Tips from a Restaurant Junkie

I LOVE, love love to eat out. It's a chronic thing. When I eat out I don't have to cook, which I hate, I don't have to do dishes and no one whines about their meal because they can choose. Trouble? It can be expensive.

Our family has circumvented this little problem in a number of ways so that we can actually eat out for less $$ than it costs to buy the groceries for a similar meal for the family.

For example: Hubby bought groceries to cook Tilapia (not an expensive fish) in curry sauce with rice we already had and a little dessert. The cost: $15. For other meals with lots of fresh veggies, the grocery bill can come to $30 for one meal, not counting things we can reuse in the pantry.

Here are some Out-to-eat options that actually rival this amount!

Qdoba Mexican Grill:
With a coupon we can get one of their giant burritos for $5 and split it. With ice water to drink it is a dinner for two (we get full) for $5.

Gambino's Pizza or Tucci's Italian
We split an entree of Spaghetti and meatballs for $9.95 and got the kids a single children's kids pizza. Entree included rolls. At Tucci's it also includes salad. Water to drink. Total bill including tip: $17.00. (The entree was huge! We were stuffed and took some home.)

Super China Buffet
If you get buffet to go you pay by the weight. You can get enough food to satisfy everyone for about $10. Since ours is in the mall, we get it to go and sit out in the mall to eat.

Denny's/Shari's/Applebee's
If we split an entree there and have water to drink and the kids split a kid's meal we can eat for about $20 including a good tip.

Papa Murphy's Take-and-bake Pizza
Large pizza. $7

Fast food dollar burgers (if you like that sort of thing)

Chinese take out
Split a large combination entree family style. $12. Still have to do dishes but it's yummy and I didn't have to cook it!

Wheatberries Bakery
For lunch you can get a half-sandwich, soup and cookie for about $4. We get two and share around the whole family.



As you can see, we share a lot, eat light (good for my waistline) and drink water. Both of us hate pop, but we make up for it in loving coffee! Also the kids are still little and don't eat too much yet. As they get older it will cost more, obviously. But it's amazing what you can save with a few good tricks! And as far as coming to a consensus on what to share, we pretty much take turns choosing. It's fun to try old favorites or something new!

I used to worry that we were shortchanging the restaurants by doing this. Since then I have decided that if we did not do it, we wouldn't get to eat out at all because we wouldn't use that much money on one meal. So the fact that we are giving them business is a plus and I don't worry about it. I do think it is a bad practice to be stingy on the tip, especially if you're splitting entrees and you have a large party or lots of kids, all of which makes extra work for the waiters.

I'm not usually a coupon clipper but sometimes a coupon or a full punchcard can be just the thing too :)