How cheap is it to cook your own food vs buying?
This is a highly subjective question, but I’ll do my best, as it generally depends on where you live, what you have access to, and what resources you have available in your home.General rule of thumb, it’s always cheaper to cook your own food. However, this is dependent on the type of food you buy, your cooking skills, and whether cooking is a pleasure or a chore for you.My family is primarily whole foods. That basically just means we buy foods that would be considered “ingredients” for other foods, rather than buying foods that have ingredients. If it comes in a package of some kind and has to have a nutrition label, we generally don’t buy it. The exception is a few sauces like specific BBQ sauces, and things like oils or dried pasta.Our diet generally consists of a good balance of the basic food groups, but everything we eat is fresh cooked, from raw ingredients, with little to no manufacturer processing, if possible. I live in southwestern Ontario, and we feed a family of six (myself, my wife, a 12-year old daughter, and three boys, aged 10, 7, and 5) for about $500–550/month. It increases gradually, of course, as the kids grow. The cheapest, healthy meals I can buy eating out, and serving the entire family, costs around $5–9 per person. If I assume I am only buying dinner items, then I would be spending about $150–280/month for dinner, but I would be cutting only about 1/4 of my overall food budget as I wouldn’t be buying dinner items. That means I would save $125 by spending about $215. I also have to factor in the gas cost of driving to every meal out (nightly) rather than just once a week to a grocery store.Cut lunch out, and I can knock another $125 off, but still spend $150 to $280. The remaining grocery budget goes to breakfast items and snack supplies, and anything that just needs to be on hand, just in case.In effect, there’s really no possible way I could save any money by eating out, and replacing one or two home-cooked meals with restaurant food will actually increase my food budget by almost 40%.And that’s assuming I’m buying meals at the cheapest possible location every time, and never eating a more elaborate meal.It also assumes that every meal is eaten fully, and there is no waste. At home, “waste” becomes leftovers, which makes for a great lunch. And in general, adding one or two extra servings to a meal to forcibly create leftovers for lunch the next day, is less than half the cost of preparing something specific for that same meal.
Is fast food really cheaper than home-cooked food?
No; and it's not healthy to eat fast food all the time (although they sometimes offer a few healthy menus). For a typical meal at fast food, the cost ranges between $5+ and $7+ something plus tax just for one (1) meal, including the drink and fries.Yesterday, I bought a package of (4 medium- large sized) chicken breasts that weighed 4 lbs and cost $6.80 at a grocery store. I also bought a package of fresh green beans for less than $2.00. So, in total, I probably paid around $8.00 including tax. Based on my estimate, the package of chicken breasts can serve between 7- 8 people (or 7- 8 meals), since about a couple of them are larger than the rest. I also added some pieces of carrots to the green beans and sauteed them chopped onions and garlic, which were probably about the same # of servings or maybe a little less. I have leftovers in the fridge and will eat them again later.A 2-lb bag of brown rice also cost less than $2.00 in general, especially if you buy it at Walmart. White rice is the cheapest, but I usually don't buy them anymore.
When single, why does eating out seem cheaper than cooking at home?
Original question answered “I'm 33 and single. I've heard people say how its better and cheaper to eat at home than out, but I've found the opposite to be true. Having tried a couple runs, it cost me $40 to get all the ingredients for a basic mexican dish that made 4 meals. In the same time period, I spent $28 for meals out.”Due to lack of experience, you're probably doing it wrong, buying ingredients that are not needed, or overly expensive.My rule of thumb is: if eating out is cheaper than cooking that same dish, I don't want to eat in that restaurant :). Once I tried making sausages from scratch, a big batch. My sausages cost ~5-10x the cheap sausages I can buy at a supermarket and more than eating sausages out. I can only imagine what they use to make those super-cheap sausages, and I don't want to put them in my body (my health is the most expensive thing I have, well worth maintaining it by eating healthy). Yes, making sausages in bulk is cheaper than making them at home in small amounts, but the difference in price is way too high to be explainable purely by volume. And if you add the cooking, serving and cleaning part, it's not possible to eat out healthy food for the same cost than you can prepare at homeI suggest to buy a simple book like Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes. It's a book of cooking techniques and tricks. Big fancy recipe books are useless, but understanding simple techniques is critical. You'll learn how to speed up your cooking, use cheaper cuts for better flavor, and how to make your budget stretch and how to substitute. You'll also learn that cooking is simpler than most people want you to believe, and more entertaining.
Is it really cheaper cooking at home compared to eating out?
