How often do you buy take out food?

[Zola.]

Just curious to see how often you guys buy takeout food.

For us its easily once a week, sometimes twice. Over time, it adds up!

We take out lunches to work 3 or 4 days a week, and meal prep for dinners, but come thursday and friday the takeouts creep in!

[ketchup]

Take out? Maybe once or twice a year due to weird circumstances.   But we go out to eat about once a month.

I'm generally of the opinion that if I'm going to temporarily hire a private army to prepare me a meal, I'm not doing dishes afterward or tossing a bunch of bullshit packaging or single use plasticware in my trash can.  That defeats the point.

[Raenia]

Right now it's crept up to 1-2 times a month, due to a bi-weekly game night hosted by one of our friends.  Since it's a weeknight and we go straight from work to our friend's place, it's difficult to bring anything, plus the other guests prefer takeout, so we usually end up getting pizza.  Before we started going to that, though, it was more like 2-3 times a year.  It helps that my SO doesn't like Chinese takeout, we prefer my homemade pizza over our local places, and there aren't many other takeout options in our area.

We go out to a sit-down restaurant mostly when family or friends are visiting from out of town, maybe once a month on average.

[charis]

Same as above, we are much more likely to eat out than get take out.  Most likely take-out scenario would be pizza with the extended family or the super bowl.  I rarely get take-out lunch, but will go to lunch at a restaurant with friends every couple of months. 

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

[Jrr85]

Just curious to see how often you guys buy takeout food.

For us its easily once a week, sometimes twice. Over time, it adds up!

We take out lunches to work 3 or 4 days a week, and meal prep for dinners, but come thursday and friday the takeouts creep in!

Takeout probably once a week, maybe twice.  But it varies a good bit based on family being in town and wanting to try local restaurants (but not necessarily wanting to deal with kids in a restaurant) and/or just how busy/worn out we are becasue of kids activities and/or work. 

[Tuskalusa]

Maybe once or twice a quarter. This is one of the things we stopped doing when we found MMM. We keep Trader Joe’s orange chicken and potstickers around. When we’re tired, it’s an easy meal.

For us, it’s b3come easier to just cook at home. And we aren’t waiting for the food to arrive!

[Easye418]

Depends on life, usually 1 time a week, mainly because we love pizza and I don't love making it all the time.  Either that or we try to go to a nice meal once a week.  We only have 1 baby though, will change when that number goes up (fingers crossed).

[jamesplease]

Maybe once a year. It took a few years to settle into this routine, but we cook almost all of our meals.

[NextTime]

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

This is where we struggle mentally.  We eat out A LOT. It's easily our biggest waste every month. With 2 small kids and a busy schedule, what you say makes a lot more sense than going out to eat when nothing is prepared by dinnertime. However there is a mental block that prevents me from buying frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I need to get over it. But we also need to do a better job of meal planning which is another constant struggle. We would save quite a bit of money per month by just cutting the eating out in half.

[Easye418]

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

This is where we struggle mentally.  We eat out A LOT. It's easily our biggest waste every month. With 2 small kids and a busy schedule, what you say makes a lot more sense than going out to eat when nothing is prepared by dinnertime. However there is a mental block that prevents me from buying frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I need to get over it. But we also need to do a better job of meal planning which is another constant struggle. We would save quite a bit of money per month by just cutting the eating out in half.

Bingo.... some nights I don't get home until 6:30PM and my wife doesn't get home until 8PM.  Not much time to prepare a meal.  I need to invest in a instapot and/or get better at slow cooking.

[pachnik]

Usually once every two weeks.  We just get Chinese take out. 

[L2]

Generally "eat out" once or twice a week, whether it be getting chipotle to go, sitting down at a decent restaurant, or satisfying my Steak N' Shake/McD's breakfast cravings. I budget $150 a month for it.

[Cranky]

We get pizza a couple of times/year, usually when visiting my dd - I don't want them to have to cook too much for us, and it's easier to get takeout than take a toddle out. ;-)

And we generally get Chinese take out for birthdays, which is pretty much the best deal ever.. for under $40 bucks we get several dinners and lunches.

