We eat out more than we should, from a financial view. It's just DH and I, and he works crazy hours. We are usually both out of the house by 7:30am and he never is home before 7pm, sometimes 7:30. I get out of work (teacher) sometime between 3:30 and 4, but most days there is something- errands, groceries, gym- that keeps me from getting home much before 5:30. When I am being frugal, I'll start supper. When I'm being lazy, I'll come home and read or do something around the house. We always eat breakfast at home, and take our lunches to work every day. ANYHOW... We live in a small town that has a variety of places to eat, all of which are competitive and offer "nights:" Burger night, pizza night, wing night, noodle night, taco night, ladies' night, etc. Sometimes it seems silly to cook and then clean up (and it's usually being too tired to want to clean the kitchen at 9pm that'll make us decide to eat out). Here's an example of how tempting it is: Monday is burger night. For $7 we can get an 8oz Angus burger with a variety of toppings. Along with that is a mountain of fries (regular, waffle, or sweet potato). It's also $1 off pint night, so we can have a microbrew for $4. $18-$22, and there's enough leftovers for us each to take for lunch the next day. Tuesday is 2-for-1 pizza night. 14" wood fired pizza with 2 toppings is about $12 (we might finish one pizza, not usually though), and we get another to take home for dinner on another night, or several days worth of lunches. Wednesday is 50 cent wing night. These are jumbo wings with a choice of 8 sauces. You have to buy them by 5s, and I can only eat 3 or 4, so if I get 10 (so $5), I have dinner and 2 lunches. DH orders 10 and usually eats them all. On Thursdays, the local Tex-Mex restaurant has ladies night if you sit in the lounge instead of the dining room. Half-price dinners for ladies. I'll order fajitas (regularly $16, so $8) and DH gets an app ($5)... we split the dinner, usually have leftovers. We don't usually drink, but margaritas are $5 on ladies night, so sometimes... Tuesdays are taco night- all you can eat for $8. Noodle night at the Thai restaurant is 50% off any noodle dish, so we can get pad Thai for about $6, and it's enough for 2. OF course you have to add tax and tip, but if we do take-out there's no tip added (and no bar bill!).
OK, it DOES all add up, and the credit card bill is always much more manageable when we are being "good" and eating at home as much as possible, but the cost really isn't prohibitive if we go to the right places (and it's only a 5 minute walk into town from our house)!