Eating Out With Your Family On a Budget

Families + Restaurants = Lots of Dollars (or not!)

My first tip on saving money – Do not order drinks at a restaurants.  Drinking water saves a lot of money.

Before we enter a restaurant, I talk to the kids about what they would like to order. Planning ahead reduces stress!

American restaurants serve huge portions, so we SHARE!

I love the challenge of ordering for seven, getting full and not spending much money.  Here’s a few examples of some of our favorites:

Subway – 3 large sandwiches/ 2 cut in half and 1 cut in thirds. 2 chips and water

Mellow Mushroom – One large pizza double sliced, 1 large salad with 5 small plates. I have them eat the salad before the pizza comes.

Koi Japanese – 7 salads ($1.50 ea), 1 chicken fried rice, 5 sushi rolls and water to drink. (This is our kids favorite restaurant!)

Wendy’s – their taco salads are awesome and go a long way! (3 taco salads will feed our whole family)

Ching Asian Bistro – During lunch hours,(we ordered this today) 3 lunch portions of honey chicken with white or fried rice and egg rolls – $20.50. All 7 of us were filled up and we had left overs

Last but not least – Chick Fil A to go – Three 12 pack nuggets, 5 ice waters, 1 large fruit punch (to share), bring a bag of chips from home & 5 apples.

Train your children to eat salad and try all kinds of food. I always tell them they have to take one bite, if they don’t like it, they don’t have to eat any more.

I could go on and on but I won’t. If you have a restaurant you love and have figured out how to order and save money – I’d love to hear about it!!