Most of April was, as has been our usual, pretty quiet and the Foodies didn’t venture out much. Until April 25th when we headed for a vacation in Italy. Because that is so unusual, the Italy days are excluded. Our typical evening meal out on the trip averaged around $55.00.
The averages for this month were all over the place, but within our range of “normal”. We did have more lunch take-out than typical.
- Lunch prepared at home $2.07 ($2.51 in Mar 22)
- Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $9.43 ($10.33)
- Dinner eaten at home: $5.433 ($5,43)
- Dinner prepared in a restaurant $20.99 ($14.81)
The variation is usually small month to month.
Our most expensive meal of the month (again) was The Country Deli for $27.44 per serve, because we each had a meal.
This month, lunches at home cost 22% of the cost of eating lunches prepared outside the home. Our evening meals prepared in the home are also 22% of the cost of take-out meals.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $282.90 per person in April. We actually spent $43.55 for lunches at home plus $18.85 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $159.21 per person in total.
If every evening meal cost us the same as our average this month, it would be $629.70. We actually spent $95.40 for dinners at home and $41.98 for our two dinners from a restaurant, or $137.38 per person in total, excluding the Italy trip.
We saved about $453 per person by preparing almost all our meals at home and we have a lot more control over what we eat.