I would like to answer from the perspective of someone who ALWAYS eats my meals out of home; not because I'm wealthy, but because I live in a country with a huge variety of cheap, healthy dishes that I can't make on my own.Eating out is a question of outsourcing. Restaurants, given that they serve in bulk, will always have lower operating and input costs than an at-home cook. On the other hand, they will take extra in labor and profit.Operating costs: When you eat out, you don't need to maintain a kitchen full of appliances and the electricity to run them. However, it's an overhead cost, so if you have them, you should use them as much as possible to get the cheapest /per meal cost. Restaurants utilize theirs throughout the whole day and can afford to buy better ones which last longer or are more efficient.Input costs: The only way you could match a restaurant's food costs is to buy in bulk. But if you buy in bulk, you'll have to store leftovers which requires a larger refrigerator (and more electricity) and the downside of not having fresh food. If you want fresh, you'll have to shop everyday, costing you your time.Labor: Related to the previous point. Do I have time to cook 2 hours and spend 30 minutes eating? Or do I want to use that time for something else? The restaurants labor costs will be based on the supply of basic labor in the market.Profit: Fair is fair. The restaurant is taking the risk, and I am willing to support them to do so, especially if they can create something much better than I can on my own (and yes, they can!) However, their profit must also take into account competitors.The last two are what impact whether eating out can be cheaper than cooking at home. If the restaurant's labor and profit are low, while you have high operating and input costs, it will be cheaper to eat out (and if you do so, you might as well cut your operating costs by not even maintaining a kitchen except for the bare essentials like a small grill or microwave).
Is it cheaper to buy groceries or to buy fast food?
First of all if you divide 50 dollars by 14 days you get 3.57 dollars a day. You won't be able to buy three meals a day for this amount but you will be able to buy cereal, lunch and tea for this much if you do your shopping carefully. When you say 20 things to make partially decent meals what are you including and to make what? I can make meals, both healthy and non healthy foods, with 5 basic foods and if I can do that, so can you. Staple foods, eg cereals can last for 3 weeks and most cost no more that a couple of dollars per pack. I suggest that you look around your local stores and see if you can buy cheaper without compromising the quality of goods as this make can a difference to price. KD
Eating vegetarian on poor college student budget?
Beans and rice make good burritos, enchiladas, tacos, chips and dip, and soup. Dry beans are WAY cheaper than canned, and come in a much larger variety (at least around here anyway). Veggies, lentils, beans, whatever else. Soups are really cheap to make and you can eat on them for days. Add an extra ingredient (some cheese, cut up tomatoes or other veggies, etc.) and it's like a brand new soup! Ok, not really, but it's better than eating exactly the same thing over and over. Potatoes make good soup, are good baked with whatever toppings, good roasted, or mashed or whatever. A vegetarian chili over either mashed potatoes or hash browns is an AWESOME meal. Quit buying all those crazy soy products. They're not particularly healthy and really expensive. Yeah, they're tasty and convenient, but SO not budget friendly. Also, head out and apply for food stamps. I'm imagining that you'd qualify, being out of work and all. It's not a long-term solution, but ought to help get you by until you've got yourself going. Who knows, there might be other things you qualify for too. You're still gonna be budgeting hard-core, but it might take some of the pressure off.
I m poor . Will I die if everyday I only eat bread and instant noodles?
Everyone dies eventually. It's really a matter of when and how. There are probably better dietary choices you could be making though, even if you're on a tight budget. Cheap bread is heavily processed and rarely all that nutritional. Instant noodles are LOADED with sodium, which is terrible for you. You're basically putting crap into your body. Put crap in and you're going to feel crappy. Simple formula. When I was in college and on an incredibly tight budget (often went without heat, air conditioning, etc.) I basically lived off of rice, beans, and hearty fruits and veggies. You can get a butt load of rice/beans for practically nothing if you buy in bulk, and it's better for you than what you're eating now. Potatoes are a great, super cheap starch that'll last for weeks. Do some research on eating right on a budget. There are tons of resources out there that can help you make smarter food choices that stick to your budget.
How can I eat healthy when everything healthy is so expensive?
If you are ‘poor’:You can usually ignore veggies and fruit marked ‘organic’ as they will be more expensive than other varieties.Don’t shop at premium stores like Whole Foods. They are almost always more expensive than ‘regular’ stores.You can often get veggies and fruit from the frozen section in your store cheaper than the produce aisle. They’re just as good as the ‘real’ thing.You can get veggies and fruit fairly cheap from farmer’s markets. A lot of cities have them. Just google it.Don’t buy prepackaged meals. They’re loaded with salt and sweeteners.Learn to cook. There are a lot of sites you can go to that gear recipes to your budget. Search terms ‘cheap’, ‘college student’, etc, along with healthy food.Learn to cook with brown rice and/or beans, and cook or top them with ‘flavorings’. They’re both pretty cheap, and have lots of fiber to fill you up.On that note, don’t feel obligated to buy fresh spices and herbs if the bottled version is cheaper. A lot of recipes want you to buy fresh herbs and spices. They may sleep on a hill of gold every night, you don’t.If you do buy fresh herbs, you can freeze a lot of them for later. Freezing Herbs: Cilantro, Basil, Oregano, the guide covers it all! How to... Savor the flavor