All the "time is money" folks are lying to themselves.
I agree that people can go overboard with this justification, but it makes sense for people who have jobs where extra work means extra money, either directly (paid by the hour or unit of output) or indirectly (putting in more hours to deliver better on projects opens up career advancement potential).
For example, let's say you're a lawyer who can work an extra 3 hours over the weekend to start and finish a case that earns you $2000. Well, why would you instead spend 3 hours and some money trying to save $10 by cooking instead of just ordering out?
There are other problems with cooking at home:
(1) Always cutting yourself with knives, sometimes dangerously.
(2) Oven fires, or accidentally burn yourself with hot oil from the frying pan.
(3) Food safety issues such as forgetting that the marinade for the chicken contains raw chicken and this you can't drizzle it on top at the end for extra flavor.
(4) Running the dishwasher actually costs a lot money and there are risks like it could leak and ruin your hardwood floor.
Etc.
Or you can eat restaurant food and don't have to worry about any of this.
Do people here not have microwave ovens?
Just buy whole cooked chickens. Nuke the chicken for a minute to warm it up. Eat it. Rinse out the bowl.
All the "time is money" folks are lying to themselves.
I agree that people can go overboard with this justification, but it makes sense for people who have jobs where extra work means extra money, either directly (paid by the hour or unit of output) or indirectly (putting in more hours to deliver better on projects opens up career advancement potential).
For example, let's say you're a lawyer who can work an extra 3 hours over the weekend to start and finish a case that earns you $2000. Well, why would you instead spend 3 hours and some money trying to save $10 by cooking instead of just ordering out?
There are other problems with cooking at home:
(1) Always cutting yourself with knives, sometimes dangerously.
(2) Oven fires, or accidentally burn yourself with hot oil from the frying pan.
(3) Food safety issues such as forgetting that the marinade for the chicken contains raw chicken and this you can't drizzle it on top at the end for extra flavor.
(4) Running the dishwasher actually costs a lot money and there are risks like it could leak and ruin your hardwood floor.
Etc.
Or you can eat restaurant food and don't have to worry about any of this.
How old are you? Five? If you are 14 you should be able to cut an onion without killing yourself.
And with the money saved from not eating in the restaurants you can also get a better dishwasher which doesn't run your hardwood floors.
Cooking at home is always cheaper when just calculating the cost of raw ingredients. But if you start pricing the value of your time it takes to cook + clean up, even at minimum wage, it is then almost always cheaper to eat out. That holds true for cooking/ eating out for one. When you're talking, 2, 3, or especially larger families, cooking at home becomes much cheaper again since cooking for 5 only takes a marginally smaller time than cooking for one. Not to mention when you cook for one you almost always end up with leftovers that eventually find their way in the trash.
Lastly cooking at home just tastes significantly worse. All the power to the people who actually enjoy cooking and become great cooks, but that's not me.
You can follow a training plan, but not a recipe. Typical “pick me boy” ooooh someone help little ol me I can’t cook….frickin’ nerd.
For single guys, learning how to cook, and cook well is very attractive to women. Saying "I'm so stupid I can't even make microwave popcorn." is a turn off.
Cook her a good meal or two, and you have made in roads.
I agree that people can go overboard with this justification, but it makes sense for people who have jobs where extra work means extra money, either directly (paid by the hour or unit of output) or indirectly (putting in more hours to deliver better on projects opens up career advancement potential).
For example, let's say you're a lawyer who can work an extra 3 hours over the weekend to start and finish a case that earns you $2000. Well, why would you instead spend 3 hours and some money trying to save $10 by cooking instead of just ordering out?
There are other problems with cooking at home:
(1) Always cutting yourself with knives, sometimes dangerously.
(2) Oven fires, or accidentally burn yourself with hot oil from the frying pan.
(3) Food safety issues such as forgetting that the marinade for the chicken contains raw chicken and this you can't drizzle it on top at the end for extra flavor.
(4) Running the dishwasher actually costs a lot money and there are risks like it could leak and ruin your hardwood floor.
Etc.
Or you can eat restaurant food and don't have to worry about any of this.
How old are you? Five? If you are 14 you should be able to cut an onion without killing yourself.
