In case you haven't scheduled this yet, I suggest you stay home for dinner tonight, cook a healthy meal and sit down with your children to talk about money, stressing the importance of savings and living within your means.
Cooking a meal at home, rather than going out to eat would be the perfect initiation to bring up the topic. It's also a good point, mid-way through the month of September, to assess how much the family has spent on eating out (use your judgment how detailed that discussion should be, depending on your children’s ages).
As a family, list down all the days you went out to eat (lunches and dinners) and record the total the family has spent so far this month on just eating out. Take that number multiply it by two and you have a rough estimate of a whole month's worth of expenses on eating out.
I am sure the family will be surprised (if not shocked) when they see the total amount spent. The discussion could now turn towards establishing a sensible budget for eating out hopefully leading to the common goal of decreasing the number of days/nights eating out and making the few nights you’re going out more special.
There are additional benefits you could sort of squeeze in. Learning how to cook is one tremendous upside, the more you cook the better you get at it and that might also rub off on your children. Yet another benefit is the fact that you might end up eating a lot healthier.
Most importantly though, you are spending quality time with your family and you can have discussions about money, budgeting and savings a lot more often - hopefully more than just once a year…