Eating Out - Breakdown & Conclusions
After my last post, I had reached these final numbers for where I ate out in 2015.
Final Stats - Note that categories overlap.
Days elapsed: 365
Times Eating Out: 313
Beer/alcohol only: 34 (11%)
Ice Cream only: 24 (8%)
Chains: 61 (includes Cleveland chains like Aladdins, Winking Lizard and Mitchells) (19%)
Work-Related: 22 (7%)
Gaming Night: 9 (3%)
Ultimate: 5 (2%)
Travel: 157 (50%) [includes above categories as appropriate]
Europe: 91 (29%) [includes above categories as appropriate]
If I've learned nothing else from tracking all the places I ate in 2015, it's that I eat out a lot more than I thought I did. Previously I'd always been somewhat confused by how so many people I know can seemingly eat out every single night. It always seemed extraordinarily expensive, not to mention unhealthy.
Now when I look at my total stats for 2015, I begin to understand. If I'd spread those 313 times out evenly, I'd have hit 85% of the days of the year. Of course, that's a bit simplistic. Between holidays, vacation time and my sabbatical, I was on the road more in 2015 than I ever have been in any other year of my entire life. Heck, sabbatical alone accounted for 4 weeks off and vacation for more than 5 weeks. Throw in holidays for another 2 weeks, and it appears that I was on the road for more than 10. That's a full 20% of the year, and most of the meals in those ten weeks in restaurants.
So if I take out the 157 travel meals and the 10 weeks of travel, that gets me to 156 times eating out over 295 days. That means I ate out roughly 52% of the days I did not travel. That is still far higher than I'd like, but it is a lot more reasonable. 58 of those times were exclusively beer/alcohol or ice cream. Even after adjusting for travel that leaves about 30 more times that were dessert or libations, which would get me down to 125 times eating actual non-travel meals in 295 days, or about 40%.
Some of that 40% was scheduled activities: gaming, ultimate and various work events. That probably takes out another 20, so now we're down to 105 meals out in 295 days, or 35%. Phrased that way, when I'm not on the road I'm looking at one meal out in every three, not including alcohol, ice cream or scheduled functions.
The larger question then is if it eating out 1/3 of the meals while I'm at home is acceptable. I would say that it is not. When I was kid we ate out about 5 times a month when we weren't traveling: 4 "grab a meal before driving home an hour from Sunday School" and one "family night out" a month. I don't have a family to feed and there are many more interesting food options here in Cleveland than where I grew up in North Dakota, but it's a big jump from 60 meals a year to 105, or more like 120 if I count the scheduled events.
Of course, that doesn't take into account the health or financial aspect either. For the most part I eat very healthy at home, or least the unhealthiness comes from quantity of food rather than inherent unhealthiness. At restaurants, I pay much less attention. I'd estimate that 90% or more of my alcohol, red meat and desserts is consumed in restaurants, as is the lion's share of fried food. Throw in larger servings and sodium, and it seems pretty clear that eating out isn't usually the best health option.
Financially, I didn't keep detailed records of how much I spent on food, but my credit card does do a fancy year end summary that breaks it out into categories. According to it, I spent upwards of $4800 at restaurants in 2015 on that card. That of course doesn't include anything I bought with cash (which covers a fair amount), does not take into account meals I bought for other people (particular for dating, but I do enjoy picking up the check for friends), and accounts for virtually all of my travel eating (excluding included hotel breakfasts, which are not broken out nicely), but as a percentage of my total income that's still pretty ridiculous, even if I factor out my once in a lifetime European trip. I can only assume that the percentage would rise with those other factors more accurately broken out. My 2016 expenditures were lower, but not dramatically so. Alas, my card doesn't keep that summary on a monthly basis so I can't see how the first two months of 2017 were, but it seems pretty clear that I am spending a lot of money eating out that could otherwise be spent on travel, investments, home improvements or other more worthwhile causes.
On the plus side, I've also long stated that I avoid chain restaurants, and while 61 meals sounds like a lot of chain restaurants, most of those were Cleveland-based locally owned chains, which may not be as good as eating at an independent but is definitely better than eating at McDonald's. I can probably do a little better here, but on the whole that's not terrible.
My ice cream consumption may seem high at two dedicated ice cream purchases a month (plus no doubt other ice cream locked up in other meals), but I'm ok with that. Honestly, I love ice cream so much that I long ago decided that I was better off spending money at an ice cream parlor instead of buying ice cream to eat at home. Sure, I could save a lot of money, but I'd also eat far, far more ice cream than I would with my current system. Less overall desserts is probably a good idea (and one I'm executing this year), but this could be worse.
Similarly, the dedicated beer/alcohol list doesn't concern me too much. 34 sounds like a lot, but all of those were either with friends or at one of the 32 concerts I saw in 2015 or at ultimate night. I could cut here, but it's not inherently a problem now.
So, in conclusion:
- It would be a good idea for me to track my expenditures on eating out in 2015. Although I can easily afford it, it's very likely that I'd rather spend some of that money on other things.
- The actual places that I eat are not particularly problematic, being largely locally owned restaurants, usually independents rather than chains.
- A significant part of my eating out (and most of my national chain meals) is while traveling. I may wish to look into buying groceries when feasible on road trips where I'd just be eating in chains anyway. Eating at local favorites is part of the appeal of travel, so on the whole I think this is ok.
It's too bad that I didn't get this list posted earlier in 2016 so I could have reached these conclusions earlier.
