Dining out is more expensive than cooking food at home, but dining out is more convenient. Or is it? Two Emerald reporters set to find out. Sophia June and Leigh Scheffey each received food budgets of $30. June could only eat at restaurants, while Scheffey spent $30 at the grocery store. Here’s what they found.
June: Dining Out
Day 1
Breakfast: Eating out for breakfast proved to be more inconvenient than I had originally thought. On a day that I didn’t work at 8 a.m., I’d walk down to south campus’ favorite walk of shame breakfast stop, Humble Bagel. But I had to be in Oregon Hall on 13th and Agate at 8 a.m., so I went to Eugene City Bakery and grabbed a Rooberry Lemon muffin for $2.25, which took longer and cost more than if I had made my favorite breakfast: oatmeal and peanut butter. I should also mention that the muffin was the cheapest option. I wanted a cranberry scone, but it was $2.75.
Lunch: I had a one-hour lunch break and didn’t pack anything the night before, so eating out for lunch was convenient. I got a gyro salad at Caspian for $6.95. It was huge and I only ate half of it. I just hate paying $7 for lettuce, but the portion was a good size.
Dinner: I did it up big, going to Agate Alley Bistro and ordering a burger and fries for $11.
Total spent on day 1: $20.10 ($9.90 remaining)
Day 2
Breakfast: I walked to Humble Bagel to get a $2 cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and a 16-ounce iced coffee for $1.90. As much as I enjoy a good and humble bagel, I still would have preferred to eat cereal at home, unless I was going to breakfast with a friend.
Lunch: Running lower on money than I had predicted, my lunch and dinner options became much slimmer (unlike my body after two days of bagels, muffins and pizza). I selected a slice of cheese pizza from Sy’s for $2.75. I’m a pizza fanatic, but I felt like I was eating the meal of pure functionality, which took some enjoyment out of it.
Dinner: By dinner, I had $3.15 left. In defeat, I ate my last meal out at Sy’s again and finished hungry.
Total spent on day 2: $9.80 (ran out of money).
One thing that surprised me was how much time I had to allow to dine out. Instead of eating lunch at home while I’m on the computer, painting my nails or reading a magazine, I had to set aside time to travel to the chosen restaurant. I also realized that I enjoy dining out much more with friends when the act is treated as celebratory instead of purely functional. Basically, this experiment inspired me to become a better cook.
Sheffey: Dining In
In hopes of getting the most out of my $30 eating-in meal plan, I planned a grocery list and a meal list for the upcoming week. I thought about buying diverse ingredients to be used for different daily meals as well as food that I would actually enjoy. I created a list of groceries that added up to $28.10.
The grocery list:
1 package of chicken sausage ($4.49)
1 package of arugula ($2.50)
5 Roma tomatoes ($1.09 total)
2 Greek yogurt containers ($1.90 total)
12 Slices of cheddar cheese ($4.29 total)
Strawberry cream cheese ($1.69)
1 Loaf of sourdough wheat bread ($2.99)
¼ Pound of sliced turkey ($3.99)
1 Grapefruit ($0.99)
1 Box of whole wheat pasta ($0.99)
2 Single serving bags of coffee ($1.18 total)
1 microwavable side of rice ($2.00)
Day 1
Breakfast: After receiving Sophia’s text that read, “Eating a muffin….” I headed downstairs to start my challenge. Unlike my normal habit of eating the first three things I see when I open the fridge in the morning, I stuck to my plan of a yogurt and coffee.
Lunch: As my class ended two hours prior, I was drooling over the idea of my “hand-crafted artesian turkey, tomato and arugula sandwich on sourdough wheat,” which I happily shared with Sophia. She was eating her $7 salad at Caspian. I was the clear winner of that meal.
Dinner: Although not entirely hungry for it, I cooked my third meal of the day. I had originally decided to eat pasta with my chicken sausage, but I wasn’t in the mood to get that crafty once again. I grabbed the bag of microwavable rice, threw a sausage on my stove and took out the arugula. I ended with a pile of rice, chicken sausage, arugula and tomato. My meal was comparable to a Cafe Yumm Bowl but better. Basically, I’m a great cook.
Day 2
Breakfast/Lunch: I ate the same breakfast as the day before: yogurt and coffee. I woke up at 8 a.m. and planned to run a few errands early in the morning then return home to pack my lunch before my 10 a.m. class. Because I left the house still a bit hungry, skipping lunch was out of the question. One late employee and a broken photo-printing machine later, I headed back to my house at 9:55 a.m. In any other scenario, I would have gone with the take-out lunch route, but instead I was stuck with the food in my fridge. I arrived at class 20 minutes late with a repeat of the dinner from the night before to avoid waiting to eat until my busy school/work day would be over at 5 p.m.
Dinner: I whipped together another turkey sandwich on sourdough, with cheese, tomato and arugula. This meal was also a bit strange since I was eating it before I met up with a group of friends who were going out to dinner. After our meal out, I felt better than they did. However, I was stuck dealing with the awkward “I’m not eating,” scenario at The Vintage when we first arrived.
Day 3
Breakfast: Out of yogurt, I chose to eat a whole grapefruit with a side of coffee – definitely a weird mix.
Lunch: No more than an hour after I had eaten my grapefruit, I decided to have a second breakfast – which I will call lunch – consisting of an open faced turkey sandwich. Surprisingly, I wasn’t getting sick of the sandwiches yet.
Dinner: My well-deserved dinner came as half a box of pasta, a juicy, perfectly sauteed chicken sausage, mixed with two chopped tomatoes and a touch of arugula and shredded cheese. It was a meal that I would have been happy to buy at a restaurant, but I saved a lot of money by putting in the effort to make it myself.
Day 4
Breakfast: As I walked into my kitchen for breakfast, I could only think about how stupid it was for me to have purchased strawberry cream cheese. I regretfully ate a slice of toast with my poor decision and didn’t feel that great afterward.
Lunch: With the last of my greens, cheese and turkey, I assembled another sandwich, still for some reason not boring to me, and then looked at my options for dinner.
This is what I found left over: Most of the box of pasta, four slices of bread, one chix sas, two servings of turkey and most of the cream cheese.
I still felt pretty great after Day 4 as I did throughout the process, but I threw in the towel with the end of my vegetables and fear of yet another breakfast with strawberry cream cheese.