Compared to last month we’ve eaten a lot more lunches out of home, largely because we were in the process of moving during the month.
The averages for this month:
- Lunch prepared at home $1.98 ($3.17 in January)
- Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $8.16 ($10.08)
- Dinner eaten at home: $4.83 ($5.59)
- Dinner eaten out: $18.70 ($12.00)
Our most expensive meal was Commonwealth Restaurant at $47.00 a serve, but absolutely worth it for food that we would never cook ourselves. Eight of our home cooked meals this month I would consider ‘restaurant quality’ with most expensive being the NY Strip steak on February 18.
We ate dinner in a restaurant four times in February, but lunch was at home only 11 days in the month, half what it was in January. Again, attributable to moving to a new location 25 miles away.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $236 per person in February. We actually spent $21.79 for lunches at home plus $138.72 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $160.51. So, although we ate more lunches out our overall spend in February was less than January. I suspect because fewer lunches were at the Country Deli!
Had we purchased every dinner out at the same average it would be $542.30 each, compared with $115.81 for meals prepared at home and $74.80 for meals out, or the $190.61 total.
That’s just working on the average. Several of the meals we had would have been well over $30 a serve in a restaurant.