American culture today often centers on food as entertainment. We like to go out and get drinks with friends at the club after a rough week at the J-O-B. Date nights are dinner and a movie. We like to meet friends and family for brunch. What’s a Super Bowl watch party without chips and a seven-layer dip? Food is an experience, and it’s one we enjoy sharing. While this isn’t a problem within itself, the relationship quickly shifts into “it’s complicated” territory when you’re a woman or man on a mission with your money and looking for ways to cut down your monthly expenses. Eating out and groceries can put a hole in your wallet the size of a meteor creator, and people often don’t know what other options exist other than turning recluse and avoiding all future engagements with friends. Since no one wants to associate with Miss Havisham, we’re here to impart mad but simple wisdom on how to keep your restaurant and food budget tight while hanging out and dining out with friends.
Turn your next dinner party into a potluck
This one isn’t dining out, but it’s still a food budget buster, so it’s worth mentioning.
I love a good watch party. Every Memorial Day weekend, we gather my clan of Hoosiers and honorary Hoosiers to watch the Indy 500. And there is always food. Most notably, my husband’s “famous” (if you ask my grandma) beer brats. Back when I could eat like a normal human and not a rabbit or manatee, we also always made grape chili meatballs and my favorite Instant Pot mac ‘n cheese.
We don’t spend a lot on entertainment, so we usually don’t mind footing the bill for the entire spread, though inflation hit we added burgers to the brats last year, which made me rethink this stance for future years. If nothing else, it made me pause and reassess the menu options.
If you’re looking to cut down on your food budget but you still want to be the Monica Geller of your town, invite everyone over. Throw that watch party and hang out with your friends. Just turn it into a potluck instead.
Most people enjoy this. In our circle, our Indy 500 watch party usually becomes a de facto potluck even when we don’t intend it to be. My aunt brings sangria, my mom brings deviled eggs, and my friend brings the bitching seven layer dip mentioned in the intro. Don’t be a hero; let them chip in for the chips.
Explore 10 budget friendly food ideas for potluck parties.
Pregame before heading out to the party
If you’re going out versus aiming to be the hostess with the mostest, have no fear, we’re still here to help. We’ve been in your shoes before, and we’ve found a solution. A few, actually.
Lots of our social circle are foodies. They like a nice restaurant where you have to wait for a table and a server comes over to rattle off the specials of the day. The food is usually good–they have great and well-refined taste–but it’s often outside of what we feel comfortable spending on a meal, and it will eat up half of our dining out budget for the month if we go the full monty.
In this situation, we still want to go out and enjoy the company of our friends. So we eat before we go. And we never get drinks when eating out, especially sodas. They’re the most marked up thing you could possibly get off the menu.
Can it be a little awkward? For that brief moment when the waiter asks what you’ll have and you say, “I’m not eating, but thank you,” sure. But the moment isn’t a kidney stone; it’ll pass quickly and painlessly.
If you think it’ll be more awkward with your friends than with the waiter, talk it out ahead of time. Let them know you’ll skip the food, but would still love to join them and enjoy their company. They’re your friends. They’ll understand. If they don’t, it might be time to find new friends!
But what if it’s a date? I can’t go on a date and then not eat.
Au contraire, mon frere! You absolutely can. My husband even suggested a test to see if this is a relationship worth investing time in for the long haul. Set up a coffee date, then show up at Starbucks with your own thermos of coffee. If they roll with it, then they pass the test. If they show up with their own thermos, go Arrested Development on them.
You may not have to get these extreme, especially coupled with our other hacks, but don’t dismiss it as an option. I was the broke kid in high school who wanted to go out with her besties on the weekend to a movie and dinner, but I only had the budget for a movie or a dinner, not both. So I ate dinner before I left. I still joined my friends in Panera and chatted with them while they enjoyed their broccoli and cheddar soup in a bread bowl. Since we did dinner before the movie, sometimes I even helped them finish up since leftovers weren’t going to last until we got home. I don’t recommend this necessarily for a date, but I hope you at least get the gist.
The important part is hanging out with your friends or your significant other. The food is a perk. If it fits in the budget, then great! I polished off an entire bread bowl and enjoyed a rolling nausea and bloated gut for the two hours of Poseidon when I had enough babysitting money. But don’t let being a responsible adult on a budget ruin your fun. Similarly, don’t let the allure of a fun date ruin your financial goals for the future. If you’re dating someone who is worth it, they’ll understand and support you. If they don’t, then it’s probably a big red flag that you’re going to have money fights in the future and you might not want to hitching horses and wagons with this particular person.
