Although I don’t typically like to link the same site twice in a row, I thought this one was too good to pass up. Trent from The Simple Dollar has a great article on what your entertainment expenses are really costing you:
Take eating out, for example. Many people do it because they see it as nicer and more convenient than eating at home. They can just drive to a restaurant, sit down, place an order, chat with their dining companion, get the meal, pay, then go home. Easy enough.
But when you start adding up the time invested there, it becomes less of a joy (trust me, I’ve done this a lot). For us, it takes fifteen minutes to drive to a decent restaurant. Five minutes to park and get seated – assuming no wait. Another five to ten minutes to place our order. Twenty minutes or so before we get our food. Another fifteen minutes to eat. Ten minutes to get the waitstaff to bring the bill, pay the bill, and leave. Another fifteen minutes to drive home. That’s an hour and a half just to eat out.
I’m with him 100%, which is why I eat at home most of the time. Even dishes that take a while to cook usually don’t take more than 15–30 minutes to prepare, and you can use the bake time to do something more productive.