It costs so much to eat out!

Yes, I'm quite sure that you are laughing out loud at my ridiculously obvious title.

But I think what surprises me is that, even when I knock myself out to try to make it cheap, I'm still amazed at how much it costs.

Case in point:

Last week was Rebecca's sixth birthday (I hope to post pictures in a couple days) and we had gotten her coupon for a free Creation at Cold Stone Creamery. Since Cold Stone is between our house and Robert's office, I had him meet us there on his way home from work.

Rebecca's kiddie cup was free, we got a kiddie cup for Rachael, and Robert, Benjamin, and I all split a "Love it" sized creation.

It was seven dollars!

Not worth it. I won't be doing that again.

Then we realized we should probably get something for dinner (which I know sounds really stupid, but Robert doesn't usually eat dinner, and the rest of us had a big lunch and I thought we wouldn't be too hungry. But we all were). So we thought we'd live it up and stop at IHOP on the way home.

First of all, IHOP is hardly Fine Dining. (Which is just fine with us, but what I mean is, I think of it as a Cheap Eat.) Second, kids eat free there at dinnertime. Third, we all drank water.

And it cost twenty bucks!

To me, that's a lot of money for a single meal, especially when we had just spent seven dollars for "dessert" already, and especially considering we had gotten:

* Two free kids' meals
* One free kids' ice cream
* Split the ice cream we actually paid for; and
* Drank nothing but water

I guess I just need to get a grip and realize how much restaurants cost, and that even "cheap" isn't really and truly cheap.

Tonight I am cooking a chili casserole (Rachael's favorite!) and we just bought a carton of "Edy's Thin Mint" ice cream, which was on sale at Publix today for ... three-fifty, I believe.