Eating Out with a Large Family

With each new baby that comes my husband is known to say, "we won't be going out to eat anymore once this baby comes, it's too expensive".  Well, we still go out to eat even though baby number 6 is here!  There are a few rules we follow to keep the cost down. 
1. Plan!  We go out to eat Monday nights and Saturday afternoon.  Monday night is dollar burger night at the local marina club in town here.  We all get a drink (you have to in order to get the dollar burger), a burger and share a basket of fries.  As soon as the meal comes, we cut our burgers in half and put them in a box to have for lunch the next day.  The meal with tip costs about $46 and we have lunch for the next day. 

2. We Share.  Portion sizes are huge.  I mean just huge.  I never noticed this until we started sharing our food with the kids.  I can split my meal in half, cut off a part for Dan to try and still have more than enough food!  Usually I share with Thea, Dan shares with Mareea, Q and A share a meal and Landon gets a kids meal. 

3. The kids all drink water.  Except on dollar burger night, they all get water.  It's healthy and free.  Dan and I try to only drink water at restaurants, but we often will slip and get a sweet tea. 

4. Coupons.  My favorite restaurant is Smokey Bones.  I'm excited that this week there is a BOGO free entree.  That will help a lot!

5. We only go to quality restaurants.  I'll admit it.  We used to eat lunch at McDonalds a lot.  It was easy and fast for days that I was lazy and hungry.  After awhile, it started to cost us over $25 to each crap lunch and it made me think.  I decided that I would rather pay $20 more to eat good food than eat the junk at McKillMe.  So I quit going to McDonalds/Burger King/Arby's/Wendy's/fillintheblank.  We eat simple lunches at home and save the money for our twice a week trips to very good restaurants.  Although, I can still be tempted by an occasional (like monthly) lunch at Chick Fil A if we've gone to town for the day. 

6. I try to make good food at home.  After we cut back on our "out to eat" habit.  I started doing some searching for recipies that are like some of the things I like to eat when we go out.  If we're having things we love for dinner each night no one misses going out.  And if I've planed in advance the meals, shopped for them and gotten them in the crock pot in the morning...there's no temptation to go out!  Not to mention I can make food much more healthy at home...and I know what's in our food. 


While it was nice to just go out to eat whenever when we first got married, it's nice to know that we can still afford a meal or two out a week even with having a big family.  And honestly...who needs to go out to eat more than twice a week anyway?