I don't really love restaurant food, and I figure that I might as well make grilled cheese sandwiches and a salad as waste money on food out.

[AMandM]

Pretty much never, unless we're traveling. I think we ordered pizza twice last year, both times when we got home late from a road trip. Can't remember the last time we got Chinese take-out. I'm at home so I can cook, and our kids are old enough to cook if I'm not. (Frugal tip: teach your kids to cook!)

My husband buys lunch at work 3-4 times a month, if the fridge is bare or he gets delayed unexpectedly. And we eat out for school fundraisers a few times a year.

[Linea_Norway]

Never when we are at home. Sometimes we buy a burger when we are on the road during dinner time.

We used to sometimes in the past when we lived close to a place where to buy it. Where we live now it is more usual to have takeout delivered at your house. We have forvthe past 17 years lived at a difficult road that I can't imagine that a food delivery car/scooter wants to drive up voluntarily. Therefore we have gotten used to not ordering it.

[charis]

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

This is where we struggle mentally.  We eat out A LOT. It's easily our biggest waste every month. With 2 small kids and a busy schedule, what you say makes a lot more sense than going out to eat when nothing is prepared by dinnertime. However there is a mental block that prevents me from buying frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I need to get over it. But we also need to do a better job of meal planning which is another constant struggle. We would save quite a bit of money per month by just cutting the eating out in half.

Bingo.... some nights I don't get home until 6:30PM and my wife doesn't get home until 8PM.  Not much time to prepare a meal.  I need to invest in a instapot and/or get better at slow cooking.

The slower cooker is great too.  We have a chest freezer in the basement, which is where we keep the frozen pizza, etc, and homemade freezer meals.  Trader Joes has some good convenience options, and a bulk bag of frozen meatballs can perk up some last-minute pasta. 

[centwise]

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

This is where we struggle mentally.  We eat out A LOT. It's easily our biggest waste every month. With 2 small kids and a busy schedule, what you say makes a lot more sense than going out to eat when nothing is prepared by dinnertime. However there is a mental block that prevents me from buying frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I need to get over it. But we also need to do a better job of meal planning which is another constant struggle. We would save quite a bit of money per month by just cutting the eating out in half.

The answer for me is "pretty much never" because I always cook at home and take a lunch to work. The exception is if I'm driving my busy teen from one activity to another I will -- very rarely -- buy her take-out sushi or a big smoothie to consume in the car.

But I used to be you decozad999-- exactly -- so believe me, I understand where you are coming from. For some reason I had an aversion to buying packaged convenience foods, so we ate restaurant food or take-out constantly. As anti-mustachian as it may sound, getting over that aversion to convenience foods was an important step in my transition from lifestyle-inflation victim to mustachianism.

The trick for me was to carefully select convenience foods that seemed simpler (= short list of recognizable ingredients) and healthier than say, a corndog :). I started with spinach-mozzarella ravioli and potstickers from Costco. Then I found locally made frozen lasagnas and empanadas, etc.. What a relief it was to know that I could always throw together a dinner with no effort in a pinch (especially during that stage when restaurants and toddlers became incompatible). It saves so much time and money. I think I was mostly surprised by the time-saving aspect. I had always imagined that I "didn't have time" to cook at home, when eating out turns out to be such a waste of time.

It was a long road, but now I cook pretty much everything from scratch at home and my food budget is probably a tenth of what it was back then. But it took me a long time to slowly develop that skill set.

[Zikoris]

So far in 2018, once - I wanted takeout sushi for Valentine's day. We had one other restaurant meal because my boyfriend wanted to try poke, but we actually went there and sat down for that.

It looks like we had three takeouts last year - Valentine's day, my birthday, and one other random one in the summer.

I just cook and portion out all our food on the weekend. Easy peasy.

[I'm a red panda]

Less than once a month. 
We also eat out about less than once a month.

