Eating Out Cheap?

I love to go out to eat. What is not to love? Someone else does all the shopping, the cooking, and most importantly, the clean up for the family meal.

I will tell you what is not to love, the price. Even cheap dining out is costly compared to the alternatives. 

With a family of six, where the children are quickly aging out of the free meal brackets, eating out cheap is practically an oxymoron. In fact, the last time the entire family went out to eat we ate at Cici's. It cost us about $25, even though we used a coupon and only drank water. $25 dollars may not seem like all that much, but let's compare it to the alternatives. 

One alternative to going out for dinner is to buy ready made food at the grocery store. Instead of going out for pizza, ready made pizzas could be purchased.  Aldi  has ready to bake (not frozen) pepperoni or cheese pizzas for $6.89. I'm not sure the exact size of these pizzas, but they are very large. They are bigger than my baking stones. Two of these will feed my family, and usually leave a few leftovers. Less than $14 to feed the family is cheaper than going out, and there is usually enough for my husband's lunch the next day. Not bad, but we can do better.

The next alternative is to make your meal at home. Keeping with the pizza example, let's look at the cost of  homemade pizza. Pizza is pretty easy to make. Dough can be made in the bread machine, and pizza crusts can be made ahead of time and frozen. My favorite dough recipe is mixed by hand. 

I normally double the above recipe, and make two thick crust pizzas on my baking stones. 

We make our pizzas with all kinds of different toppings, but for comparison, let's price out a single topping; pepperoni. 

Crust

flour $0.52

oil          .10

yeast     .07

sugar  negligible

salt      negligible

Toppings

tomato paste  $0.39

spices                 negligible

cheese                3.29

pepperoni          1.00

Total cost = $ 5.37

Of course you have some time invested, and a little electricity, but the savings is huge! 

Reviewing the numbers for feeding a family of six pizza: Cici's - about $25. Buying ready made pizzas - about $14. Making it from scratch - less than $6. 

Personally, we are trying to tighten our budget.  If we are eating out on a regular basis,  we are fooling ourselves if we think we can do it cheaply.  Going out to eat must be reserved for special occasions. It is nice, but it sure isn't cheap. 

Photo: Homemade Buffalo Chicken Pizza