And with the money saved from not eating in the restaurants you can also get a better dishwasher which doesn't run your hardwood floors.
Jamin is ultimately a timid creature with an entire life mindset based on fear. He can only imagine negative outcomes and then uses that analysis to justify his actions or inaction. High functioning anxiety, fear of failure, and a pathological need to find acceptance. He projects uncertainty and then tries to mask that with smug contrarian behavior.
Depends. The self absorbed women on dating apps typically only want to go to expensive restaurants for clout chasing purposes. Ya know, the type that average 100 per person after tip or even before tip. You also know who's paying.
Depends. The self absorbed women on dating apps typically only want to go to expensive restaurants for clout chasing purposes. Ya know, the type that average 100 per person after tip or even before tip. You also know who's paying.
Just buy whole cooked chickens. Nuke the chicken for a minute to warm it up.
Huh? Aren't you proving the point that it's worth it to purchase food that a business prepared, than to make the same thing yourself? If you buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, that's less expensive than buying a whole chicken, dressing it up and cooking it in the oven, all things considered.
Cooking at home is way less expensive. Anyone that’s been on an actual budget knows this.
Cooking at home is not hard either, if you do it every day it doesn’t take very long to learn how to do it.
We are a family of 4, dining out is around $100. Our weekend grocery bill (7 days of meals) hovers around $200-$250
The discussion definitely needs the qualification of whether we're talking about individuals or families.
Take your example of 4 people. Suppose the delta between the cost (only in terms of money) of 1 serving of a meal cooked at home is $10 (e.g. it costs $13 to make the same thing that would cost $23 at a restaurant). Suppose it takes 1.5 hours to prepare.
1 person makes 4 servings:
* Save $40 for the household
* Collectively lose 1.5 hours
4 people each make 1 serving:
* Each saves $10 (It doesn't matter that they collectively save $40)
This is just basic economics. Restaurants have economics of scale.
If I want to make around 1 liter of tomato sauce, the ingredients at the grocery store will cost me
* $20 worth of organic Roma tomatoes
* $5 worth of organic basil
and takes me maybe 1 hour to do everything (extra 15 minutes if counting the trip to the grocery store).
An Italian restaurant has a daily supplier of tomatoes and basil, that they buy in bulk, so that the cost of the same ingredients is maybe $8 instead of $25. And because they have a bigger kitchen, more sophisticated equipment, line cooks and dishwashers, they can produce the same thing in 10 minutes instead of 1 hour.
I work remotely as a highly paid software engineer. I dont claim to eat the most healthy but, at the same time, I dont think I am too bad. In parenthesis, I will give you (<eat out> vs <do it myself>) price comparisons.
If I can run and swim before work I like to have a breakfast burrito ($15 vs $4.30), coffee ($8 vs $2) and water afterward.
I for the most part skip lunch but do like an afternoon bowl of sliced fruit ($10 vs $3).
For dinner, I enjoy a good pizza ($25 vs $6), bowl of udon noodles ($25 vs $8), a veggie or chicken burrito ($15 vs $5), a Fazoli's influenced baked ziti ($15 vs $6) or specialty chicken fried rice ($25 vs $4). I add basic salads to certain meals ($3).
You have to also account for supplies, storage and maintenance too. You need to be able to store things and stay organized. You need a certain capacity to freeze items long term (i.e. sometimes greater than mid-sized commerical freezers) so you can buy in bulk. I have food storage containers, freezer containers and jars. I bought a pizza maker last year that has been an overall game changer compared to baking it in the oven. I have a cast iron wok with a lid and respective utensils. I also pre-prep by storing things like sliced green peppers, white onions, scallions and carrots so that I am quick and efficient (i.e. so it takes less than 15 minutes to perpare).
But after all that effort doing it myself 5 or 6 days per week, it's nice to go out and tip the hell out our local servers, baristas or whomever.
This is just basic economics. Restaurants have economics of scale.
If I want to make around 1 liter of tomato sauce, the ingredients at the grocery store will cost me
* $20 worth of organic Roma tomatoes
* $5 worth of organic basil
and takes me maybe 1 hour to do everything (extra 15 minutes if counting the trip to the grocery store).