This does not include vacation. Last year, for instance- we ate out or had takeout 22 times.  Most of these were during vacations  (we had 20 days where we were staying in a hotel/vacation property).

[formerlydivorcedmom]

I never ever ever feel like cooking on Friday.  Ever.  My solution was to put a lot of casseroles in our deep freeze.  Most are ones I prepped myself.  I get one out on Thursday night to defrost and cook it on Friday.  Home-cooked meals with no work!  Once every 4-6 weeks, I prep more casseroles for the freezer.

We rarely get take out food anymore - I can actually pinpoint the last 2 times we had food delivered/bought it and brought it back to the house.  That's a pretty amazing shift for our family, and it makes me happy to know that the meals are now memorable.  We are being intentional about our spending, although we still spend too much going to sit and eat at restaurants.  I'm working on this number.

[Just Joe]

We have at times eaten out or ordered convenience foods often due to various activities we've been involved in. Pizza is one of our favorites. We stumbled across a good recipe and now make our own pizza more often - and I think its the best pizza in town. Easy too. Just Google Neapolitan pizza. It is a simple pizza. Not alot of expensive toppings.

As time has passed we have developed fast meals to curb our urge to go out when time is limited. Toasted cheesy sandwich with some sandwich meat inside is an easy one. Spaghetti is an easy one. Stock the freezer with stuff people here recommend making ahead of time and just warm it up.

[mm1970]

Probably 1-4 times a month.  It depends on the month.

Most of the time, we just eat at home.  It's easier.  At this point, it's hugely easier for me to throw something together than to go ANYWHERE with the kids (12 and 5).  We were on a little outing one day where I'd planned to eat out, and the two kids fought over it, and I said "eff it, we are going home to PB&J".

For me, it's important that I plan these things.  We rarely wing it.  Okay, so big kid has 3 hours of baseball followed by 4 hours of music practice/ concert?  Take him to Chik-fil-a.  (I hate that place, so the rest of us don't go.)

We had spring break "staycation" at the end of March, so I planned a couple of meals out (take-out pizza, lunch out of town).  When we travel, we generally eat out once/ day, but again - that's planned.

So some months, it might be once a week or even go up to 6 times a month.

Most months, it's much less.  My husband will go to lunch with a friend once every few months.  I go out for "mom's night" maybe 2x a year.  My husband and I do dates occasionally (though last one we ate at home and went to go watch a college volleyball game).

In the end, I guess I'm good enough at throwing stuff together that it's just easier than eating out with kids!  Plus we keep frozen pizza from Costco in the back freezer.

[mm1970]

We avoid the urge for take out or fast food by stocking convenience foods in the freezer (frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, etc).  It's not the healthiest, but it's a reality for two working parents and better and/or cheaper than take out.

This is where we struggle mentally.  We eat out A LOT. It's easily our biggest waste every month. With 2 small kids and a busy schedule, what you say makes a lot more sense than going out to eat when nothing is prepared by dinnertime. However there is a mental block that prevents me from buying frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I need to get over it. But we also need to do a better job of meal planning which is another constant struggle. We would save quite a bit of money per month by just cutting the eating out in half.

Bingo.... some nights I don't get home until 6:30PM and my wife doesn't get home until 8PM.  Not much time to prepare a meal.  I need to invest in a instapot and/or get better at slow cooking.

Leftovers (I cook on the weekend and reheat), snacks (my kids get really hungry before dinner is ready, so I throw some fruits/ veggies at them while I cook), instant pot, crock pot (occasionally).  But usually, it's leftovers.

Frozen pizza and chicken nuggets are life-savers.

[seattlecyclone]

Take out? Maybe once or twice a year due to weird circumstances.   But we go out to eat about once a month.

I'm generally of the opinion that if I'm going to temporarily hire a private army to prepare me a meal, I'm not doing dishes afterward or tossing a bunch of bullshit packaging or single use plasticware in my trash can.  That defeats the point.

We're exactly the same way.

[Awesomeness]

About every three weeks my daughter and I get our favorite meal. Mall chicken and shrimp teriyaki, extra chicken and shrimp, 12$, then we split it.   It’s soooooooo good!!

