how do people afford to go out to eat?

I almost never go out to eat because I hate being broke. I'm 28 and I make a decent amount of money for a single woman but it feels like the only time I go out to a restaurant I'm a college kid again and I'm getting a few appetizers and splitting a cheap bottle of wine with my friends. <br><br>The last time I went to a chain restaurant with 3 coworkers we ordered the same meal (a salad with fried chicken) and our bill was $150. That was with 2 of us getting a glass of wine each. I do not know how people afford to go out to eat and plunk down the kind of money that I could easily spend on groceries by myself for a week, which is how much I've been spending. <br><br>I like to cook and I'm not lazy, which is why I don't mind cooking and making food at home. I've noticed almost every healthy meal out is $25 for a salad. You can get a whole rotisserie chicken for that. I've also been noticing this whole "fancy fast food" like chipotle and panera and sweetgreen and plunking down $25 for a salad. Sweetgreen's salads are a pre-packaged salad with your opportunity to add a few toppings. That's it. $15 for a salad that you would buy at the grocery store for $4. <br><br>Last year we had an old coworker come to town and we wanted to take her out for a "nice" meal. We went to a mid-range Italian place and I got the pasta with marinara and the appetizer bruschetta was a slice of bread on a plate with a bit of cheese and tomato. It was so expensive. <br><br>I don't know how adults can afford to go out to eat all the time and not lose their minds with the amount of money I've been looking at. I'll keep cooking my own food. <br><br>I'm getting back to cooking curries and stews and roasts that have a lot of healthy food in them and are wicked cheap. I can make a hungry man cake for a dollar that has everything you need to eat, protein, carbs, fat, fruit, veggies, etc. You can buy a bag of dried chickpeas and cook yourself a month worth of beans for a dollar. There are so many cheap ingredients out there and it's so healthy. Healthy because you can add a ton of veggies to a curry or stew and you don't even notice them.