If you want to save as much as you can, avoid eating out. Eating out on one meal for our family of five can cost up to half of our weekly grocery budget. Of course, life is hectic and we can't make a home-cooked meal every single day, three times a day, so we still eat out sometimes. But we try to avoid it as much as possible or only do it on weekends. Because a restaurant needs to pay employees and overhead aside from food costs, you can be certain that you're always spending more by eating out compared to eating at home, especially with a family. If you're one person with no dietary restrictions, you could make the case that this isn't accurate, thanks to all dollar menus in fast food restaurants. But when considering healthy meals, eating out will always cost more than cooking at home.