This now raises the question of whether I should do a more detailed budget covering non-restaurant spending as well. That probably merits another post.
Final Stats - Note that categories overlap.
Days elapsed: 365
Times Eating Out: 313
Beer/alcohol only: 34 (11%)
Ice Cream only: 24 (8%)
Chains: 61 (includes Cleveland chains like Aladdins, Winking Lizard and Mitchells) (19%)
Work-Related: 22 (7%)
Gaming Night: 9 (3%)
Ultimate: 5 (2%)
Travel: 157 (50%) [includes above categories as appropriate]
Europe: 91 (29%) [includes above categories as appropriate]
If I've learned nothing else from tracking all the places I ate in 2015, it's that I eat out a lot more than I thought I did. Previously I'd always been somewhat confused by how so many people I know can seemingly eat out every single night. It always seemed extraordinarily expensive, not to mention unhealthy.
Now when I look at my total stats for 2015, I begin to understand. If I'd spread those 313 times out evenly, I'd have hit 85% of the days of the year. Of course, that's a bit simplistic. Between holidays, vacation time and my sabbatical, I was on the road more in 2015 than I ever have been in any other year of my entire life. Heck, sabbatical alone accounted for 4 weeks off and vacation for more than 5 weeks. Throw in holidays for another 2 weeks, and it appears that I was on the road for more than 10. That's a full 20% of the year, and most of the meals in those ten weeks in restaurants.
So if I take out the 157 travel meals and the 10 weeks of travel, that gets me to 156 times eating out over 295 days. That means I ate out roughly 52% of the days I did not travel. That is still far higher than I'd like, but it is a lot more reasonable. 58 of those times were exclusively beer/alcohol or ice cream. Even after adjusting for travel that leaves about 30 more times that were dessert or libations, which would get me down to 125 times eating actual non-travel meals in 295 days, or about 40%.
Some of that 40% was scheduled activities: gaming, ultimate and various work events. That probably takes out another 20, so now we're down to 105 meals out in 295 days, or 35%. Phrased that way, when I'm not on the road I'm looking at one meal out in every three, not including alcohol, ice cream or scheduled functions.
The larger question then is if it eating out 1/3 of the meals while I'm at home is acceptable. I would say that it is not. When I was kid we ate out about 5 times a month when we weren't traveling: 4 "grab a meal before driving home an hour from Sunday School" and one "family night out" a month. I don't have a family to feed and there are many more interesting food options here in Cleveland than where I grew up in North Dakota, but it's a big jump from 60 meals a year to 105, or more like 120 if I count the scheduled events.
Of course, that doesn't take into account the health or financial aspect either. For the most part I eat very healthy at home, or least the unhealthiness comes from quantity of food rather than inherent unhealthiness. At restaurants, I pay much less attention. I'd estimate that 90% or more of my alcohol, red meat and desserts is consumed in restaurants, as is the lion's share of fried food. Throw in larger servings and sodium, and it seems pretty clear that eating out isn't usually the best health option.
Financially, I didn't keep detailed records of how much I spent on food, but my credit card does do a fancy year end summary that breaks it out into categories. According to it, I spent upwards of $4800 at restaurants in 2015 on that card. That of course doesn't include anything I bought with cash (which covers a fair amount), does not take into account meals I bought for other people (particular for dating, but I do enjoy picking up the check for friends), and accounts for virtually all of my travel eating (excluding included hotel breakfasts, which are not broken out nicely), but as a percentage of my total income that's still pretty ridiculous, even if I factor out my once in a lifetime European trip. I can only assume that the percentage would rise with those other factors more accurately broken out. My 2016 expenditures were lower, but not dramatically so. Alas, my card doesn't keep that summary on a monthly basis so I can't see how the first two months of 2017 were, but it seems pretty clear that I am spending a lot of money eating out that could otherwise be spent on travel, investments, home improvements or other more worthwhile causes.
On the plus side, I've also long stated that I avoid chain restaurants, and while 61 meals sounds like a lot of chain restaurants, most of those were Cleveland-based locally owned chains, which may not be as good as eating at an independent but is definitely better than eating at McDonald's. I can probably do a little better here, but on the whole that's not terrible.
My ice cream consumption may seem high at two dedicated ice cream purchases a month (plus no doubt other ice cream locked up in other meals), but I'm ok with that. Honestly, I love ice cream so much that I long ago decided that I was better off spending money at an ice cream parlor instead of buying ice cream to eat at home. Sure, I could save a lot of money, but I'd also eat far, far more ice cream than I would with my current system. Less overall desserts is probably a good idea (and one I'm executing this year), but this could be worse.
Similarly, the dedicated beer/alcohol list doesn't concern me too much. 34 sounds like a lot, but all of those were either with friends or at one of the 32 concerts I saw in 2015 or at ultimate night. I could cut here, but it's not inherently a problem now.
So, in conclusion:
- It would be a good idea for me to track my expenditures on eating out in 2015. Although I can easily afford it, it's very likely that I'd rather spend some of that money on other things.
- The actual places that I eat are not particularly problematic, being largely locally owned restaurants, usually independents rather than chains.
- A significant part of my eating out (and most of my national chain meals) is while traveling. I may wish to look into buying groceries when feasible on road trips where I'd just be eating in chains anyway. Eating at local favorites is part of the appeal of travel, so on the whole I think this is ok.
It's too bad that I didn't get this list posted earlier in 2016 so I could have reached these conclusions earlier.
This now raises the question of whether I should do a more detailed budget covering non-restaurant spending as well. That probably merits another post.