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Cooking at Home vs. Going out to eat

I prefer to cook at home, mainly because I love to cook. On top of that, with the little guys, its easier to do something in, rather that trying to go out.
 
If money and health weren't an issue, I'd eat out every meal, but because both are huge issues, we eat most meals at home. It works out fine because my wife is a good cook, but I don't like doing dishes.
 
When it comes to quality and flavor I much prefer cooking at home. We very rarely eat out because the food is better/healthier, yet like the two of you, what draws us to eat out is convenience. Since the wife started "clean eating", we eat out on far fewer occasions, which has proven to be a good thing for both body and bank acct.
 
We eat mainly at home because it is so expensive to eat out. My wife cooks most of the time and she is great at it.
 
I would say we do a little of both. As many have said with 4 of us and the girls being under 5 it's hard to have a "nice dinner" out because of $$, but we get out about 2-3 times a month just to break it up & teach the girls how to behave properly at restaurant.

As far as cooking we both do it and are pretty good at it. I make all the Mexican dishes & she is the experimenter in the kitchen. She's like a mad scientist in there. Funny thing if you leave it up to the girls we would have a chic fil a & dominos diet 7 days a week.
 
GolferGal said:
As many of you probably know JB and I like to eat. In fact we love to eat, it is probably our favorite thing to do, we are true foodies. Because of our work schedule we found ourselves going out to eat a lot, mostly because we needed a break from work and a change of atmosphere. The problem is that going out to eat every night gets VERY expensive. The funny thing is, we are both pretty good cooks, and enjoy cooking. After the PGA show we said we were going to start cooking more at home. It's a heck of a lot cheaper, and we are both trying to lead healthier lives, and eating at home will allow us to do that.

So all that rambling brings me to my question: Do you prefer cooking at home or going out to eat? Which do you find yourself doing more?
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I think I am in the exact same boat as you two. With the travel schedule you end up eating out so much. But you can eat so much healthier at home. Plus I really enjoy cooking.
 
We kind of did the same thing, ate out all the time. But since the 1st of the year, we're trying to eat a little healthier and eating at home a bunch more. The occasional night out but mostly at home lately.
To make things a little easier, I'll fire up the smoker on the weekends and smoke hamburgers, chicken, pork shoulders & the like so all we have to cook during the week is the side dishes.
 
We have two kitchen cabinets filled with cook books, we easily have 50+ books, so I came up with a new plan for eating at home. We will take one cook book either a week or a month, and cook nothing but recipes out of that book. This will allow us to shop appropriately so we have all the ingredients on hand, and allow us to try new things at home.
 
I love to cook. I've taken a few classes to understand the basics of cook and it's been fun learning on my own. My wife sometime is afraid to try my "creations" but is always a good sport. Some worm some don't but I would rather cook at home any day than go out.
 
We never cooked at home and ate out everyday and night, lunch and dinner and weekend we would go to breakfast also. Both of us work from home, so with the wife being home all day it was more of her getting out of the house at night. Since I started my diet last month, we had gone 4 weeks without eating a meal out (well I did, she had a couple work functions she had to attend) and never even missed it. I certainly enjoyed the extra cash in the account though as we would normally spend $40-$50 a night for a meal. I now spend about $100 a week on food for the whole week. What makes it is easy is we have a Fresh and Easy by our house, I can run in after golf and pick up a couple days worth of meat, some veggies, fruit and I am in and out in 5-10 min. I don't have to freeze anything since I am only buying for a couple days at a time so it makes it easy prepare. I have totally taken over cooking duties which is fine as I cook better anyways. :)
 
mikedean441 said:
I prefer to eat out....nice menu and no dishes.

However the cost of doing so for 5 of us doesn't warrant us doing it too often.
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Bout sums it up my good man. Same boat. Heck, even going to Subway now is about $24 for all of us. It's great when they run the $5 footlong deal and we just get a footlong cut 3 ways and they split a bag of chips. It's those darn milks for $1.70 each that get ya!! Gonna make them start drinking more water!

We usually eat in during the week and then maybe eat out a few times on the weekend. My wife is a good cook.

GolferGal said:
We just bought a slow cooker cookbook because the slow cooker is becoming our new favorite kitchen appliance. Plus, we found a great butcher shop where we can get some incredible cuts of meat.
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These are KEY in making it easier on both of you! Some really good stuff you can make in these! Set it and forget it!
 
The fiance and I prefer to cook at home and we do probably 5-6 nights a week!

It is alot cheaper, healthier and it adds a great spark to the relationship by being able to cook for each other. Oh and... to tease each other when one meal doesnt turn out as planned.
 
I love cooking at home! Generally I will find an idea or a theme that I like at restaurants and then go try and replace the restaurant with home cooking. Making steakhouses redundant has saved a ton of money and impressed quite a few people already.

/This could probably be why some people don't like cooking at home:
http://dimlylitmealsforone.tumblr.com/
 
I usually cook 6 days a week but if I had to give a preference I would say going out. It's nice to get a good meal and not have to worry about cleaning up and all that nonsense. Lately I haven't been going out to dinner at all with the exception of a few dates. The money I save by cooking is nice and I almost always have leftovers. When I go out to eat I feel like I absolutely have to eat every last thing on my plate.

I also have a bit of an issue with where my food comes from, especially chicken and at a lot of restaurants you have no idea.
 
We cook at home most of the time, 5 to 6 nights a week on average, and I rarely get lunch out. Love cooking different things and especially Asian foods. But, definitely like to mix it up by eating out as well, especially with friends and coworkers.
 
We do like to eat out, but we tend to cook at home more often than not - usual rule is whoever doesn't cook the meal, washes the dishes afterwards :D

The slow cooker is brilliant, especially as Jen starts work later than me, so she will throw things in there before she goes to work and then I will sort the rest of the things when I get home so that by the time she gets in it is almost ready

We have a great pub at the end of our street (approx 300yds away) that does really nice home-cooked foods which, depending on how you look at it, is either the best or worst thing, as it is so convenient and easy that we can walk along, so a last minute decision to say we are going out for something to eat doesn't require much planning

We also have a couple of places that are about a 30min drive that also do nice food and the majority of the main courses are 2-for-1 so it usually works out pretty cheap as well. Although we only really tend to call in at these places if we have been out for the day
 
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