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Pad Patter 9/1: Eat in or Eat out?

lmccandless

lmccandless

The Force is strong with this one.
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Mar 9, 2009
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What do you do more often - cook and eat in; carry out and eat at home; eat out?

I really love to cook, so we eat at home most nights. We eat out on the weekends for date night and family fun. If I have a day where our schedule is really crazy, either DH will cook or we grab carry out.

What about you?
 
My 2nd son cooks for the kids, and me and dh eat out. It's weird, I know.
 
we almost always eat in; my DH would say we eat out too much, but in reality it is once a weekend, if that.

Of course, he eats out for lunch every day at work, so his perception and my perception are different. ;)
 
I wish I could eat out every day - if cost was not an issue! :) I don't enjoy cooking - and am not good at it, except for breakfasts - love making breakfasts and would rather eat in for that meal, but lunch and dinner I struggle with. We do eat home more often than eat out though - we usually eat out as a family once a week, and then I eat out at my lunches at work about 2 times a week.
 
We don't eat out during the week unless I've had a very, very bad day. My oldest DD usually helps me cook so it has to be really bad for neither of us to feel like cooking. We usually eat take out on Friday nights (Chipotle, Subway or pizza). We sometimes eat out for lunch on the weekends simply because I can't make myself cook more than one meal a day. If I don't plan ahead something easy to make for lunch, we'll go grab something. I do have a vegetarian and one who only eats healthy so if we go fast food, there will only be 3 of us eating most of the time. The other 2 will fix someething at home. Due to our preferences, a lot of times it's just easier to eat at home. We hardly ever eat in a restaurant. It's just too much trouble for 5 of us -- one's a senior in high school, one in college, a DH that works 60-80 hours a week.... so much easier to grab and eat at home.

We do always, always sit down and eat dinner as a family... even if it's just subway. It's a family rule.
 
I HATE cooking and wish we could eat out more often- but for six people, that would be much too expensive, so I just suck it up and... cook :whoopdedoo.
 
We used to eat out a lot, but since moving 5 years ago, we eat in most of the time - not sure why. Definitely in on weeknights, and on weekends we're more likely to go out for lunch than dinner anymore. About the only time we think about going out is if one of us has a craving for something specific, like Mexican food or something like that.
 
Well, I do cook because I have to, but I would rather eat out much more often. It's uber expensive to eat out here in Norway though, so we don't do it much. I might be better when I have my own kitchen to cook in!
 
Cook and eat at home. I ate out a lot in the States but it's crazy expensive here, esp. for any place worth going to. Fortunately, I do love to cook, and if I'm too tired or whatever, DH is capable enough.
 
We eat in most of the time. I do like to cook, so that helps. There are a few things that we'll run out and pick up, but we don't do it very often.
 
We used to go to restaurants a lot before my son was born. Now we stay in. I cook pretty easy foods most nights, though, like salads, pasta, rice etc. I only do "fancy" cooking on special occasions or weekends mostly.
 
It's about half and half for us, especially with the start of the school year. Eating out will be slowing down soon b/c we're getting in our new routine again.
 
I really try to cook most nights if possible especially during the week. I don't love to cook, but I've been trying to make it more interesting with trying new recipes over the last year or so. That has helped. My problem is that I really want to cook delicious meals with butter and cheese and sugar, BUT I'm really trying to eat healthy and I usually only cook very healthy meals. I think if I didn't care about being healthy I'd enjoy cooking more. Ha ha.

On the weekends we usually are out and about walking or biking around town and we'll eat at Jimmy Johns or grab pizza on the weekend evenings once in awhile. I really love that. :)
 
It all depends on the time of the month. If I'm working (long hours) there is a lot of grab & go. I do try to cook when I'm off as much as I can but we do love eating out. If it didn't cost so much & wasn't so bad for us, I'd do it all the time!! ;)
 
In the past we've definitely ate out too much (at least by my standards). We're actually about to try something new. I'm going to try to pull out cash for a Sunday - Saturday food budget. I'll go shopping Sunday morning for most of our week's food. We'll replenish on Wednesday (lunchmeat, bananas, bread, yogurt mainly), and then Friday or Saturday will be our eat out night for the week and our weekly eat out budget will be determined by what cash I have left from our weekly food budget (or if the remainder is particularly tiny we'll eat in and maybe go out for dessert instead). We'll probably splurge on occasion (birthdays or a special meal out of town) but I'm really hoping that this works for us for our normal week to week.
 
Nixenkind said:
I HATE cooking and wish we could eat out more often- but for six people, that would be much too expensive, so I just suck it up and... cook :whoopdedoo.
Click to expand...

This! But it's a constant struggle for me. Sigh.
 
we eat-in most of the time, I am too lazy to get dressed up and too cheap to pay for dinner out :D
 
We usually eat in. DH is really adamant about having a family dinner hour where we all sit down together and share our day or chat about whatever is current in our lives. I think it's a great idea, too!
 
We eat in most of the time, because eating out is too hard on our waistlines and our wallets. We probably eat out or get take out somewhere between 2-4 times a month. Part of the reason of I prefer to cook dinner is that with four children, I really like having family meals around the table...I think it's super important and it gives us time to connect as a family. Also, if we eat out, it takes extra time to travel there, eat the meal, pay and then travel back home. On school nights, this is impractical. My kids are big sleepers and need their rest, so lights go out consistently at 8 pm. If we eat at home, they have a bit of time to play after dinner, then after we head upstairs and brush teeth and such, they all read before bedtime. We've really gotten into a good rhythm with our nightly routine, so dinner at home works really well for us.

Honestly, I can't say I love cooking all the time, but I do like knowing I can control more of what goes into the foods we eat. I also like preparing healthy foods that taste good, that don't take forever to get on the table, and my kids like it when I try new recipes. I have my favorite food blogs ---SkinnyTaste, Eat Good 4 Life, Chocolate Covered Katie, and Oh She Glows --- and I commonly cook recipes from those sites (esp. the first two).

Oops...that got long...:sorry
 
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We used to enjoy eating out on the weekends but 2-3 years ago I found out I was gluten intolerant and then recently determined I'm HG and need to avoid sugar at all costs along w/ most carbs. This makes eating out so difficult. I know that an omlet or eggs and bacon is about the only thing I can get because even dressings for salads usually have tons of sugar. I'm also not going to do the whole sugar free fake stuff so I end up doing all the cooking. Most days I'm ok w/ it and it's been a huge challenge making good meals w/ such limited ingredients but when it turns out, that makes me happy. Ever since going gluten free, it's like I've had to relearn how to eat and I'm so much better off. Now, there are days, especially since I have chronic fatigue (we're talking exhausted like you've never known), that I dream about being able to order a pizza to be delivered, etc...but in a way, it's probably good that I can't given my history w/ food. So, I make the most of it and have found that it saves us a little money, too. (I say a little because fresh food costs more than the junk.)
 
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