PP here. Sorry, meant to say kids. I have two kids under the age of 8.

Definitely not 3-4x a week! Once a month probably. (Not counting my group activity 2x a month where we all chip in for pizza since that's not our household's decision.) When we don't have time to cook we pull a frozen meal out, or make frozen ravioli, pasta, or eggs and toast with fruit and salad.

Kids buying lunch at school is different. My kids prefer packed and my husband packs them at night, but I'd be fine with them each buying lunch for $3/day if they wanted to.

We usually don't eat out during the week. Kid brings lunch from home 4 days a week and buys lunch on Friday (pizza day). We don't cook anything really fancy during the week, though. Eggs, bagels, pancakes, pasta or noodles, sheet pan meals, sandwiches and fruit, that kind of thing.

If we eat out, it's during breakfast and lunchtime on the weekends when we are out and about for kids' activities or meeting up with the grandparents.

Also cook double quantity and eat leftovers for a night with no cooking.

Agree with pp - elementary age kids can help clean in the kitchen.

If the issue is dishes, make simple stuff and have the kids rinse their plates and put them in the dishwasher right after the meal.

Anonymous wrote:Take out about once a week. Either pizza, sushi or thai food.

Eat out for lunch on the weekends if we are out and about.

This. We do takeout or a dinner out about once a week. Usually on Friday but sometimes in Sunday. We will often have one lunch out on weekends, like eat at a sandwich shop after going hiking it grab pizza before a movie.

I don't know why you are drowning in dishes. Do you not just do the dishes after making/eating a meal? Breakfast and lunch dishes should be almost nothing. We also have leftovers 2-3 nights a week and the dishes in those nights are easy.

We aim for once a week, sometimes it ends up being twice.

Anonymous wrote:Once a week or every other week on average.

Kids buy lunch and I do not miss the days when they packed. Kids also do not have hot breakfast on school days. This is how it was when they were all elementary aged and thank goodness I did not set an expectation of hot breakfast every morning when they were in ES since the MS bus is very early.

To each their own. I like making a hot breakfast for my kids - usually oatmeal or eggs or toast with some kind of nut butter. It takes about 10 minutes to make, takes them 10 minutes to eat it, and I have one who gets most of his nutrition from breakfast and lunch so I want to be sure he gets a good morning meal instead of whatever crap he'd otherwise eat at school. (And he eats all the crap he can find, which is why he isn't a stellar dinner eater.) The middle school bus is very early but fortunately my middle schooler is an early riser, and it's better if I'm in to work earlier anyway. We'll see what happens when the younger ones go. They are not early risers.

Once a week or every other week on average.

Kids buy lunch and I do not miss the days when they packed. Kids also do not have hot breakfast on school days. This is how it was when they were all elementary aged and thank goodness I did not set an expectation of hot breakfast every morning when they were in ES since the MS bus is very early.

Once a week on the evening we get home late. Sometimes twice a week depending on circumstances (someone is sick and wants a nice bowl of ramen or some other unforeseen circumstance).

If we go to a restaurant it’s usually without the kids and with other couples - maybe once a month or so?

OP, you and your spouse are both wrong. It’s shitty to call your spouse lazy and an unhealthy waste of money to do so much takeout/eating out. Get organized on weekends, make a dinner schedule together, and shop/plan/prep accordingly. Make things together on weekends that you can freeze. Etc. this will be much more productive than crowdsourcing how many times a week you should do takeout.

We go out for dinner once a week (Friday or Saturday night) and maybe get takeout once every two weeks or so. Otherwise we cook at home but weeknight dinners are often simple - think spaghetti with ground beef and jarred sauce with a salad kit, or tacos, or sometimes breakfast for dinner. Pack lunches except I'll usually get lunch out once per week at work. DH WFH and eats leftovers or fixes a sandwich for lunch.

We pack lunches and cook most nights. Takeout on Friday nights and usually a lunch out on weekends while on day trips.

Weeknight dinners can be really hairy with three kids in various activities. But I keep meals simple: crockpot, sheet pan dinners, big pots of soup, big batches of rice that can be used several ways. Kids often take dinner leftovers for lunch in a thermos.

Once a week or every other week. Generally pizza, Cava, or sushi/Japanese. Kids buy lunch on pizza days but otherwise pack lunch.