Is It Cheaper to Eat at Home or Out? l Clark Howard

i'm going to say something i've never said before there may actually be circumstances don't shoot me where it's cheaper to eat out than to eat at home cook at home yes excited about that so i've been waiting to hear you say this for 25 years that's awesome i excited you saying eating out maybe so who's doing really well right now in the restaurant business do you know there are two companies in particular that wall street's been really thrilled with lately mcdonald's and chipotle yeah both of them have been doing really really well people perceive that they're getting real value for every hard-earned dollar they spend on a meal and this year has been really really hard for traditional supermarkets supermarket inflation has been much much higher than restaurant inflation and traditional supermarkets mostly regional supermarket chains and kroger the big national chain i mean they've really been getting squeezed by the marketplace they've got uh so many skus so many different items they have in the stores and all that and they're in a position where supermarkets it may shock you but they operate on very low net profits very low for the amount of sales that go through their doors they don't make a lot of money and so these price increases that have come in in so many categories in the supermarket they have no choice either either become a money losing operation or they increase their prices and so their prices have gone up by enormous amounts one estimate i saw shockingly says that the cost of groceries over the last year have gone up 13 13 lots of factors involved in that drought in a lot of areas the of the world where we grow food of all different kinds and then general price inflation the brand name product manufacturers shoving prices higher and higher where restaurant meals have gone up and cost basically half that so one person feeding himself or herself maybe a couple if you're really careful with where you go and what you spend eating out gosh it it could be at a point that you don't have to feel guilty you're eating out you know what you haven't mentioned in a while your bermuda triangle of the restaurant menu yes uh well alcohol appetizers dessert yeah dessert is the most profitable thing a lot of restaurants do the cost for them for a lot of the desserts they sell uh under a quarter and they sell desserts depending on the price point of the restaurant they can be more than ten dollars for that dessert that they've got a quarter in um okay you're a gourmet restaurant maybe you got 50 cents in that dessert uh so obviously everybody knows alcohol has a huge markup and so the entree is the one thing at a restaurant that doesn't have huge markups typically and think about it let's go to my level of restaurant fast food what do i never order at a fast food restaurant fries fries that's the one thing i want to order yeah i don't eat french fries i'm not i don't really like french fries so i'm able to think about how much money i'm saving so it's an ultra high profit margin item for the the fast foodies and i don't even like them so i don't have to spend that money but the the couponing not as frequent as it was where's the money saved now at mid price lower price and fast food restaurants quick serving fast food i don't know oh yeah you do i do maybe i didn't update the questions soft drinks and stuff oh oh oh okay using your smartphone app right ordering with the apps i mean it's unreal how much money you save when you're eating out when you use the app because see let me tell you what's in it for the restaurant fast food all the way to mid-price when you use the app they know that you are a more committed diner and you're likely to go more often and then they're dangling the points at you and all that and so if you use the restaurant apps it's shocking how much you can save and sometimes i feel like they should pay me not to come in when i'm using one of the apps so we're just in an odd odd spot right now where i'm not saying go out and eat out all the time because remember the the big difference is the food you buy at a supermarket has generally low markup the food cost of a restaurant is only part of their cost because they have the whole operation the labor costs everything involved in running the restaurant but right now there is a compression that if you're good with how you shop for a restaurant meal you actually could find that particularly for an individual or two that it's cost effective to eat out a lot of times than it is to cook at home

Channel: Clark Howard: Save More, Spend Less

Views: 11,666

Keywords: clark howard, clark, money, financial literacy, finances, money podcast, podcast, financial podcast, consumer, consumer advocate

Id: CuiEpoqtD88

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022