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Better Ways

Aussies love to eat out. A recent report found that we visit cafes, takeaway shops and restaurants around four times a month and spend around $70 per week dining out.

Our love affair with eating out has grown over the years. 20 years ago, Australian households spent around 20 per cent of their weekly food budget on eating out. Today, it’s around 30 per cent.

So are we heading the way of the United States? A recent report claims that American’s are spending more eating out than at the grocery store.

A major supermarket brand claims that the weekly supermarket shop is dead. We now use the supermarket more like a panty with last minute shops of the necessary ingredients to whip up the latest MasterChef inspired recipe.

When we considered $70 per week is spent dining out compared with $139 per week on groceries, we thought we'd answer the following question.

When are you better off eating out and when are you better off eating in?

What do films, hotels, appliances and now food all have in common? They have a star rating system designed to help us make better choices. And while sitting through a mediocre film does little more than waste our time, the star rating system on packaged foods has promised better health. But can a simple label on packaged food be the answer to rising obesity?

The recently introduced system has got its detractors. For starters, how does a system rating healthiness give a better score to hot chips than greek yogurt? We'll get to that shortly.  And how can we make best use of the labels despite their limitations?

If you’re not paying for a product, then you might be the product. Wise words to consider next time you're thinking of joining a loyalty program.

We love a freebie, but loyalty programs offering everything from free coffees to discounted flights aren't actually free. Businesses increase their profits with loyalty programs in two ways. A loyalty program encourages you to shop with those participating outlets more than you would otherwise. And the other way is to sell your data, either to market research companies or to other companies that then send you unsolicited emails, instant messages, SMS or MMS also called SPAM.

So are these programs worth the effort or are we being suckered into giving up our personal information for little return?