ZH:How Much Money Do You Save by Cooking at Home?

[smokin]

I saw this article on Zerohedge tonight and thought I would pass it along.

"How Much Money Do You Save by Cooking at Home? "
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06- ... oking-home

I am sure as extremists, you all are likely to consider the costs at home high; but I figured you are would be interested the prices of some average meals at restaurants, delivered meal packages and meals cooked at home. If for nothing else, to see where you stand.

(as an aside, I do hope to become more active here having just joined; but my "job" keeps me fairly occupied.)

[prognastat]

I would say their home cooked meal is on the high side as thats closer to what I spend per day than per meal(and that is while following keto, if I allowed carbs it would be even lower), but then they probably aren't accounting for things such as buying in bulk, buying on sale and also basing your recipes on more affordable ingredients.

[Seppia]

They probably made the study in a big and expensive (in real estate terms) city, such as NYC or San Francisco, and the data seems a little bit off if keeping into account the fact that restaurants will buy the same ingredients cheaper than households.

I've worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years in different areas of the planet, and it's fairly easy to calculate a ballpark of the ingredients cost paid by the restaurants VS dish price:

Major city in the western world (so excluding Asia): factor of 4-5
Lower cost of living city in the western world and big expensive cities in Asia: factor of 3-4
Very low cost of living city in the western world and normal cities in Asia: factor of 2.5-3

Beware that it also varies wildly by item:
Beverage has the highest factor, easily getting into the 8-15 range
Side dishes and desserts have higher factors than main dishes

And by type of outlet:
High end restaurant often have slightly higher factors because they are more labor intensive
Fast food chains can usually work with lower factors for the opposite reason

To b kept in mind for calculation purposes: usually restaurants buy food cheaper than households, so the multiplier effect is slightly muted when comparing.

[Scott 2]

Funny enough, I think the article overstates the restaurant costs. There seems to be no correction for portion size.

I bet most of those restaurant meals need to be split into half or thirds to give similar portion sizes as the home cooked or meal kit meals. That changes the comparison.

I like the idea of meal kits, but have always been shocked how expensive they are. IMO they only make sense if one wants the experience / education of cooking their own food from ingredients.

[George the original one]

I don't think I saw whether tip was included in the restaurant numbers?

I think the range of prices is a reasonable comparison because they're comparing dishes that are alike. For us cheap people, I think, the home-cooked average price is high because we tend to make cheaper dishes that aren't on the list... like where are the lentils?

[George the original one]

I like the idea of meal kits, but have always been shocked how expensive they are. IMO they only make sense if one wants the experience / education of cooking their own food from ingredients.

One of my inlaw families don't cook. They're enough well-off that the cost is irrelevant. If a meal doesn't come from a restaurant, it comes from the hot meal section of a high-end grocery store. The younger set has recently latched onto the meal kits and enjoy the fact they're less expensive than restaurant meals and it gives them a bit more control over the final result, but I think that branch are only using them for 10% of their meals.

[plow_2]

they used pork tenderloin as an example and the home cost showed a price of $12 a pound for the tenderloin. Where I live it's $5 ish a pound when not on sale. when I buy it I'm usually paying $3 a pound or so. But then again alot of their restaurant prices are on the high side for my area too.

[prognastat]

they used pork tenderloin as an example and the home cost showed a price of $12 a pound for the tenderloin. Where I live it's $5 ish a pound when not on sale. when I buy it I'm usually paying $3 a pound or so. But then again alot of their restaurant prices are on the high side for my area too.

I even managed to get some for 1.49 per lb on sale recently, got a whole bunch of it and froze it in roast size chunks. I marinade it in oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper overnight. Then brown the outside in a pan real quick, slather on some butter and some Italian style herbs and roast in the oven. Very tasty and cheap.

[C40]

It's a whole web of goals thing. There's much more to it than money. I would still cook and eat a lot at home even if eating out was slightly cheaper.

