Long PLTR wrote:
People in this thread are making the economic fallacy that is thoroughly debunked in this video:
You’re moving the goalposts. We’re talking about money spent consistently eating at home versus eating out. You’ll clearly spend less eating at home. Is this going to be the difference between getting rich or not? Probably not.
Long PLTR wrote:
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.
$38 of flank is 3 dinners for one person? Flank is usually $15 or less per pound. You're either eating very large portions of beef (are you just eating beef, no sides? wtf?) or massively overpaying.
I've never actually cooked any form of goat, so I can't comment on that.
Fries? Impossible to do at home? LMAO. Get a dutch oven and some oil and get to work. Have a plan for your waste oil — you may be able to reuse it if it didn't get too dirty. My friend that really liked fries got a small desktop fryer, it was pretty neat.
Same thing with naan/flatbread. Super easy after you've practiced a few times.
About 2 times a week, I have my $1.30 Spicy Ramen and a $0.25 food based multi for dinner. There's also that omnipresent 25lb of jasmine rice.
Many of you are, respectfully, completely insane. I am a very good cook, my family loves to eat, we are adventurous eaters, and we enjoy entertaining. I average $515 a month for homemade breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a family of three, plus guests at least once a week. Exclude the two meals a week that we either eat out or are guests at someone else's home. I meal plan and shop smart / sales, but even for a not-so-savvy shopper there is no way on earth it costs less to eat out, even at the cheapest of venues. We are averaging like $2.25 per person per meal. Is their opportunity cost? Yes, of course. But there is also opportunity cost when you consider packing the family into the car, waiting to be served, and just how long overall a restaurant meal can take. Not as much time as planning meals and cooking, sure, but not negligible.
I can't believe the poster above who said they would spend $125 to make pizza at home. It would be nearly impossible to spend over $10 to make several large pizzas; I'd have to gild the crusts with gold leaf to hit $125.
Headline: “Millennials and Gen Z Eating Mostly Takeout and Processed Foods Citing Convenience, Lack of Cooking Skills”
Also Headline News: “Colon Cancer Rates Skyrocketing Amongst Millennials and Gen Z”
Keep ordering Door Dash, kids!
I can make a clone version of Dick's Deluxe, fries, and tartar (my order) at home.
Fries can be done in oven, dutch oven, or air fryer.
I make my own tartar.
kanny wrote:
About 2 times a week, I have my $1.30 Spicy Ramen and a $0.25 food based multi for dinner. There's also that omnipresent 25lb of jasmine rice.
I always have 5 lbs of potatoes and rice.
You can make anything with those, a few spices, oil, and a bag of shredded cheese.
My othet staples are the Cajun holy trinity - onion, bell pepper, and celery.
Last night I improvised.
I threw a bag of chicken tenders, oil, cheese, masa harina, and Cajun seasoning in a frying pan.
Turned out good - like a deconstructed chicken and cheese tamale!
j.r. ewing in Seattle wrote:
Last night I improvised.
I threw a bag of chicken tenders, oil, cheese, masa harina, and Cajun seasoning in a frying pan.
Turned out good - like a deconstructed chicken and cheese tamale!
Also added half a bag of frozen peas.
Some home cooked meals are "made with love".
There is your opportunity cost if you eat out.
We make pizza for 4 people every Sunday night. Out of curiosity, I checked how much it costs us to make 4 large pizzas - we fetch most ingredients from Costco:
1 pound of flour: Costco King Arthur all purpose flour ($10 for 12 pounds). About $1 for 4 Piazzas.
1 Can of Tomato: Cento San Marzano ($14 for three cans). $4.6
1 pound of Mozzarella: ($9 for two pounds). $4.5
Throw in a couple of dollars for electric power, yeast, salt and olive oil (we have oregano and basil growing in our garden) and, overall, it comes to about $12 dollars total of $3 for each large pizza.
Since in many years we have learnt how to make proper pizza, the quality is comparable to a top-end restaurant pizza, which would cost at least $15-$20 each.
The time required is about 10 minutes in the morning to make the dough and 30 minutes for preparation and cooking in the evening. Eating out would take much longer.
Personally, it is not just that cooking is cheaper, I also like to have control in what I eat, I enjoy cooking and I value my time: eating out is a massive waste of time.
I don't mind eating out from time to time, to experiment with unfamiliar dishes or high-end cuisine, but for everyday meals, I would not regularly eat out if if were more cost effective.
Girl Eating Delicious Home Cooked Meals Every Night wrote:
Many of you are, respectfully, completely insane. I am a very good cook, my family loves to eat, we are adventurous eaters, and we enjoy entertaining. I average $515 a month for homemade breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a family of three, plus guests at least once a week. Exclude the two meals a week that we either eat out or are guests at someone else's home. I meal plan and shop smart / sales, but even for a not-so-savvy shopper there is no way on earth it costs less to eat out, even at the cheapest of venues. We are averaging like $2.25 per person per meal. Is their opportunity cost? Yes, of course. But there is also opportunity cost when you consider packing the family into the car, waiting to be served, and just how long overall a restaurant meal can take. Not as much time as planning meals and cooking, sure, but not negligible.
