Mint has been a big help in reining this in.

Also, my husband and I (both relative cheapskates despite our December 2008 bout of bad planning) don’t like to spend a lot of money eating out–and we dated for five years. Yes, five–don’t laugh too hard. Needless to say, neither one of us wanted to foot the other’s tab for five years, so we both learned to cook and had dates at one another’s homes.

He learned a lot of ethinic foods and griling. My speciality is soul food. It worked out, and was far cheaper than eating out and it’s fun to learn to cook together–sometimes cooking can be “the date” in and of itself! Bake a cheesecake, learn to make tabouleh, etc.

Rob and I once decided to do a New Orleans theme dinner and invite our friends in college. We made Benigets (like doughnuts) and made a double batch for our combined 20 friends. We doubled the recipe not knowing it was a restraunt size batch (ooops!) we were literally carrying buckets of doughnuts around to other dorms in college and sharing them with racoons on campus. It was a blast and something we still laugh about nearly 10 years later.

Jess

One of the things I suggest to people is that if you want to eat out more often, do so – just make corresponding changes to your grocery budget.

Say you want to eat out one more time a week guilt free. Well make the corresponding adjustments to your grocery budget.

Start purchasing 10 new store brand products a week. This can EASILY save you $10 to $12 a week. If you are new to trying store brands start with the simplest grocery items first like store brand milk, butter, sugar, bread, flour, pasta before moving on to more complex items like spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, and cookies.

Stop by an Aldi’s once a week. These are deep discount no frills supermarkets that sell great food at cheap prices. Eggs are 79 cents a dozen compared to $2 at your local supermarket. Bag of baby carrots 99 cents compared to $1.79 at a local supermarket.
Purchasing just a fraction of items here can easily save you another $10 to $15 a week.

Try a bakery outlet. Contrary to popular belief these places carry fresh bread and bakery items at a fraction of of the supermarket price. Typically prices are 50% to 75% off of store prices. Shopping here once a week can save your $7 to $8 a week, EASILY.

By making small changes in your grocery shopping behavior you can offset the cost of eating out more than usual, making eating out a little more guilt free.

Of course, we also don’t drink coffee and rarely buy or consume alcohol. Because I’m a miser and it’s just too pricey, given how quickly it disappears.