Sometimes a pizza slice from samsclub or if I’m lucky enough to be at Costco. :)

Mcds app has a ton of free food, weekly I’ll hit that for a free frappe or fries.

Real treats are the Chinese take outs, they load the boxes so much that you get a lot of meals for your money, probably do this quarterly and it’s our Christmas Eve dinner every year for the last 15 years so it’s a family tradition now. 

I rarely eat out in restaurants, always felt like it was a rip off for what you’d get so I just stopped.

I spend about 20-30$ a month eating out, sometimes I buy or my daughter will, mostly it’s just me. I’m happy with that. But writing all that does seems like a lot. Lol. I’m not overweight and perfectly healthy so I’m still getting away with it.

[Carrie]

1x per year for one kid's birthday (other kids choose home cooked), and 3-4x per year fast food on the road.
I meal plan diligently and usually plan for a few easy meals to slide in as needed. Life is so easy going these days that cooking daily is no problem.  We don't even eat out for lunches, ever, because DH works from home and my tiny side gig is cooking lunch for school.

[HipGnosis]

4-5 times a month.
It's cheaper than eating out as I'm not ordering appetizer, drinks or desert.  I supplement it with leftovers, potato salad, cole slaw and/or fruit.

[wordnerd]

Take out? 2-3 times in the past seven years that I can recall. We had a few Groupons.

I sometimes buy coffee at Dunkin on the weekends or buy lunch at my work cafeteria, but don't count that as takeout. And, we went to Panda Express when our power was out for three days.

[mozar]

Used to be once a week. I was diagnosed with low blood pressure recently and I realized that I crave takeout because it has so much salt. So now I am incorporating salty foods into my diet every day (green olives, artichoke hearts, etc) so I'm not going nuts for salt by the end of the week.

[OtherJen]

Me: almost never. I work at home and can’t remember my last takeout meal.
Husband: maybe once a week (when he forgets to pack lunch).

[TartanTallulah]

We almost never have take-out food at home or on vacation. I don't need my food to entertain or comfort me and am happy to heat up a can of soup, whang a supermarket pizza into the oven or make a sandwich when I come home from work and don't have time to cook.

My husband gets himself a sandwich from a sandwich bar twice a week on long work days. I could make him sandwiches instead, but the additional cost of buying fresh sandwiches is offset by the benefits of having to leave the office for 20 minutes and being able to choose what he wants to eat at the point of purchase.

[middo]

Almost never, and it has definitely been over a year since we got takeaway.  But - we do live about half an hour from the nearest city and no-one delivers here.  We eat out about once every couple of months, generally for birthdays or similar.

[libertarian4321]

Probably 3-4 times per week.  Way too much.

[tralfamadorian]

I’ll get Thai takeout for lunch about 1x/mo because it’s delicious and I haven’t been able to replicate it to a sufficient extent at home.

[Dragonswan]

I'm a foodie so that means a healthy food budget.  I'm also single and low carb most of the time so I get bored with eating the same food all week. Even with bulk cooking and putting meals in the freezer - not everything freezes well so I have to eat it the week I cook it, I have insufficient variety.  That said I do takeout on the weekends so 1-2 times a week.  This breaks up the monotony.  I also do a sit down restaurant meal about once a month.  Steak is the one thing I don't do well, so will eat that out.  I also like hibachi vegetables and those don't travel well so will go to the buffet restaurant and have it cooked fresh before my watering mouth (if I go on a weekday afternoon it's all you can eat for $8 plus tip).

[TheWifeHalf]

About once a month. (I am home most days)
TheHusbandHalf cannot leave work for lunch, so they have a cafeteria 5 days a week. He buys maybe 3 days a week. It seems to be of quallity a step above take out, but definitely not home cooked. Many times I'll make extra for dinner, and he takes it to work the next day.

[Dave1442397]

Very rarely. We used to eat out a lot, which was generally due to my wife being a foodie. Once I found MMM and got a good grip on our finances, I scaled that down over the past year. I think we've only eaten out once this year as a family.

