Here’s what we did to wean ourselves off the convenience (and expense) of eating out: It might seem overblown to have a “strategy” for not eating out, but here’s the thing–I’ve found that anytime we don’t take a proactive, constructive approach, our resolve falters and the idea doesn’t stick. Since this line item was all about giving something up, as opposed to substituting a cheaper option or learning a new skill, we had to devise a few strategies to cope with the loss of restaurants from our lives. From Eating Out To Not: A Frugalwoods How-To We make no effort to choose the cheapest restaurant or the cheapest item on the menu–we go somewhere we know will be excellent. I’ll also note that when we do eat out, we go where we want to. We think it’s important to mark noteworthy events in our lives and since we don’t give each other gifts, eating out is a way to share an experience and yummy vittles. And for our anniversary, we used a gift card to cover the majority of our meal. I chose not to go out on my birthday this year, preferring instead to commission a dinner from chef Mr. However, it’s key to note that we’re not required to eat out on these occasions. Our very precise exceptions include: our birthdays and our anniversary. Having just said that, of course we do in fact have exceptions to our ironclad rule because we’re not frugal automatons, but rather weak humans who love french fries. Similar to my clothes buying ban (17 months in and still going strong!), I find it easier to follow these self-imposed “bans” when there are either no, or only rare, exceptions.Įating brunch out for my birthday a few years ago
While we certainly could’ve simply reduced the frequency of our eating out–say, to once a month–I often find it’s easier to adopt a zero tolerance policy. I don’t want to sound like a broken frugal record, but, every single line item counts when you’re trying to attain sky-high savings rates and reach financial independence in short order. Plus, when coupled with the savings of all our other extreme frugality regimes–cutting our own hair, drinking cheaper coffee, frugalizing our groceries, and more–it all adds up to create our 71%+ savings rate. $240/month is pretty substantial for us, considering we only spent $793.90 (minus our mortgage) for the entirety of June. Since we were eating out about once a week at circa $60 each time, that’s a cool $240 per month (aka $2,880 per year) we now save, just by eating at home. When we outlined our aggressive savings rate goals, to facilitate buying our homestead and retiring to it at 33, we knew–though we were loathe to admit it–that eating out was first on the expenses chopping block, or cutting board, as it were.Īnd, eating out was a comparatively easy thing to cut with a pretty high pay-off.
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