Yahoo Movies Here’s how much you can save in SC and other states by not eating at restaurants, new study shows.
South Carolinians can save $15.56 per meal on average by eating at home rather than going out, a new study shows.
It’s long been the advice from self-help books, financial gurus and the like, that an easy way to save money is to reduce how often you eat at restaurants. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average consumer spends nearly $3,500 per year on eating out — and those costs have continued to increase with inflation this year.
Top Nutrition Coaching, a national dietary and nutrition website, composed its comprehensive study for South Carolina and every other state. The site’s analysts looked at the cost of a restaurant meal and compared it to the cost of cooking at home in ever state to determine how much money people could save. The study used data from Numbeo, which dubs itself as the world’s largest cost of living database.
The study determined that South Carolina was among the most expensive states to eat out. Other states with similar costs included Connecticut, Washington, Florida, Rhode Island and Nebraska.
Here were other key findings from the report:
Missouri is the most affordable state for eating in at just $3.34 per meal.
New York is the most expensive state for eating out at $25 per meal on average.
84% of states can save more than $10 per meal by eating in rather than eating out.
Americans save around $12 by opting to cook and eat at home, with the average home meal costing $4.23 versus over $16 per meal at an inexpensive restaurant.
Annually, it costs over $13,000 more to eat out than it costs to prepare the same amount of food at home.
New York residents see the most drastic price difference and save $19.40 per meal made at home —nearly $3 more than New Hampshire, the second state with the highest home meal savings.
Increased food costs don’t necessarily correlate with high populations. For example, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Louisiana all have above-average grocery costs, but all rank in the bottom 25 most populated states.
Here is the full list of how much it costs on average to eat in and eating out in every state.
