Survey: Are You Eating Out Less?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 09.23.08
Kristen wrote that As Gas Prices Rise, So Do Cookbooks Sales. No doubt that as investment houses, thousands lose their jobs, retirement and investment accounts lose their value, that is having an effect on people's pocketbooks too.
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Why is there never and "I'm already frugal" or an "I like to cook more than I like to eat out" option? Both of those are true. And yes, we do go out. But we never have that much, so once or twice a month to have dinner out or takeout has always been a lot for us and I don't see that changing because sometimes you just need to have the food come to you.
I have access to a kitchen now, so I'm cooking more. But I still have a meal plan at school, and I don't drive. Gas prices thus haven't hit me, and environmentally I see little difference between eating out and eating in the dining halls.
I am not eating out less as I did not eat out before. I love to cook and eat well and I am very frugal. I dislike paying someone to cook something for me when I know I can do better. It is much more fun to eat at home!
My wife loves to cook. But there's still plenty of days where the world conspires against us and it just doesn't happen.
So we try to eat out instead of getting takeout, which is one of our worst sins against the landfill. And yes, we haven't stopped eating out.
Higher gas prices have nearly completely passed us over, since we don't own a car. Fresh produce prices have gone up (presumably due to high fuel prices), but we eat more than just fresh produce. And so, as such, we have just as much money with which to eat out than we did before. We also work in industries unaffected by the current crisis, and which will continue to operate for the foreseeable future.