Dining Out on a Budget
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Dining out on a budget requires compromising in small ways, but still achieving the end goals of great food and good company.
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A few weeks ago I shared a few small ways our family uses to save money. One of those ways was to eat at home, of which we do a fair amount.
However, while we love to eat at home, our family really enjoys its fair share of restaurant dining. I casually mentioned our target price for eating out for our family of 8: $10 to $30.
Y’all jumped out of the woodwork to know how. How do you live within your means and still get to dine out?!
So, here’s my story.
I’ve heard tales of families of 4 who can’t dine out for less than $100. I am stunned when I hear these figures. Where are they eating and WHAT could they possibly be ordering?! I imagine that they go to full service restaurants, order drinks, appetizers, and desserts, and live it up.
We rarely, if ever, do any of the above. At least not all in one night. We might go full service, but we drink water and order simple entrees. Or we eat dinner at home and go out for dessert. Enjoying a meal out for our family of 8 meals requires compromising in small ways, but still achieving the end goals:
- getting out of the house
- keeping the kitchen clean
- enjoying someone else’s cooking
- having a family experience
I’m not sure that I have any “secrets,” but we usually spend anywhere between $10 and $40 when we do eat out, though the usual is often under thirty bucks. There are occasions when the bill reaches in the $50 to $75 range, but those are special events that might even include grandparents or aunts and uncles.
Here’s how we dine out on a budget:
1. We have stand-by restaurants that serve affordable take-out.
We tend to be creatures of habit. There are a handful of places we go as a family that we know everyone likes and that we can afford. These would include: Del Taco, Taco Bell, Costco, In-N-Out Burger, Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, and Panda Express. We know that we can get in and out the door of these places well within our target range. Del Taco, in particular, offers regular taco specials, where I can, indeed, feed my family for ten dollars or less. And a Costco pizza rings in at $9.99 even. A round of kosher hot dogs and sodas at the food court totals about $10.50+tax since the little girls share.
While some of these establishments are not as “healthy” as others, I don’t fret too much. We don’t make eating out a daily occurrence. (At least not usually. Vacations are a different story.) Instead, I shoot for 80% great, healthy meals (usually at home) and 20% okay meals.
After much trial and error, we’ve hit on a few restaurants that we really love. We’re okay with spending money on “a sure thing,” so we’ve narrowed the field to a handful of places that everyone likes and that cover a range of price points. We want it to be enjoyable for as many of our crew as possible.
This keeps me sane — and allows us “fun food” every once in a while.
2. We drink water, skip dessert, and rarely order appetizers.
We’ve slowly started to wean our family of sodas and beverage bar drinks. They don’t like this idea in theory. But, they’re warming to it in practice. In fact, recently when we did the round of hot dogs and sodas at Costco, the kids and a certain papa went whole hog on the pop. They were feeling it within the hour. No one felt that great after drinking so much soda.
Preferring to drink water is a great way to save money, as is bypassing the dessert and apps. When we do splurge, we usually split a couple orders. Enough is as good as a feast.
3. We visit family-style restaurants.
Since our kids are still pretty little, not every one needs his own “meal.” In fact, eating at family-style restaurants, like Pat & Oscar’s or Panda Express, where we can get large orders of different items is a great way for us to accommodate the differing appetites in our crew as well as save money. At this type of restaurant, we can usually get out the door for about $30 with leftovers to take home.
4. We order kid’s meals only when the numbers crunch appropriately.
Kids meals are a unique experience. Most of our favorite places don’t offer them. However, when the numbers crunch appropriately, we go for it. For instance at Chick-Fil-A recently, we got one free kid’s meal with each adult meal. While the dinner wasn’t “cheap,” we were able to feed our family for $24 that night and ate like kings.
Recently, I discovered that the kid’s meal at Chipotle is only $3.50. I think this is a great deal — if your kid will eat what’s on his plate. However, FishBoy7 thinks that both the rice and beans are too spicy. I could buy him two quesadillas for two bucks instead. He’d be just as happy — minus the chocolate milk — and we’d shave something off the bill.
5. We don’t “go big.”
In our days before children we might have bought the biggest meal possible with all the extras. These days, we go for enough to feel satisfied without having too much. That means that we each might forego “a meal” for a sandwich and then share fries. Hubs and I agree that we’d rather be frugal eating out and get to go out more often rather than splurge just a fraction of the time.
6. Remember little kids don’t eat a lot when dining out.
How many times have you ordered a full meal for your kids only to find out that they only picked at it? What a waste! I’ve figured out that my girls (ages 2 and 4) don’t need to order their own meal items. I can usually order a large salad with chicken and share it with them and all three of us are happy.
Dining out, obviously means different things to different people. Granted, I can understand spending more money less often and enjoying a nicer dining experience. (We save those for date nights.) But at the same time, this is a way that works for us. We can enjoy a meal I don’t have to cook, be together as a family, and not go beyond our budget.