An Italian restaurant has a daily supplier of tomatoes and basil, that they buy in bulk, so that the cost of the same ingredients is maybe $8 instead of $25. And because they have a bigger kitchen, more sophisticated equipment, line cooks and dishwashers, they can produce the same thing in 10 minutes instead of 1 hour.
Tell us that you have never worked in a restaurant without saying that you’ve never worked in a restaurant.
Just buy whole cooked chickens. Nuke the chicken for a minute to warm it up.
Huh? Aren't you proving the point that it's worth it to purchase food that a business prepared, than to make the same thing yourself? If you buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, that's less expensive than buying a whole chicken, dressing it up and cooking it in the oven, all things considered.
We’re talking about eating at home versus eating out. But if you want to get technical., yeah.
This is just basic economics. Restaurants have economics of scale.
If I want to make around 1 liter of tomato sauce, the ingredients at the grocery store will cost me
* $20 worth of organic Roma tomatoes
* $5 worth of organic basil
and takes me maybe 1 hour to do everything (extra 15 minutes if counting the trip to the grocery store).
An Italian restaurant has a daily supplier of tomatoes and basil, that they buy in bulk, so that the cost of the same ingredients is maybe $8 instead of $25. And because they have a bigger kitchen, more sophisticated equipment, line cooks and dishwashers, they can produce the same thing in 10 minutes instead of 1 hour.
Tell us that you have never worked in a restaurant without saying that you’ve never worked in a restaurant.
Cooking at home is way less expensive. Anyone that’s been on an actual budget knows this.
Cooking at home is not hard either, if you do it every day it doesn’t take very long to learn how to do it.
We are a family of 4, dining out is around $100. Our weekend grocery bill (7 days of meals) hovers around $200-$250
The discussion definitely needs the qualification of whether we're talking about individuals or families.
Take your example of 4 people. Suppose the delta between the cost (only in terms of money) of 1 serving of a meal cooked at home is $10 (e.g. it costs $13 to make the same thing that would cost $23 at a restaurant). Suppose it takes 1.5 hours to prepare.
1 person makes 4 servings:
* Save $40 for the household
* Collectively lose 1.5 hours
4 people each make 1 serving:
* Each saves $10 (It doesn't matter that they collectively save $40)
* Collectively lose 6 hours
You are over complicating things. You will never cook exactly the same thing as in a restaurant. You meal will be much simpler. You use the vegetables you have already in the fridge and you make something with it. It might be around $10 for two people. But in a restaurant you would end up at least with $30-40 plus tip.
For the record, I love cooking. Today I'm cooking a flank steak. It cost $38 from the butcher and will supply me with around 3 dinners. Luckily I already had all the ingredients for the marinade. They still probably add a couple $s if you cost them out (e.g. a 1/2 cup of olive oil is definitely $1 or $2 if you divide this amount by the cost of a bottle of olive oil). Conservatively, this comes out to $14/meal.
Now let me compare that to the 2 most recent takeout dinners that I purchased from a restaurant:
* Dick's Deluxe cheeseburger, fries and a shake: $14.05
* Gongora goat plus a side of garlic naan from an outstanding Indian restaurant: $22.60. This was 1.5 meals because the portions were large and I kept leftovers. I could've skipped the naan.
(These are numbers after tax, and this is in an area with a high cost of food and high sales tax.)
A few things to understand:
* Neither of those are even really possible to make at home (I'd need a deep fryer to make real french fries, and who knows where the heck to buy Gongora leaves?).
* Buying take-out offers variety. I'd be a little bored of eating flank steak for the 3rd night in a row.
* Buying take-out means it's always fresh, whereas eating what I made at home is leftover/reheated for 2 out of the 3 days.
* There's an experience to being served by a restaurant. For example, the evening when I had the cheeseburger, there's an experience of ordering from a 1950s-style drive-in.
* No clean-up required: just throw the box into the trash. By the way, that doesn't exact more environmental cost than the amount of water that I would have to use to wash dishes.
* Eating out came out to an extra $4/day or so. That would still be less than $1,500/year extra if you ate out every day, and of course most people don't eat out every day. That's a pretty minor luxury to justify. For example, most people could offset this cost by cancelling some streaming subscriptions they don't use.