The average restaurant meal now costs around $22. If you are paying for two then when you add in the tip a meal at an average restaurant will set you back about $50. Doing this four times a month means you are spending about $200 on restaurant meals just for a casual “date night”. But here is a money-saving way to dine out with friends.
Restaurants normally charge 3-4 times the cost of their food in order to cover expenses and make a profit. So if you buy the food yourself you’ll save quite a bit on that $50 meal; of course, you want to dine out and have someone else cook the food.
All you need is three friends who are willing to share the burden of buying the food and preparing it once a month with you. That’s right: every four weeks you will have to buy food and prepare it for up to 8 people. If you buy the food on clearance you should be able to save a lot of money, but just having to prepare dinner for your friends once a month will cost you considerably less than $200. You should easily be able to save around $100-120 per month and enjoy a nice routine of dining out.
Each month you and your friends can prepare menus in advance, agreeing on which types of cuisine you’ll enjoy every week. So each month you can enjoy Italian, Asian, Southern, French, Western, Indian, or many other cuisines. You may even be able to enjoy fine meals that are not available in your town.
Now, are you ready to save even more money?
Since you and your friends are all getting together you can rent movies very cheaply from services like Red Box, Netflix, and Hulu. You can also take turns bringing your own DvDs or find free movies online (there are many fan-made science fiction movies you can watch for free, some of which are made by professional film-makers). So now an $80-100 evening out should cost you less than $30 when you average your monthly savings.
Of course, the more friends you invite into your informal “Dinner Club” the more money you can save. You may be able to stretch out the dining schedule to once every 6-8 weeks for each of you (although remember that the more people you feed the more money you will spend on your day to host the dinner party).
If you decide to take cooking classes then forming a dining club with your friends and fellow students is a great way to keep your skills current. You can also volunteer to help shop and prepare the food, so that the burden of prepping meals isn’t such a big job for any individual host.
When people work together they can save a LOT of money, and saving money doesn’t mean you have to give up a comfortable social life or dining out.