It may not save a lot of time, but it does save some stress and gives you a psychological boost. I think cooking a great meal at home would probably take an hour, but it would be hard to eat a good meal at a restaurant without committing at least an hour between the wait and the drive. That being said, you really don't always feel like cooking at home. Sometimes you just want to kick your feet up. Now, whether or not it's worth the expense is a whole different story, and I think a big factor in the is what your financial situation is. If you don't have much money and are on a really tight budget, spending money might result in just as much stress as cooking at home, so maybe eating out wouldn't be worth it.
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I agree that eating out can be freeing psychologically, but I find I get most of the benefit from it if I do it once a week or so - that way it feels more like a special occasion. Otherwise I try to eat at home.
It's true that cost is not just how much $$$ something is, but how it impacts you. People tell poor people not to spend money on cigarettes and beer, but it's a stress-reliever for people who generally don't have a lot of other options.
I'm the same way. Try to keep it uncommon. I hadn't really thought about it that way but it's true. I guess that's an example of Maslow's hierarchy of needs in action. For someone who isn't in that position of poverty, they think about how that behavior affects their health and social status, but in order to have any sort of focus on those issues of safety and self-actualization, you first have to be content in your psychological state. Many aspects of poverty are detrimental to that psychological state, so cigarettes and beer help with that at the expense of goals that are more far removed, and seem less urgent to people in positions of poverty.