How to Save Money on Eating
Posted: Wednesday, April 08, 2009
by Joel Hirschhorn
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com
Munch on this food for thought. Eating out or in tests your recession psychology. You can choose to help the economy or yourself. You can choose to keep spending a lot of money eating out at restaurants or spending much less on groceries and cooking at home. Which you choose will also greatly impact whether you are eating healthy and eating too much. A leaner wallet can mean a leaner you.
But like a law of physics this much is certain: You can always eat well at home for a whole lot less money. And if you care about your health, you will eat less fat, less sugar and healthier food at home. Given the current economic meltdown and all the unemployment fears and financial insecurity you would think that Americans have sharply cut their habit of eating out. And many have, but probably far fewer than you imagine. Even the millions of people able to eat out on expense accounts from their jobs may not necessarily be shunning high price restaurants (a nice job perk), even if their companies are in economic trouble. The eating out habit is hard to break.
Recently, I had the good fortune to be invited out to a free dinner at Morton's, where great steaks are a specialty and what I consider to be a high end, rather expensive restaurant. It was a special treat, because it had been a long time since I had eaten out at such a place, where most full dinners can cost $100 or more. I mention this, however, because what struck me was that on this weekday night the large restaurant was totally packed with customers, as was the bar area. Not a hint of a recession there.
Consider these statistics. Even now, Americans spend 48 cents of every food dollar at restaurants, compared with 40.5 cents per dollar in 1985. Obviously averages are always somewhat misleading. Surely there are many people, like me, that eat out infrequently, but there must be many more that eat out all the time. The latter are spending a whole lot of money on eating out, often just adding to their credit card debt.
But overall, in this recession the nation is spending less on food. In 2008's fourth quarter, consumer spending on food fell at an inflation-adjusted 3.7 percent from the third quarter, according to data from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. This was the steepest decline in the 62 years the government has compiled the figure. Yes, many restaurants are closing and facing hard times. But along with the housing bubble there was a ludicrous amount of expansion of restaurants, too many even for the best of times. Since 1990, when the US population increased by 23 percent, the number of restaurants and bars increased 49 percent increase, according to the National Restaurant Association. So it really is no surprise that some chains are closing many hundreds of restaurants, including Starbucks and Ruby Tuesday, for example. However, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Subway and some other low price places are doing very well.
Bob Goldin, executive vice president at Technomic, consultants to the restaurant industry, predicts that more than 20,000 US restaurants will close over the next three years.
The National Restaurant Association reports new research: Forty-five percent of adults say restaurants are an essential part of their lifestyle, one of three say they are not eating out as often as they wish, and 35 percent of adults say that on a weekly basis, they are not purchasing take-out foods to go or having it delivered as often as they would like.
So, the industry remains confident that Americans will not break their eating out habit and nearly half of food spending will continue to feed it. Indeed, the association says that American adults buy a meal or a snack from a restaurant 5.8 times per week on average. Think about that: nearly every day! What about you?
And restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record $566 billion in 2009 at the nation's 945,000 restaurant-and-foodservice outlets which are expected to employ 13 million people, and add 1.8 million new jobs in the next decade. That's nearly $2,000 yearly on average for every adult and child. Though overall restaurant industry sales is forecast to increase in current dollars by 2.5 percent over 2008 figures, that means an inflation-adjusted decline of 1.0 percent. True, if many Americans cut regular eating out it could mean even more unemployment.
You decide. What makes both economic and health sense for you? Most households could save several thousand dollars a year by greatly replacing meals out with home cooking and smart grocery shopping. Smart means avoiding stores like Whole Foods, passing up prepared foods at ordinary supermarkets, choosing generic rather than brand name food products, and clipping coupons and using them when items go on sale.
We cannot eat our way out of this recession. But we can eat our way into poor health and weak finances. Eating out should be an occasional celebration, not a regular activity. The way it once was. Before we got infected by the affluenza virus.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Could not agree more!
Gordie says: Lots of body-building nourishment Joel, but few fat calories! My Yugoslavian farming father taught me well -- EAT AT HOME. And I do, as have both of my wives (not at the same time!). Now I do the cooking and she works -- hummm, Dad never raised nor fools either. That aside, we eat well, all cooked from scratch or raw foods (salads, snacks). Meat in a meal is getting further and further away, as is anything packaged from the store unless it's a two-for-one deal (even then I have to think long and hard; is it good nourishment? Vegetable stew tonight -- wanna drop by for a bowl full of good food?
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