Are you eating out less?

Yardsale update...it was a complete success! I sold almost everything out and made a grand total of $234, which will go a long ways towards my black/white bedroom redo. YIPPEE!! And I had fun meeting a few blog friends too. A big hello goes out to Lorrie from TN, who was here visiting for the weekend and wanted to hit my yardsale. I'm SO glad she did. And also Leigh (from Tales from Bloggeritaville) stopped by. We have been emailing back and forth for awhile now, so it was great to meet her, yes finally (little bitty thing). Shout outs to Regina and Sally too who both live in the area and stopped by.
My neighbor, who owns a women's consignment boutique was also having her bi-annual yardsale with clothes that came from her shop. Now we are talking very nice clothes. So, I took my money down to her house to see what she had left. Oh, and I found plenty. She was so generous. I took all I wanted home with me to try on and came back to pay her...I got 15 things for $15!! Can you believe that. Many of these are brand new with the tags still on, since she gets closeouts from local boutiques. We are talking Anne Klein, J. Crew, Harolds, Ann Taylor and many other great brands. I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe. I called my friend, Debbie, to get in on the action and she came over and got 20 things for herself and her daughter. We were trying on clothes in my bedroom, throwing them around and exchanging with each other...it was so fun. All in all...a very good day! Keep reading for the real topic for today....
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After reading a recent article in our local Sunday paper, that got me thinking about the subject. Without a doubt, we are definitely eating out a LOT less than we used to. When we were dating in Atlanta, we hit our share of fine dining restaurants and enjoyed it thoroughly. But now, we are mostly stay at home folks and I cook a meal every night for dinner and we save the pricey restaurants for special occasions, like birthdays or anniversaries. I know our American society has long been on the eating out bandwagon, with busy schedules, kids' sports, and the just plain busy pace of our culture nowadays. This article really made some interesting points about how all that seems to be changing with our higher gas prices, as well as economic instability. Eating out is just plain more expensive and it seems that a lot more people are embracing home cooking with gusto. I think that's great!
This article is from The Associated Press by Ramit Plushnick-Masti and gave some interesting statistics about the subject:

Apparently there is a national trend to eat at home to save money. But after years of eating out, many people have found they don't have a pot to cook in or a cookbook to guide them. The sudden rush to buy basic cooking necessities has driven up sales of cookbooks, inexpensive cookware and the basic foods needed to concoct a meal. And cooking magazines and Web sites are booming even as magazine sales overall have suffered.

About 45% of Americans are eating out less this year to save money, a nearly 12% increase from 2007, according to consumer research.

Cookware sales overall have declined in the past year, but items selling for less than $100 are doing remarkably well. Further evidence is a boost in sales of "center store" items in supermarkets -- pasta, canned goods, baking goods and spices. Sales of such items have risen by 3.4% in recent months.

Bon Appetit, a magazine that serves up recipes for everything from gourmet meals to fast and easy dinners, said newsstand sales in May 2008 were up 39% from a year ago. And many bookstores have reported boosts in cookbook sales.

Because of the eating-in trend, some casual dining restaurants are taking a hit in stock price and sales. But, even cooking can be expensive and a survey on grocery sales found that about 30% of 1,000 consumers questioned said they were buying less fresh produce. Half said they were buying more generic brand products. And it looks like prices will keep rising, according to the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. In February, the service forecast food prices will increase between 3 to 4% this year. Last year's 4% increase was the highest in 17 years.

So, where does that leave you and me? Are you joining the fairly new trend of cooking and eating at home or do you still go the easy route and eat out a lot of meals per week?

For us, we eat out maybe once a week together. And that is almost always a very inexpensive sort of meal. We are fortunate to have some very good locally owned restaurants nearby that are very reasonably priced, from seafood, to Mexican, BBQ, or a meat and 3 type place. I see many of you on your blogs talking about saving money on meals and cooking, so I know a lot of cooking at home is going on too. I will go out to lunch with girlfriends, maybe once a week or so, but the majority of our food is consumed at home. Cooking is without a doubt more cost effective than eating out. I'm always on the lookout for new recipes to try at home all the time, adding flavor and variety to our meals.

What are you doing to save money AND eat well at the same time? This is a subject that is not going to go away anytime soon, so let's see what all of you are doing to curtail the expense of eating out.

Here's to home cooking!