I’m wondering: Has anyone out there done a fact-based, statistically accurate, more or less nerdy study of whether it’s possible for two people to eat out every meal cheaper than they can cook three meals at home?

Now that we’re Empty Nesters, it seems like a lot more food languishes in our refrigerator, and frankly, there’s more waste at my house now than I’d like there to be. My 21-year-old cooking and buying habits are ingrained in my brain.

For example: I head to the supermarket and automatically grab the half-gallon milk jug. We use about two-thirds of it by the expiration date, and even though that last third of milk hasn’t yet spoiled, I throw in another carton on my next trip to the store. Right this minute I have 3 jugs of milk in various countdown stages. I would make pudding but there aren’t enough people here to eat it.

You probably know the drill, and of course the answer to a lot of it is simple -- just buy smaller quantities. (But you’re talking to a person who still puts four baked potatoes in the oven and doesn’t remember the kids are gone until I start to serve them!)

However, lately I’m making a real effort to stay alert at the store and buy only what we need. Even still, the lettuce is turning brown and that tub of expensive Greek yogurt is sitting there like a ticking time bomb.

I’ve taken to asking friends who never had children or whose kids have been gone a long time how they do it.

“Oh, we eat out almost every night,” my friend Lisa said.

Another friend, one of the restaurant critics at The Miami Herald, told me she and her husband frequently share both the salad and an entrée in restaurants because the portions are so huge, they can’t eat it all by themselves. That cuts the bill in half. Other times, they’ll take a doggie bag with plenty of food left over for the next night. (There again, theoretically, that cuts the restaurant bill in half if you get two meals for the price of one, no?!)

So, as you can see, I am in need of advice and will welcome all tips, suggestions, opinions, tales of woe and success stories! Leave them in the comments section following this post. Thanks!