The way to save money cooking for yourself starts with how you buy.
My wife and I just went out to dinner with friends at a local ‘nothing fancy but good’ place, and the total for the four of us with tip was $192.
I could have done it at home for about $100.
And we saved about 75 miles of driving.
Exactly so. I enjoy cooking, and I don’t want to take a 5 year old and a 7 year old to a restaurant in the odd times we do something nice. For my wife’s birthday, I grilled steak (Locally source; I get a quarter steer from a neighbor regularly. Best of all, I got to meet him first), local new potatoes, asparagus, and elderberry wine. (IE, all I had grown/vinted myself). Such a meal for two people would be a small fortune at a restaurant. And I’m confident I can give any such restaurant a run for it’s money in such cookery.
The most interesting people are those who are interested in life and being creative and doing things for themselves.
When I showed back up in an old girlfriend’s life who had slipped into a well-financed comfort zone of hiring things done I had to get her away from feeding her upscale guests catered or pre-ordered foods and get her to cooking, to make it more personalized engaging, and even unpredictable.
Over time her dinners became more lively, interesting and engaging with better-tasting food. Guests would show up early and get in the kitchen to help, we started making pies and desserts, and people started bringing something from home occasionally.
The relationships became more intimate and warm and the evenings were more relaxed and open, and the rare mistakes only seemed to liven things up, they were completely different and better dinner parties than what they were when I first showed up, everyone loves to drink their wine and be part of the kitchen activity and socializing, as the oven is being opened and closed and people helping or watching it all, maybe walking over to stir a pot, the activity and participation and the wine the resulting meal and all that ice-braking make for a wonderful after-dinner atmosphere for people who tend to be protective and guarded of their image. Those people changed over the course of a year and the friendships got better.