Cooking at home is much better because:
- Cooking is an important basic skill of life. (seriously, this is one of the most basic life skills, right there with showering and wiping your own ass, and a lot of people can't do it. How is it that they don't feel some kind of extreme inadequacy about it?)
- It's much quicker to cook at home
- You control your food intake and get to make it exactly as healthy or unhealthy as you want it, exactly the way you want it to taste, etc.
- You don't have to go out to a restaurant
- You don't have the added (and wasted) time of going to restaurant, parking, entering, being seated, waiting for the waiter, waiting for your drink, waiting for your food, waiting for the bill to come, waiting for the bill to be paid, waiting for the waitress to come around again just so you can ask her for more water and then waiting for her to go get it in-between the other stuff she's doing.)
- When you're cooking, the cooking time can be spent productively (learning how to cook better) rather than sitting idly as most people do in restaurants. (when I was traveling for work, I usually went out to eat alone rather than with co-workers, and I would read a book during all the waiting around... but even doing it that way, theres more wasted time than the time it takes to cook food at home)
- It's much more impressive to others to be able to cook yourself* instead of having to pay someone else to do it (is there a word similar to "emasculate" but that applies to all people? In some ways, to me, going to eat out is a sort of a life failure - like "I can't cook" / "I'm too tired/lazy to cook", "I don't understand how much better it is to cook at home", etc.)
- You can control your portioning, and can intentionally make a lot of leftovers.

There is a sort of pride some people have about eating out all the time. I believe they think it is a status thing - that they are eating fancy food**, and that they are being served by others. To me, it's sort of like how in really crappy areas/circles, young people brag about not knowing math.

* and if it's not more impressive to your friends of love interests, you need to find smarter friends and lovers
** which, really, unless you're eating at super high-end places (>$30/plate) its usually easy to cook better yourself

[Sclass]

I’ve been saving money by buying prime rib roast at the local supermarket on sale for $4.77/lb. It’s really easy to cook (just toss it in the oven and roast till the internal temperature reaches 130 Fahrenheit). I get several prime rib dinners and roast beef sandwiches out of a two bone robe eye roast. I used to go out on prime special thursdays at my local pub but that was $14 on sale. I think I’m doing less than $4 for the home deal.

With the quality of the beef and homemade bread my favorite deli just cannot compete...especially at $4 a shot. I don’t have the sandwich guy carefully weighing out the meat either which kind of annoys me as I watch the digits flicker to the nearest ounce.

Ahhh...I can smell my July 4 th sale special roast finishing up.

There’s the guilt of destroying the earth, my heart, colon and local water supply but it sure is cheap and delicious. And there is a big differential between restaurant and home.

[Peanut]

Ha, nobody else seemed to notice that the home cooking prices are based on buying groceries at Whole Foods! And $4.31/meal translates to almost $19k/yr for a family of four. We spend too much on groceries but a couple Wheaton levels below that.

- It's much quicker to cook at home

I agree wholeheartedly with most of the other points, but I don't think it's quicker to cook at home. Partly because where we live we walk to restaurants so that is not an issue. The only thing we wait for is the food, and 15" is nothing compared to most things which take 30"-1 hr to make at home. And some are much longer, like quiche or Greek moussaka or any kind of dumplings. Just sourcing sushi takes a lot longer. And with kids cooking at home tends to be difficult because toddlers want to be picked up but you can't always do that safely. In the restaurant you can get into trouble too if the attempt to entertain with crayons while waiting falls apart, but at least you only have to focus on that.

There is a sort of pride some people have about eating out all the time. I believe they think it is a status thing - that they are eating fancy food**, and that they are being served by others. To me, it's sort of like how in really crappy areas/circles, young people brag about not knowing math.

I'm surprised at this because I've never met anyone like this. I feel like people (mostly parents) I know who eat out a lot are embarrassed that they do this, i.e., that they don't always provide a nutritious, home-cooked meal for the family. I understand why working parents frequently resort to carry-out etc. but I think it makes it harder to have their kids eat well, bc they typically choose their meals in that situation. Plus if they eat out enough they prefer the high sodium/fat/sugar restaurant food to home meals.

But if I were on my own and had unlimited funds I would definitely eat out more. I've cooked for years, decades even, but still feel like I'm quite a novice. So many things I can't make (well) and the process also tires me out, taking energy away from other things. Seeing my kids happily eating my food helps keeps me going. Lucky for us DH is better at it than me and actually enjoys the process. If only he had more time to do it...

[C40]

Yeah I guess it depends heavily on what type of things you're cooking. Personally, the food I cook/prepare nearly all takes 5-10 minutes. 15 at most.

[Laura Ingalls]

@peanut

These people exist. There is one in my collection of in laws. Ironically this person has a degree in hotel/restaurant management (unused). Cooking is for poor people and God forbid I ever look poor

I often find it painful to watch less accomplished cooks cook. Most people have dull knives and poor knife skills.

I like to go out for stuff that is time intensive but cheap and outside if my culinary roundhouse like pho.