I WILL NOT GO TO RESTAURANTS IN 2023.

those of you who read my blog will know that this year I have somewhat of a interesting resolution kind of thing that I'm doing and that is I am not going to go to any restaurants this year um and I've decided that for a couple different reasons um the main reason you might think it's some kind of absurd asceticism like I'm just depriving myself of something for like some spiritual reason and that's actually very much not the case I just have to say that over the past I mean definitely in the past like two years okay things have gotten so expensive and so annoying I find myself every time I'm going to a restaurant I am just constantly even if I'm not complaining about it I'm like oh my goodness I wish I wish I could go back to when I was a teenager and I could pay five dollars to be full I would I wish we could still have five dollar footlongs I wish I could buy two pounds of Chinese food for five bucks but you can anymore to get like a basic entree at any restaurant so it's at least like 15 and that's like a girly entree that's only gonna fill up like little kids okay in order to be absolutely full when I go to a restaurant I have to basically pay at least 25 sometimes 30 bucks okay that's just how I look at things aside from that I'm never satisfied so if I'm Never Satisfied by restaurants and it's been that way since you know thanks to president Brandon and inflation over the past two years what why should I just go to restaurants expecting this disappointment especially when I go with other people and everyone is like low-key complaining about how much of a rip-off it is why should I go to a restaurant that's what I'm thinking about so I'm not going to I'm going to solve this I'm going to solve this problem by just not going to one um and it's already been like halfway through January and I have to say that it's already been a resounding success or it doesn't feel like I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything but I've been doing a mental tally of how much money I've saved and I think it's actually between 100 and 200 bucks which you know normally I I think of myself as very minimalist I would never spend that much on restaurants anyway but I think I just had like more opportunities to go to restaurants and stuff like that um so either way I've saved a good a good deal of money in fact even more than I expected and I firstly I want to talk about some of the windfall benefits of this okay because firstly saving money well really it's not about saving money it's about saving disappointment okay I'm avoiding disappointment uh I don't mind spending money for something that's worth the money uh but whenever I get a check and I'm like wow they just ripped me off this is so awkward I can't believe I have to pay that that's something I want to avoid um but either way so I so I have been saving money I have been saving disappointment uh I think also there are some other things contributing to why I wanted to do this as a kind of a resolution thing um one is like I want to be more thoughtful of like when I purchase things and when I uh eat which I mean usually I think of myself as pretty like continent in terms of uh I don't know impulse control I don't I like to think I'm very continent um but I I think it's easier to just avoid it all together and avoid like the kind of Temptation um and also like when I when I'm doing stuff like traveling or you know making trips to different towns to do chores or whatever I'd like to just kind of uh like I'd like to have to plan around that I I'd like to have to say okay I'm gonna have my food ready I know what I'm gonna eat I'm not just gonna like impulsively decide when I'm there what I'm gonna do okay so that I think is my thinking it encourages me to like plan for trips better this weekend I'm actually going on a trip where uh normally I would be stopping at restaurants and stuff like that even stopping at restaurants alone I've complained about that like I I there's something it's like bowling alone like one of the most pathetic looking things is when people are at someone is at a restaurant alone and I always hated being that guy especially when I'm traveling because that's usually when I I did it but um so I'm going to plan around that prepare food beforehand and uh just think about when and how I'm gonna eat and worse comes the worst if I ever need if I'm on a trip and I need to eat something I will go literally to the grocery store and get something that I can prepare and whatever means possible right I'm pretty serious about this and I in the blog post and an email people when I put out this blog post saying I was going to do this some people emailed me saying bro are you going to stop at a deli you're going to stop at a coffee shop are you going to stop at uh the gas station no no no no no no of course not and I'm definitely not especially with a gas station like I'm not going to replace restaurants with something even worse than a restaurant like this that's just ridiculous um like it's not about getting rid of convenience because like you want to make yourself suffer it's about getting rid of convenience so you think more about the stuff that you're doing in your life and you have to like plan it you know what I mean and one of the other little benefits a little windfall benefit that I've had of this I I'm kind of walking backwards because I think this looks better than this like in terms of the lighting I don't know it's very vain but I'm gonna do it I just like it um one of the windfall benefits that I didn't expect is actually um you know I realize there are some times when uh let's say I'm doing work at my house and oh I kind of need to do this chore I could uh drive into town could drive 20 minutes to this city uh and do this and pick up this at the store uh and while I'm there I guess I'll go to a restaurant right just kind of accidentally right well I I realized that a lot of times I don't really need to make all those separate drives the cities you know what I mean I could wait a day or two and do a bunch of things in one big trip right uh and what I realize is when I cut out the idea of going to restaurants I did less unnecessary trips because in my brain was actually just rationalizing I really just was bored and didn't want to make food for myself so I wanted to go to a restaurant so I'm not just cutting out restaurants I'm actually saving a lot of gas money I didn't realize because it seems I guess I was like just kind of impulsively uh saving for that as well um anyway so those are the kind of benefits I'm talking about again saving money saving disappointment um but also kind of thinking more about the kind of stuff that I'm doing my life um now I've done weird resolutions I'm not usually a New Year's resolution kind of guy and I mean really I just decided to do this around the time of New Year's um but I do remember back in 2020 I had the resolution of like not buying clothes from anything thing that didn't that wasn't like American made that was actually kind of hard well I mean it's not like I buy that much clothes but whatever um it was a worthwhile experiment um but either way I think this is going to go pretty well and of course I do reserve the right uh if to make exceptions for it if there are um you know let's say I'm at some event I'm at some big thing where I'm meeting a bunch of people I'm not going to be like I'm not going to go to a restaurant blah blah blah I mean I might like try and uh throw other possibilities around but if it's a big event with a bunch of people a very special circumstance I'm not going to be like I'm not going to go to this restaurant for this that or the other reason um really the whole idea of it is to cut restaurant and unnecessary restauranting out of my daily life which has been a lot easier to do than I thought we'll see how it goes originally I said I was going to like reevaluate like maybe I'm gonna start strict and maybe like re-evaluate as I go on like oh maybe I'll make exceptions for a deli or maybe I'll make exceptions for that but honestly I don't think that's that's gonna happen to be honest um I think the more difficult thing is like planning for trips uh because you know I'm the kind of person especially on when I'm going on vacation uh traditionally I've just gone to restaurants all the time basically I mean I very rarely make food for myself on a vacation but that's gotta that's gotta stop that's that's pretty degenerate that's pretty lazy anyway um and again even when I'm on it sucks to go on vacation and be unpleased by the um you know how bad you're getting ripped off at restaurants as well all right so that's all I think that's all I have to say here so I encourage you actually if you're interested you don't have to start on New Year's Day uh but you could try something similar yourself I think it's a probably a good idea I don't think you'll regret it um I don't know bring back pick it you got to bring back picnicking or something like that I don't know force it on your friends some people in my life have been like oh Luke you're just gonna be so annoying to us because you're uh you're not gonna go to restaurants and stuff like that but it hasn't been a problem yet it's uh at least if it's been that big of a problem no one's complained about it uh but uh you know the the whole idea is replacing it replacing it with something that is just as social but um not I mean it's not a restaurant yeah bring back picnicking that's all I gotta say anyway um I forgot how I used to end videos um oh yeah that's right I never had a way of ending videos goodbye

Channel: Luke Smith

Views: 53,601

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Id: dS1KtN0bZDs

Length: 8min 21sec (501 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 24 2023