As for takeout, we used to do that once a week, but have cut way back...maybe once every six weeks now. We had a great Chinese place near us that was a favorite of mine, but the owners retired and sold it to a family member, who immediately ruined the food by going cheap on ingredients. The last order was given to the dog. Takeout these days is usually pizza, which is not bad at $12 for a large pie.

My wife still gets to eat out with her friends and co-workers, and uses her personal spending money on that, which is great.

[I'm a red panda]

I’ll get Thai takeout for lunch about 1x/mo because it’s delicious and I haven’t been able to replicate it to a sufficient extent at home.

That seems pretty reasonable.  IMO there is nothing wrong with eating out if it is intentional.  The problem is people do it because they haven't planned well.

[NextTime]

I'm a foodie so that means a healthy food budget.  I'm also single and low carb most of the time so I get bored with eating the same food all week. Even with bulk cooking and putting meals in the freezer - not everything freezes well so I have to eat it the week I cook it, I have insufficient variety.  That said I do takeout on the weekends so 1-2 times a week.  This breaks up the monotony.  I also do a sit down restaurant meal about once a month.  Steak is the one thing I don't do well, so will eat that out.  I also like hibachi vegetables and those don't travel well so will go to the buffet restaurant and have it cooked fresh before my watering mouth (if I go on a weekday afternoon it's all you can eat for $8 plus tip).

Unless you are going to some high end steakhouses, I feel like steak is the easiest thing to do better than a restaurant. Just make sure you get a decent cut (on sale). Cheapest would be KC strip or Flat Iron. The only steak I will buy at a restaurant is Prime Rib

The wife and I have been trying for quite a while to replicate the fried rice and grilled veggies they make at teppenyaki restaurants, but to no avail. Ours is still pretty tasty, but I'm not sure what type of sorcery they use to make it taste so good.

[chickinyow]

I don't usually feel like cooking on Friday nights after work, so we will often pick up pizza or Chinese food. Doesn't bother me at all - small price to pay for my sanity.

[Rubic]

Last December I had $35 in free Uber credits and I only
use Uber when it's reimbursed for business expenses,
e.g. rides to/from the airport.

Since my credit was about to expire, I ordered 4 entrees
via UberEats.  Ate one, then put the other 3 in the fridge
for future meals.

This was my sole "take-out" during the past 12 months.  ;-)

[GuitarStv]

We will dine out or get takeout food 5 - 10 times a year.  It used to be much less, but we're occasionally time crunched since having our son.

[Catbert]

Maybe once or twice a year.  We're retired and if we eat at home, I've cooked it.  (We do eat out once a week.)  We might be a take out pizza with unexpected company or a large group.  I'm with the others who don't see the point in paying someone to cook for me if they aren't cleaning up and washing the dishes also.

[Hula Hoop]

For dinner maybe once every 3 months.  Takeout isn't really a thing here but occasionally if we have a late appointment or something we get take out pizza.  We eat out maybe once or twice a month in cheapo places.

[Dragonswan]

I'm a foodie so that means a healthy food budget.  I'm also single and low carb most of the time so I get bored with eating the same food all week. Even with bulk cooking and putting meals in the freezer - not everything freezes well so I have to eat it the week I cook it, I have insufficient variety.  That said I do takeout on the weekends so 1-2 times a week.  This breaks up the monotony.  I also do a sit down restaurant meal about once a month.  Steak is the one thing I don't do well, so will eat that out.  I also like hibachi vegetables and those don't travel well so will go to the buffet restaurant and have it cooked fresh before my watering mouth (if I go on a weekday afternoon it's all you can eat for $8 plus tip).

Unless you are going to some high end steakhouses, I feel like steak is the easiest thing to do better than a restaurant. Just make sure you get a decent cut (on sale). Cheapest would be KC strip or Flat Iron. The only steak I will buy at a restaurant is Prime Rib

The wife and I have been trying for quite a while to replicate the fried rice and grilled veggies they make at teppenyaki restaurants, but to no avail. Ours is still pretty tasty, but I'm not sure what type of sorcery they use to make it taste so good.