I can't believe the poster above who said they would spend $125 to make pizza at home. It would be nearly impossible to spend over $10 to make several large pizzas; I'd have to gild the crusts with gold leaf to hit $125.
That is a very sexy trait in a woman.
There's a scenario in which home cooking is more expensive. Consider hitting up the value menu at the local drive through vs. purchasing and preparing a well balanced meals with protein, vegetables, high quality carbs etc. Totally worth it and you can kinda see why poor people in America are so unhealthy. Shopping at the Dollar General (no fresh produce), Wendy's, Dominoes, etc.
Obviously cooking is usually much cheaper. There are exceptions, like if you get a pizza that will last a few meals or if you make something so bad you can't stand the leftovers.
This is the critical thinking i expect here.
My daily cost is less than $7 a day cooking at home. Find me somewhere I can eat out that costs less than $7 for a full meal and I’ll agree.
The original tweet is probably referring to the abstract. Wealthy people claim they make, for example, $100k every hour of the day. Therefore, it’s nonsensical for them to spend time cooking because 1 hour to cook costs $100k. I understand. If I was a billionaire I would never cook. Just convert the kitchen into a larger living room.
Much cheaper to eat out if you use buy now pay later and don’t repay
Girl Eating Delicious Home Cooked Meals Every Night wrote:
Many of you are, respectfully, completely insane. I am a very good cook, my family loves to eat, we are adventurous eaters, and we enjoy entertaining. I average $515 a month for homemade breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a family of three, plus guests at least once a week. Exclude the two meals a week that we either eat out or are guests at someone else's home. I meal plan and shop smart / sales, but even for a not-so-savvy shopper there is no way on earth it costs less to eat out, even at the cheapest of venues. We are averaging like $2.25 per person per meal. Is their opportunity cost? Yes, of course. But there is also opportunity cost when you consider packing the family into the car, waiting to be served, and just how long overall a restaurant meal can take. Not as much time as planning meals and cooking, sure, but not negligible.
I can't believe the poster above who said they would spend $125 to make pizza at home. It would be nearly impossible to spend over $10 to make several large pizzas; I'd have to gild the crusts with gold leaf to hit $125.
Yes, it’s pure insanity.
Cooking at home is obviously, provably vastly cheaper.
Even a few months of practice can turn anyone into an efficient and competent cook.
This is from 2018 but it shows that Americans get about 35% of their calories away from home (probably a bit more now).
Considering that spend between food away from home and at home is roughly equal now, but people get about 2x the calories at home… people are spending 2x as much per calorie for food away from home. The facts don’t lie.
The median American spends about 12.5% of their income on food. Assuming they replaced all their dining out with eating at home, they could reduce that by about 25% by my math.
Odds are the people in here defending their restaurant habits spend significantly more than average so have even more to save!
opiniononthefood wrote:
As a single person, it is not easy to cook at home cheaply, especially with the rising grocery prices these days. Most ingredients are sold in large serving sizes, and it is incredibly difficult to plan meals that use up all the ingredients before they expire. What if your friends ask you out for an impromptu celebratory dinner? Well now you have to either re-do your calculations or throw the food for that night away.
Researching ingredients and recipes, going to the grocery store, cooking, and cleaning after a long day of work and/or school is a just a massive time and energy drain. Meal prepping can help this I guess, but I personally just find the idea of living off of leftovers 6/7 days a week to be gross. Most stuff from a nice restaurant doesn't even taste that great the next day, much less a 6 day old grilled chicken breast.
That's not say it can't be cheaper if you do everything right, but I definitely think there is a certain income where it makes more financial sense to just pay someone else to do the cooking and save the time.
Straight up the opposite of this. Unless you don’t have a refrigerator I guess.
A 5 pound pack of chicken breast which usually has about 6 pieces cost less than one meal from even McDonalds at this point.
Home is cheaper wrote:
My daily cost is less than $7 a day cooking at home. Find me somewhere I can eat out that costs less than $7 for a full meal and I’ll agree.
The original tweet is probably referring to the abstract. Wealthy people claim they make, for example, $100k every hour of the day. Therefore, it’s nonsensical for them to spend time cooking because 1 hour to cook costs $100k. I understand. If I was a billionaire I would never cook. Just convert the kitchen into a larger living room.
Billionaires have kitchens but hire in-house help for cooking. It’s just much more convenient and tastewise preferable to have your own cook than to rely on restaurant food all the time.
It’s also very common for even just upper middle class dual-income families in countries where labor is cheap, like India, to hire a cook. You have complete control over what is made and how and at a cost that is totally worth it.