Is Eating Out Cheaper Than Cooking?

by Natsumi

Do you live by yourself or live with family? If you live alone, do you usually cook in your kitchen for every meal by yourself? My answer is; I live by myself since I entered university and mostly go to eat out. Some of my friends insist on that eating out is waste of money, but I don’t think so. There are three reasons for that. First, it takes long time to cook. I don`t have enough time for cooking because my to-do list is always full of school things and plans to hang out with friends.  Next, I don`t have passion for eating so much. I often feel I might as well skip dinner as cook only for myself. There are at least three steps to eat dinner which is cooked by me; go to grocery and buy ingredients, cook them, wash dishes—What a bather! I am too lazy to cook every day. Lastly, I often feel to cook only for me could be waste of money. I often find and through away spoiled ingredients or leftovers from my refrigerator. It`s too hard to use up all ingredients while they are good condition, especially in case of living alone.  However, if I dine out, there`s no bothering process or wasted vegetables. It`s more logical and ecological, isn`t it?

Moreover, there’s a interesting statistic fact; according to the report conducted by Neil Dutta, an economist at Bank of America,  “supermarket food prices are increasing at a staggering 6% a year, about 2.5 times as fast as the cost of restaurant meals. It is becoming cheaper for consumers to dine out. " If this theory is true, someday we can dine out cheaper than cook at home. In fact, the prices of restaurant meals are getting cheaper. In my opinion, if I work an hour instead of cooking, I can earn 10 dollars, and we can eat dinner by five dollars at McDonald’s or subway.  Then I can save more money than cook myself.

In a nutshell, the cost of dine out is getting cheaper and we can skip the troublesome steps by eating out. If you like cooking, it’s no problem for me that you cook yourself. However I don’t want to be kept after about my diet. If you cannot understand my opinion, click the link, go to the website and read the article.

 http://money.msn.com/family-money/is-eating-out-cheaper-than-cooking-fiscaltimes.aspxsomeday