Eating Out - more? less?

Uptosnuff

Uptosnuff

Member
Location
Great Plains, USA
I have been doing some retirement planning worksheets and one of the considerations is entertainment. That made me wonder how often hubby and I will eat out when we are retired. Do you eat out more often since you retired? Less since you retired? I have no idea how much money we will spend on "entertainment". We have talked a little about it and we are thinking we will be eating at home more since we will have more time but I'm not sure. Of course, entertainment means more than just eating out.
 

We eat out less since we've been retired than we did when we were working. The food at many of the restaurants over the years was not that great in retrospect. Now we do eat really good food and for the special dishes my husband is an excellent chef. We have crab legs, crab cakes, shrimp, oven grilled salmon, lamb chops, St. Louis ribs, gumbo, homemade nachos and guacamole, etc., Today my husband is getting the charcoal bbq grill ready to do some boneless rib eyes, he's oven grilling some Brussels sprouts to go with it. We'll split a large can of Fosters beer to complete the meal.
 
I've never been a person who likes to eat out that much,my routine really hasn't changed since I've been retired. Once or twice/month,I'll stop in at Panera's and buy my dinner.As for 'entertainment',that would be going to the movies for me. I try to go every month.
I'd like to make a suggestion,it may not work for you,but it has for me over 30yrs. Every month,I keep track of everything I spend,it gives me a good idea where the money goes. Sue
 
RadishRose said:
I'll be dining out less, now that I found out about the great food at Sea Breeze's house.
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Lol Rose! Not to give any false impressions, I just mentioned the good stuff. :p We have our days of tuna fish sandwiches, sardines and crackers, spaghetti and red sauce, beef franks, pizza, and ready prepared frozen foods we buy from Costco.
 
I eat out less but I spend more on groceries because I tend to buy single serving packages and prepared foods more often than I did when I was working. It would not really cost me much more to go out to eat because I go for local inexpensive restaurants, coffee shops, etc... I also have some control over the cost of eating out, if the price of seafood goes up I can order a burger or if the meal is too large I can take home a doggie bag for lunch the next day, scan the newspapers and internet for a coupon, go out for breakfast or lunch instead of dinner, etc... Try to relax and not get too granular with your retirement budget plan. Focus on the big ticket areas and be sure to include a category for retirement savings so you can maintain and replenish a comfortable slush fund.

Good luck!
 
RadishRose said:
Upto- take advantage of senior discounts and early birds specials, they may be small, but they add up .
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Yep, already do. We go to the over 55 two for one buffet at Harrah's casino. I think the specials are some of the funnest retirement perks. Aren't most of the senior discounts for over 60? I'm not quite there yet. 58
 
We never ever ate out much. These days we don't purposely go out to eat because when we travel to see my daughter we know we will be dining out a day before and maybe a day after our visit so we save dinner out for those times.
 
Last June our daughter who had been visiting was leaving the same day my wife had a dr. appointment in town. Daughter had to be at the airport at 1:00 pm and wife's dr. appointment wasn't until 2:30 so we found a Mexican restaurant and had a meal. Another time I was in town I stopped at Sonic and brought hamburgers and onion rings home. That's our eating out so far for 2017. We normally don't eat out so much.
 
We eat out less since we retired. Initially it had to do more with the fact that we were eating out almost every night before that and first me, then my husband had to start watching our sodium intake. Restaurant food has a lot of hidden sodium. We still like to eat out but now it may only be once every 10 days or twice a month, if that. Today was an exception. We had Burger Kind for lunch then Chinese take out for dinner. One way to be able to continue enjoying eating at restaurants is to do lunch instead of dinner and/or use Restaurant.com or Groupon deals. Just be careful to read the fine print when using those sites and choosing your restaurant(s). Also if there's a good buffet place in your area, that's a good way to get a lot of food for your money. Most times when we go to the Chinese buffet, I don't eat another meal later, just a snack. In the southern states, some have Picadilly's which is not a Chinese buffet. I wish we had one close to us.
 
I don't see any need to worry about what you might spend on entertainment in retirement. That's what discretionary income is all about – you take care of your needs first, and enjoy your “wants” with what's left.

We dine out much more now that we're retired. It's one of my main hobbies. I cook a lot, have always enjoyed it and my whole family is one big collection of foodies, LOL. I will often make dishes that we don't find any longer, or can't find easily.

However, I've been cooking for over 50 yrs, and don't get a big kick out of it any longer. We live in one of the great restaurant areas in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area. There are an incredible number of ethnic cuisines in addition to mid-level and upscale restaurants, at every price point, in almost every city in the region.

We both enjoy finding new dishes, with pairings we wouldn't have thought of. Ceylon cinnamon with roasted beets. A fresh coconut sambal with panko-crusted shrimp. White corn agnolotti with smoked Japanese mushrooms. Discovering the difference between ceviche and aguachile.

Over the last month, we had:
Cantonese
Afghani
Asian fusion
Korean
Peruvian
Sicilian
California/Mediterranean
Japanese
New Zealand
French
Chinese fusion
Cal-Mex(different from Tex-Mex or Southwestern)
Sichuan/Uygar
Thai/Issan
Ethiopian
 
We normally ate out once a week before retiring and we average about the same now.

I'm not talking about going to the fancy high dollar joints........we frequent local cafes & diners, some chain restaurants and the occasional drive-thru window.
 
Less even though we live in the entertainment capital of the world where along with something to be entertained by is plentiful and restaurants are even more plentiful, that option got to be boring really fast.

Retirement, true retirement meaning filling your day with something you like to do once travel and the usual other bucket list items are ticked off your list can be fulfilled by spending time, a lot of time prepping meals you never considered. Good nutrition along with exercise is key to enjoying retirement. Eating at home and knowing what goes into your meal can accomplish that.

Restaurants want return patrons, what they prepare is for taste, healthy eating that tastes good can be achieved at home. Restaurants not so much.
 
I traveled in my working years and commonly ate 13 meals a week in restaurants. to me eating out is not a treat. I participate probably once every other month.
My wife goes for lunch with the girls once or twice a week.

At home we each fix our own breakfast and lunch. For supper she cooks (makes a good job of it) and I do the washing up.
 
The social committee here at the residence organizes supper out once a month, a pub night and also
a luncheon out; I do the supper and pub nights most months. Here in our dining room, Sunday night
is roast beef night and several of us go down for that. I have an outside caterer that I order meals
from every couple of months. Other than that I prepare my own meals.
 
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