If you have no kitchen than ordering food can be cheaper. But if you have a full fridge and stove, then cooking is much cheaper. Go to the store and buy a cheap cut of meat. Chop it up. Toss it in a pot with water and fresh or frozen vegies. And you have a meal for days. What could be easier. Get eggs or Hot Dogs or just cheese and crackers. Eating at home is much cheaper. Or how about Campbell’s in a can. Food should not cost even ten dollars a meal.
I doubt it.
As I am currently the only one in my household, I opt for personalized keto meals from a nearby establishment at a cost of $600 per month.
I have a personal relationship with the proprietors and appreciate that they prepare meals from whole foods, rather than processed ones.
Although it costs me an additional $150 monthly compared to purchasing and cooking my own meals, factoring in the time I would have spent shopping and cooking, I am actually saving money.
Given the value I place on my leisure time, this arrangement works well for me.
It’s reported that the average IQ in the USA is now 100, just saying.
It’s a simple formula.
What is the value of your time per hour and how may hours does it take to buy, prepare and clean up the kitchen after your meal.
Add the cost of your ingredients for the meal.
Compare that to the cost of going out to eat.
Now, suppose your time is worth $50.00 an hour, that meal that your spend three hours purchasing and preparing is costing $150.00.
I can eat a nice meal at a restaurant for less than $150.00.
*** Others were outraged: “I’m sorry but anybody who tells you it’s a better deal to order Chipotle catering as meal prep instead of buying the ingredients at a grocery store is probably a trust fund idiot who has literally never shopped anywhere except Whole Foods,” wrote one Twitter user.***
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Cooking is always cheaper but I can see someone who doesn’t eat a lot finding meal solutions that beat cooking in either convenience for an acceptable cost difference or getting on a kick like a good burrito that they order in large numbers, cut in half, and freeze for individual meals and that can’t really be cooked for cheaper without someone being a really talented and dedicated cook and buying and cooking in bulk.
My wife started ordering “Hello Fresh” ready to cook meals. They come with all the ingredients, including the meat (chicken, pork, or beef) to make. Their recipes are simple to follow, and they taste great. They generally only take 30-45 minutes to prepare.
We get a week’s worth of dinners at a time and we don’t have to go grocery shopping.
On the other point, if we simply look at the cost of ingredients, there is no question that making your own meals from food bought at the grocery store is cheaper, but in the real world, it is often cheaper to eat out. This happens because of the intense psychological pressure imposed by modern grocery stores calculated to assure that we buy more -- usually much more -- than what is needed.
For me eating out or ordering take out is cheaper. I bill hourly. And if it takes me two hours to make dinner that is two hours I could have billed. It works for my situation.
If you are a big family then cooking is the way to go and spread the labor around with everyone else helping to clean up after. Plus there are the benefits of family time.
I do my grocery shopping "European" style, in that I get what I need for that day on the way home. Tonight for instance, I'm picking up crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, an onion, a garlic bulb and some jalapenos. At home is ground chicken all thawed out, some shredded cheease and a can of pinto beans that I will make chili with.
Within an hour, it will be all done. Most of that time will be the chili simmering.
There are a lot of dishes my wife and I make at home that are quick to prep and easy to clean up after. Another favorite is cutting a sweet potato into thick slices in a dutch oven and tossing a whole chicken on top. An hour and a half later, you have a one pot meal with the chicken coming off the bones and the sweet potato is drenched in juices from the chicken.
I've tried all the "short cuts" over the years, like those meal kits (i.e. Freshly). Those things are a pain in the neck to make and there is so much wasted packaging.
Ping
I chop up a lot of onion, garlic, broccoli, zucchini, carrots and other veggies. Throw them in a frying pan with some hot oil, toss in the veggies, and stir. Simple one-pan meal and you can make endless variations. Reasonably good top sirloin goes on sale at Safeway all the time for $5 to $6 per pound.
Your prep time is theoretically worth money too. That may be where the savings come in.
You can buy a week's worth of lunches of chicken drumsticks for $10. How could this possibly be cheaper?
I think Hubby said Kudlow said it’s almost cheaper to eat out than to buy groceries — about a month ago.
I had co-workers who ate out for lunch every day.
They complained about not having enough money too.
$10 a day or more for fast food is expensive.
My wife gets the $4.99 rotisserie Costco chicken just about every time we go to Costco and she loves them. Far cheaper and easier than cooking it herself.
She debones it and uses the meat in her salads and sandwiches and it lasts a few days.
Also the $1.25 hotdog and drink is the cheapest food you will find anywhere.
We need to be searching yard sales and flea markets for Depression era cookbooks. Our parents and grandparents learned to skimp by with a few staples during the Great Depression and our generation will have to as well during Biden’s Great Depression 2.
We’ve become a helpless people.