We often share meals as well, being that the 2yr old will never eat a whole meal by herself. The reason I am comenting is that at the bottom of your article you mention Chipotle. I had never eaten at Chipotle until a couple of months ago when out with a couple of moms on a errand for cubscouts when one mom generously bought us all dinner from chipotle. It was soooooo good!! But I am a budget mom so being able to eat out again there would probably not happen anytime soon. One way we like to save money is to recreate our favorite restaurants meals at home, and on a whim I looked up Chipotle recipes and found a knockoff for the Barbacoa Beef, it was so easy, I didn’t have a pressure cooker so I cooked mine in the crockpot, invited those same moms I had originally dined with and they agreed it was delish!! I had spent not a whole lot and had TONS of food, so it really was economical and we all agreed that was awesome that the crockpot did all of the work!! I put the Barbacoa beef recipe in one crockpot, dry beans to cook in another crockpot and 20mins before we were ready to eat I made the rice while another mom chopped up the lettuce, tomatoes and made pico de gallo. Sooo good!!
Yeah for copycat recipes!
There was a time when we could use these tips . . . but then my kids grew into teenage boys. There is no cheap way to feed teenage boys. 🙂
So strange reading this post because WE DO THE SAME THING! We’re a family of 4 and we aim to spend $20 or less when we go out. Chipotle, Rosines (a local place) and Costco are all places we hit up regularly. The kids usually split something (and/or share with us) and we choose places where we get big bangs for our bucks. Great post!
I second everything you said. We have also found eating at IKEA to be pretty inexpensive for a variety of foods. I know not everybody has an IKEA nearby, but they have deals in their restaurant pretty frequently for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We don’t eat out very often, but sometimes we go to IKEA just for a cheap dinner (and we don’t shop while we’re there…cuz then the savings on food goes out the window with the $ spent on other things I don’t need).
if its just me and my two boys, drive through, I’ll do one adult meal with chicken nuggets/tenders, and then get a separate burger for me. I don’t eat the fries and just want the drink, haha. eating out, I love sweet tomatoes (KIDS EAT FREE!) and Ihop(Kids occasionally eat free!) Date night I like Applebees where we can get an appetizer and two entrees for 20 bucks!
We don’t get to eat out much. When we do, it’s because I’m so exhausted, I just can’t handle making a meal. Or else it’s getting late and preparation for dinner hasn’t even begun, and there’s nothing to “whip up” in a hurry – although I do my best to always have a plan. But we still rarely eat “out” (unless someone blesses us with a gift card), we bring it in, instead. So, we scour whatever coupons we have, come up with a game plan of who gets what and what the best deal is while still catering somewhat to preferences, and one of us goes through the drive thru and brings it home. All drinks at home, unless it’s part of the coupon deal. We will also occasionally do pizza (like domino’s and papa johns), we get the carryout 2 mediums for $6 each, and that feeds us, but usually with no leftovers. Usually we are talking $10-15 for a family of 5 (soon to be 6), and that’s where we like the bill to fall, anything over that and we rethink ever eating at that particular restaurant again. We love Taco Bell, because we can all eat for under $10 sans coupons, but only if we can control ourselves (AKA not give into the huge ad on the front and sides of the building for whatever new steak burrito or whatnot they are pushing). Yeah, my kids are 5 and under, but no one is a little eater in this family. Wish we had the great portion control that everyone else seems to have, but we are a tall family, and the kids keep going through these crazy growth spurts and some days I feel like they are already eating us out of house and home, I can only imagine what it will be like when they are teens!
I like all of your suggestions and sometimes these ideas work really well for me, my husband and our family of 4 kids.
When I was a child, my parents were on a super tight budget. They would take us out to the Ground Round where the 4 of us kids ate free and you could throw your peanut shells on the floor. They were very strict about water-only and no desserts. While I appreciate their efforts and understand their thinking, I developed serious eating-out issues! As an adult, I’ve had to work hard at enjoying eating out without feeling constant financial pressure and montinoring every expenditure. Once on a date in college, I ordered only water – no food or drink. Needless to say that guy never invited me out again.
These days I find myself preferring to go out (albeit infrequently) either with or without kids, to a high-quality restaurant, relax, enjoy a glass of a new wine I haven’t tried and savor each pricey bite haha!
I can totally get that. We try to mix up our splurges versus our more trimmed eating, so that it isn’t all one way or another. But, you raise a good point. I struggled with that at different points in life, too. I think one of the things that helped was having a budget that was big enough that we felt freedom to splurge or freedom to spend less.
That’s a wonderful phrase “…the freedom to splurge or freedom to spend less.” It’s so…well, freeing!
I love Chipolte’s kids meals. My 3 year old and 9 month old share. Big boy eats most of the quesadillas, the rice (his fav) and shares the chips with me. Little Miss loves the black beans and some quesadillas.
I am a big fan of places that offer free kids meals. Even if it’s only on Tuesday nights.
We use kidsmealdeals.com to see what deals (kids eat free or other specials) are available in our area (it is by zip code).