The Cost of Eating Out

There have been a few PF bloggers that recently wrote about the cost as well as the pros and cons of eating out or bringing your lunch to work everyday. I am a huge proponent of brining your lunch to work. I probably buy my lunch once or twice a month. I think it's important not to beat yourself up over it, but is is important to know where your monies going.

There are two main reasons I bring my lunch to work:
1. It tastes better
2. It's cheaper

For example:

If I grabbed coffee and a breakfast sandwhich at TH's everymorning that would run me about $3/day. If I also got lunch each day it would average about $10/day. If there are twenty work days in a month = it will cost (at a minimum) $260/month to eat out.

My entire grocery budget is $200/month - so this doesn't work for me. That $200/month includes breakfast, lunch & dinner: Monday-Sunday. That is plenty enough money (for me) to eat in a month).

That said, I do budget $100/month for restaurants. If I choose to eat out a few times that fine, or if I want to go out for a fancy dinner, that's planned for too.

That's the point - it's planning. If you want to spend $260/month (or more) on eating your lunch out - do it. But plan for it! Know how much money you are spending and know that something else will likely suffer because of it.