According to thesimpledollar.com "The average American eats an average of 4.2 commercially prepared meals per week." That's an incredibly high frequency of eating out, in which the fast food business is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States alone. While there wouldn't be anything wrong with so many Americans eating out so frequently if we were all materially wealthy, the simple fact is that we are not. Consequently, money that is spent at a restaurant is money that could have been utilized more efficiently at a grocery store, or a corner store, if we only took the time to preplan and to prepare.
A lot of people will tell you that the reason that they eat out so frequently is because that they are too busy to prepare food at home, or they work too hard and don't have enough hours in the day to cook, or they are buying the meals for the children, and so on. Most of their reasons have validity, some more than others, depending upon the situation, but the truth of the matter is, transportation, logistics, information, and efficiency when it comes to most everything in this country, including meals, has never been better or more readily available. In America, there are plenty of grocery stores that are both convenient in the sense of location, convenient in the sense of choice, and priced reasonably in which the cost of making or preparing those meals at home, hands down, is going to be cheaper than virtually any restaurant choice that you could possibly think of.
Consequently, the eating out for so many meals isn't a necessity or requirement for so many people in order to be fed, but in reality it is a preference that has become a habit. But just like any habit, it can be unlearned, reformulated, and changed, if one puts their mind diligently to the task at hand. The reason that you should take the time to do so is that the cost of eating out eats into people's disposable income, their money, their budget, and their overall lifestyle. Most people do not take the time nor have the interest in calculating the amount of their money of theirs that is spent eating out, nor are they willing to do so, but they should.
In America, most everyone loves a bargain, most everyone likes a discount, and certainly everyone wants to feel that they deserve a little extra consideration. What most hi-volume restaurants are selling are what you, as an empowered individual are capable of doing yourself, for the most part, with various degrees of success, but in all probability, enough success that at a minimum, it will allow you to get by and to survive.
Perhaps you feel that you deserve your own servant, that you have earned the right to be served, or that you just feel like being spoiled a little bit, that is all well and good, but one shouldn't fool oneself, because you are the individual who is paying the piper at the end of the day. Do yourself a favor, go without eating out for one entire pay period, and then at the end of that experiment, check your bank account, check your expenditures, and determine whether you have saved yourself some money or not. You might just find that you have, that you are still alive, and that you are doing alright after all.