Unsubscribe from getting drinks when out
I noted this above, but it’s worth repeating. When we go out with friends or for a date night, we don’t get drinks unless it’s water and, if my husband’s feeling fancy, a few wedges of restaurant lemons. (Polite pass from me, but thanks.)
Drinks are one of the most marked up products you can buy. While my husband was wandering aimlessly around Las Vegas while I was at my work conference, he splurged and got a soda with his chicken wings.
It was SIX DOLLARS. For a soda! We aren’t talking a rum and Coke here. That was just for the Coke.
My eyes bugged out when I went to put the receipt into our budgeting app.
If he’d skipped the drink like he normally did, the bill would have been 33% less. Trimming out even that could add an extra outing or two to your budget each month.
Split an appetizer for your meal
If the thought of having to tell your friends or date that you aren’t going to eat at the restaurant makes you break out in hives or if you’re a foodie but trying to save your budget, consider trimming down without cutting out. Ask a friend if they want to split an appetizer instead of getting a large entrée that costs two or three times as much. Or split the entrée with someone but skip the appetizer.
Just don’t try this with my husband. It won’t end well for any of the parties involved.
There are many ways to slice the parmesan cheese to cut down the dinner bill when out. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Have we mentioned that these are your friends? They shouldn’t care. Who knows, they might even be in the same budgeting boat but weren’t sure how to bring it up. You could be doing them a huge favor without even realizing it. You’re welcome, friend!
Suggest an alternative venue to lower costs
If you’ve been looking forward to a break from the rice and beans after a hectic week at work and an even crazier week at home, you might not want to deal with prepping a dinner before your dinner out and cleaning up after it, especially if you don’t have an emergency stash of frozen leftovers (which you should totally have to avoid unplanned takeout that drains your eating out budget). You may also not want to blow your entire restaurant budget for the month on one dinner.
In this situation, see if your friends or date are willing to still go out, but somewhere in between Ruth’s Chris (who is Ruth and why do they have a Chris steak house instead of a Chris and a steak house? I’m so confused) and McDonald’s. Just check the prices before you go, as they can sneak up on you. Have y’all seen how much Chick-fil-A costs these days? Have mercy.
Or suggest a different activity all together
While we’ll go out to eat with friends if they invite us, it’s never our go-to for entertainment and hanging out. For one, we’re kinda homebodies. For two, my gut is a little snowflake that can’t handle the hard drugs of gluten, dairy, soy, or corn, which makes eating out more of a headache than a treat. So doing something other than dining out is the default for us.
It turns out, this stuns people in other circles, because going out to eat with friends is all they do. And we get it. For many, entertainment is synonymous with food.
But it doesn’t have to be.
If you’ve run out of money in your dining out budget for the month or are saving the rest for something special later in the month, suggest a different activity instead. When we were broke college students dating, our “hot dates” were hanging out in the lecture halls on the weekend cranking tunes over the speakers while we studied. If we wanted it to have an actual date vibe, we’d make a pancake breakfast in my dorm before classes, after we finished studying. We also watched a lot of Netflix and free cable, in case you couldn’t tell from my obsession with pop culture.
While a meal can be a great way to get together, it isn’t the only option. Consider:
- Going for a walk or a hike
- Taking the kayaks or canoes out on the lake
- Dinner and a movie at home
- Board game night (our current favorite)
Bonus points: managing the kids
If you’re heading out with friends, the question of childcare can come up. You might not want to tote them along and pay for expensive entrée they take three bites out of before declaring they don’t like it and want spaghetti and meatballs instead. You also might not want them cramping the fun by interjecting every five seconds that they’re boredddddddd. Is it finally time to go home yet? They want to watch Paw Patrol.
Instead of paying for a babysitter, which can add insult to injury to your budget, see if you can barter child sitting with a friend or neighbor.
Just don’t ask one of the friends in your friend group that wasn’t invited to the group function. Pull from another friend pool.
The final word
Much of life is a balancing act. How much to save, how much to spend; where to spend the surplus you have or how to pinch to make what you have stretch further. As always, we like to live by the principle of spending your money on what matters most to you.
If you’re out of debt and enjoy a great culinary experience, the tips above could be totally wasted on you. What are you even doing still reading this far? Go watch Somebody Feed Phil.
If, however, you’re a foodie and working to save up an emergency fund and get out of debt, these tips can be a great temporary way to control the burn through your budget every month. We hope you’ve found these dining hacks helpful, especially if you’re looking for ways to spend less so you can save more.
Bon appetit!