Frugal Green Living: Have A Luncheon Date With Your Sweetie

When I looked at my expenditures for the month of January, I found that my wife and I had not eaten out once in the whole month. I mean, not even a coffee at Starbucks. I did attend two lunch obligations for my volunteer job, but other than that, nothing.

Many in the frugalism gig would say this is a good thing; it is a mantra that you should cook yourself, keep away from the expensive coffees, stop going to restaurants. I am not certain that this is necessarily true. A lot of people work in foodservice, and if every green frugalista stayed away, who would support the interesting, fun, charming and green places that make our cities and towns wonderful?

When our kids were in school, my wife and I had a Thursday tradition; we would go on a lunch date. She would come downtown or to wherever I was working, we would go to whatever trendy restaurant that we had heard about and wanted to try. There are a lot of advantages to going for lunch instead of dinner:

- it is usually cheaper with smaller portions;

- you drink a lot less, because you have to go back to work;

- you can get in to hot spots that you might stand for hours in the evening;

- you don't need to hire baby sitters;

- my wife didn't like taking the bus or subway alone at night, but had no problem during the day;

- you get to digest it before you go to bed.