Eating out can be expensive. That's why some people, to save money, decide to spend no money at all eating out for a month or maybe two months. It can be a Neat way to save money if you regularly eat in restaurants. In a month you could save a lot of money.
If I were looking to save money and keep my expenses down, going out to eat would be one of the first things I would cut out of my spending. At the very least, if I did allow myself to eat out, I would limit it to value menu items or some other really good deals, where I would arguably spend more trying to make the item at home. For example, there is a pizza joint near me which sells $2.99 12" pepperoni pizza's daily. That's cheaper than a frozen pizza, and they're cooked fresh, so I would allow myself something like that. But no $15 pizzas, or $7 burritos, stuff like that. And certainly no going to sit down restaurants, where I would need to leave a tip as well. Honestly, I don't go out to eat very often to begin with - so it's not been to big of an issue for me. I try to eat before I leave the house, to avoid any impulses for fast food while I'm on the road.
Personally I never eat at any restaurant regularly. I used to do in the past on a daily basis having breakfast first, then stopping by at dinner time, and yet dinning out. However those were days in which, aside of an offline, steady job, I have also the financial support of my parents. Today I always eat at home, or go outside with a homemade takeout lunch. Even though I may stop at a restaurant from time to time, but since doing this may not happen more than twice or three times a month, I don't spend too much, particularly because I mainly do it when I have discount coupons to dine at a given place.
When I am saving money to purchase something new like a new computer I will not eat out, I take my water with me if I plan to be away from home for a long period of time and I take my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with me to munch on when I get hungry. Purchasing food out adds up quickly and can drain the budget.
This doesn't seem like such a big money saver to me because a $0 restaurant month is my default way of living. Every month is a $0 restaurant month for me unless I decide to buy my daughter fast food as a special treat. The $7 that some people spend on a fast food combo meal would buy me a big bag of rice that would last me a month, so I don't usually eat out. The last time that I decided to go to Burger King, I wound up spending $12 for two people. The cost of that one meal would have bought me 12 pounds of dried beans at Walmart or 20 pounds of rice. Fast food really isn't all that cheap so it's an occasional treat in my family.
My goal should be more like a zero dollar restaurant week, because I do eat out fairly often, usually nothing expensive, but it does add up. Like Tom says, some restaurants have food cheaper than you could make it at home...so I don't see that as being much of a sin. Also, since restaurant meals tend to be more caloric you may be saving money by not having to eat as often. Sheetz which just moved here has two dollar subs...so I don't see that as being a problem, It would probably cost me more to eat at home unless I had spaghetti, mac and cheese or something really cheap/
