Dining out? Cooking at home?

This past weekend we chose to prepare a nice meal at home instead of dining out. I mentioned that we spent almost a whole week's grocery budget on the foods needed for our tea.  While that sounds like a lot, I believe it was less expensive than many of our other choices.

For that same money (and still do something relatively nice), we could have picked up better take-out, like fast food Chinese (Panda Express), we could have had coffee and a pastry each at one daughter's favorite European cafe, or we could have maybe eaten lunch at a small family-run restaurant. But we could not have gone to a nice tearoom for that same dollar amount.

Since I was paying for this celebration meal out of the grocery budget, it made the most sense to buy a few convenience items for putting together a full tea without overworking myself. As it works out, we won't be spending extra on groceries this month, as I paid for all of the food and beverages using the week's budget. We haven't really needed to grocery shop so far this week. Which means that if we can go until Friday or Saturday, I'll have a new week's grocery budget to shop with.

So our tea (or budget-friendly alternative like named above) cost roughly the same as a week's groceries. Do you ever compare the cost of eating out to your regular grocery budget? I think about that when considering doing a nice meal out. For the same amount to eat out, I can buy a lot of nice food for our family.

Our wedding anniversary was last Saturday. It happened to be my daughter's night to cook. She made BBQ beef using leftover pot roast, and added some easy sides. So that's what we had for our anniversary dinner. We watched the second half of a movie that we'd started the night before while eating this "celebratory" meal. Alternatively, we could have eaten brunch out at one of my favorite nice restaurants (which we haven't dined in since early 2018). I admit, this would have been a lovely way to celebrate our anniversary. However, it would have cost the same as two weeks of our grocery budget. When I think of it that way (comparing the cost of dining out to our grocery budget), it doesn't seem worth it to me. Last year on our anniversary, 4 of us went to Starbucks using gift cards. That was a nice and small way to celebrate.

There are times when I am willing to dine out. For example, when each of my kids graduated from university, when we had a milestone birthday in the family, when we've had gift cards that I wanted to use soon, when we wanted to honor someone outside of our family, or while on vacation.

I guess I feel that I've been gifted with the ability and inclination to cook, so I might as well lean in to that and prepare meals at home most of the time.  I was not gifted with the ability or inclination to do many home improvement jobs, so I am happy to pay someone else to do those. I understand that many people don't have the desire or ability to cook at home almost exclusively. Dining out for them, when affordable, may be a very good use of their disposable income.

Back to my daughters' birthday celebration at home. The work really wasn't that burdensome. I spent about 4 hours actually preparing the foods and about 1 hour pulling it all together with dishes and serving pieces. I think my daughters are worth spending 4 to 5 hours doing something nice to honor them. And like I said, we had a nicer experience than anything else we could have done for the same amount of money.

For what occasions do you like to dine out? Do you ever think about how much food and supplies you could buy for the same amount of money as a restaurant meal would cost? Or is dining out a priority as one of your splurges?