Well usually it's outback.  Since I don't play with fire and I like my steak medium well, I can't duplicate that at home without shoe leather results.  Now I will admit that when I go visit my friend in the city I used to live in we'll go to Ruth Chris and/or Sakura (depending on how many nights I'm there).  This is only a few times a year though, and I repent by eating out of my freezer stache the following week.

[Dragonswan]

Maybe once or twice a year.  We're retired and if we eat at home, I've cooked it.  (We do eat out once a week.)  We might be a take out pizza with unexpected company or a large group.  I'm with the others who don't see the point in paying someone to cook for me if they aren't cleaning up and washing the dishes also.

True, true, but it's just me and I open the container and fork right out of it whilst lounging on my couch.  Cleanup is as taxing as unreclining and walking to the garbage.

[GuitarStv]

Maybe once or twice a year.  We're retired and if we eat at home, I've cooked it.  (We do eat out once a week.)  We might be a take out pizza with unexpected company or a large group.  I'm with the others who don't see the point in paying someone to cook for me if they aren't cleaning up and washing the dishes also.

True, true, but it's just me and I open the container and fork right out of it whilst lounging on my couch.  Cleanup is as taxing as unreclining and walking to the garbage.

That's one of the reasons I dislike takeout.  The massive amount of trash generated for a simple meal (that needed no more than a plate and a fork) is astounding.

[fuzzy math]

I'm a foodie so that means a healthy food budget.  I'm also single and low carb most of the time so I get bored with eating the same food all week. Even with bulk cooking and putting meals in the freezer - not everything freezes well so I have to eat it the week I cook it, I have insufficient variety.  That said I do takeout on the weekends so 1-2 times a week.  This breaks up the monotony.  I also do a sit down restaurant meal about once a month.  Steak is the one thing I don't do well, so will eat that out.  I also like hibachi vegetables and those don't travel well so will go to the buffet restaurant and have it cooked fresh before my watering mouth (if I go on a weekday afternoon it's all you can eat for $8 plus tip).

Unless you are going to some high end steakhouses, I feel like steak is the easiest thing to do better than a restaurant. Just make sure you get a decent cut (on sale). Cheapest would be KC strip or Flat Iron. The only steak I will buy at a restaurant is Prime Rib

The wife and I have been trying for quite a while to replicate the fried rice and grilled veggies they make at teppenyaki restaurants, but to no avail. Ours is still pretty tasty, but I'm not sure what type of sorcery they use to make it taste so good.

Well usually it's outback.  Since I don't play with fire and I like my steak medium well, I can't duplicate that at home without shoe leather results.  Now I will admit that when I go visit my friend in the city I used to live in we'll go to Ruth Chris and/or Sakura (depending on how many nights I'm there).  This is only a few times a year though, and I repent by eating out of my freezer stache the following week.

We only recently got a grill (that I don't use) but my DH had previously researched how to broil a steak. USe an oven safe pan and preheat the oven to 400. Sear the steak in butter on the stovetop on high heat (scorching hot pan) for 1 min per side. Pop in the oven for 5 mins and you will have a medium - medium well steak.

[Acastus]

Fridays. The family really looks forward to it. It can be just pizza, something fancier, or nice big steaks for the backyard barbie.

[mm1970]

Maybe once or twice a year.  We're retired and if we eat at home, I've cooked it.  (We do eat out once a week.)  We might be a take out pizza with unexpected company or a large group.  I'm with the others who don't see the point in paying someone to cook for me if they aren't cleaning up and washing the dishes also.

True, true, but it's just me and I open the container and fork right out of it whilst lounging on my couch.  Cleanup is as taxing as unreclining and walking to the garbage.

That's one of the reasons I dislike takeout.  The massive amount of trash generated for a simple meal (that needed no more than a plate and a fork) is astounding.

Yes, this is one of the reasons I avoid it.