than my wife and I do when my wife is working.
Yes, my daughter has activities but they cannot encroach upon dinner time.
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
About 6-7 times a week. I usually do as much cooking on the weekends as possible so we have home-cooked food ready during the week. That way I don’t have to cook or clean as much when I get home from work.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
We have one kid - 17 months old.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
Not applicable yet.
It’s very important to me to eat with my family now that we actually do it. Not only does it prevent me from having to ready two meals at night after getting home from my full-time job, it also helps me reconnect with my husband and spend time with my son. It’s also a good way to lay the foundation for table manners and it helps me lose weight, too, since I consider the kitchen closed after dinner is cleared away.
We only recently began eating as a family on a regular basis about four weeks ago. One day I just got completely fed up. I wasn’t preparing food in advance, so I’d have to cook and clean twice every single night. My husband and I weren’t eating until 9 p.m. (after we’d put our son to bed), and I’m a snacker - I’ll snack until dinner, when I stop. So I was probably putting about 400-500 extra calories in my mouth a day. Plus, since I was cooking and cleaning twice, I wasn’t able to relax at all at night because I was always trying to catch up in the kitchen. So I discussed it with my husband, explained why this was not working for me and we adjusted what we were doing.
Since then, I’ve really thoroughly enjoyed dinnertime. There are times when our son acts up, of course, but by and large, it’s win-win. I’ve also been losing weight because I haven’t been snacking as much and I have more time to exercise and relax (I used to not be able to do both - I’d have to choose or stay up until midnight) at night, which is better for my sanity and my husband’s.
For the record, when I was living with my mom as a teenager, it was typical practice for me, my mom and my sister to each eat in separate rooms. I never really appreciated eating as a family until now. I hope we don’t fall off the wagon because I’m really appreciating the additional time I have with my family and by myself.
- Nearly every night
- 2 high school kids at home
- kids and adults are expected to make every effort to avoid conflicts with dinner.