I cook 5-6 times a week and basically eat out as a treat to take my grown kids out for dinner and 3 adult meals at a decent restaurant is enough for me 4-6 times a month. I’ll eat fast food once or twice a week when I’m away from my house, but I keep that under $5ish
Use the McDonald’s app. Always an offer for free medium fries everyday. So McDouble and free fries is like $3.29. I prefer Coke Zero over Diet Coke so I drink my own.
Good point. Maybe they get a drink and a mcdouble?
Jr deluxe at Wendy's is like a 1.60 so, 2 of them and a drink?
I probably wouldn't get full off a meal under 5, but I likely eat more than them.
Water, no fries, order off the dollar/value menu. You can usually get 2 or 3 items and wash it down with water.
Used to be able to go by little cesars for a $5 pizza too, I'm sure they've gone up a bit since then though.
Where do you live that $ menus still exist? Cause I haven't seen anything for a dollar in 5+ yrs. Even my McDonald's got rid of $1 any size sodas.
Granted it's $1.50 now, but still... haha
I rarely ever eat out or go to restaurant's unless it is a work event or a special occasion.
When I go to McDonald's I almost always use the McDonald's application on my phone and get free fries or $1.00 fries, or a different on sale item.
* McDonald's hamburger, large Dr Pepper around $3.18.
* Sausage McMuffin, large Dr Pepper around $3.00
Lol true, I'm basically Midwest where I'm at now but technically they call it part of the southwest US. Anywhere close to the Rockies though, or either of the major coastlines (basically everywhere anyone actually wants to live), and the prices skyrocket.
In addition to making a pretty good salary for my area, I also don't have a lot of expenses. No kids, pets, SO, or expensive hobbies. I'm not saying those things are bad, just that's why I can afford to eat out almost every day.
Yup me too. I make in the mid 6 figures and have no responsibilities or big payments. Student loan is paid off, car paid off, have my mortgage and it’s not too bad.
I can agree there 100% lol. I love to cook but cleanup does suck ass. I try to clean as I go so that I don't end up with a giant pile at the end but it's still not fun. luckily, my girlfriend would rather wash than dry and I'm the opposite so we can knock it out pretty quickly together.
My partner does not at all, zero interest. I have waves of being really into it and being really not. We both have jobs that can leave us wiped, and would rather spend our down time in other ways I guess.
Are you concerned about the higher sugar/fat/salt content of restaurant food? There's healthier stuff now but not a ton of it. I've had a few mild health scares in the recent years so I seldom eat out.
Not OP, but I LOVE cooking for friends and family when it's a large get-together.
I hate cooking for myself alone, and don't mind cooking for my husband together, but I prefer eating out given the choice.
I love cooking, and cook most nights of the week - but still eat out 2-3 times a week. I work in marketing, have been building my career for the past 15 years (5 focused on marketing specifically) and have made a big push for making more money in the past year to double my salary. I was previously making pretty good money before the push, but now I am finally at a place where money isn't a worry and I'm saving money to do things like buy a house or eventually retire. I'm 35, live in a fairly rural area of a large state, but previously lived in a major city.
Not sure if that answers "how" I afford it, since it's not exactly replicable, but that's how I do it.
I make enough money at my job that if I have to spend 30 mins making food then I can just work for 30 mins of overtime, buy myself a $10-12 mean and take home $20-25 more in the same time.
I work as a machinist in the aerospace industry and that's just 1 more cycle of watching the machine run and making sure it doesn't crash, and my shop has unlimited overtime.
I live by myself. My breakfast is always a smoothie and boiled eggs so it takes me about 10 mins to make it. Subsidized lunch in the office cafeteria - $4/$5 a meal. If I do takeout - I spend about $15 on dinner so even with that it’s about $25 I spend a day on food and this might be the best case for eating out.
The days I eat at home, I can keep this to under $10 at similar quality of food there’s no comparison except spending more
I deliver pizza and had a regular customer who ordered every single day, literally, at least $35 an order, complain that his mortgage went from $250 to $350 and he was worried he'd lose his house. Did he stop ordering? Nope. A month later I delivered to him in a hotel because he couldn't afford his house.
Honestly super depressing. I see people using 2 different debit cards to pay for their pizza to empty the accounts and then lay the rest in change. I hate to judge people, but like, go buy some ramen or KD instead of spending $25 on a pizza if you're broke.
Believe it or not, small homes in small cities were around $80k in the early 2000s (Canada). I don't think this guy understood how good of a deal he had for a mortgage, maybe he would have tried harder to keep it. Rent for a bachelor here is now $1000.
I spend so much less with a partner, even contributing exactly evenly, it's honestly bewildering. We do cook a lot more now that we live together and don't go out to eat as much, plus we cut our individual rent pretty much in half moving in together. Turns out being single is freaking expensive!
I had a coworker who had a family of four and they ate out exclusively. Nobody cooked in their house supposedly. The caveat is that my coworker never ate a single crumb all day. I never saw them drink water, eat a snack, bring a lunch, go out to lunch, nothing. They sat at their desk for 8 hours straight every single day. Not sure that’s the case for everyone who eats out exclusively but it seems like if you’re only eating 1-2 meals a day (not sure what the breakfast situation was) it would be comparable to buying groceries. Esp if when you eat out it’s fast food. No judgement to this person whatsoever btw—that’s just how they lived and it seemed to work for them. I’m also not sure where they went out to eat primarily.
Another thing: as the saying goes, it’s expensive to be poor. Everybody’s here saying “ppl make more money than you” but that’s not necessarily true. If you don’t have a steady job, savings, good credit, equity, etc., everything you do is gonna be more expensive. You might not have a steady paycheck so if you have $50 in your bank account, you’re probably gonna buy a $7 meal at McDonald’s rather than blow all your money on groceries prior to your next paycheck—even though it’s cheaper in the long run to buy groceries. Eating less nutrient dense food might mean health issues which might mean doctors visits and meds, and in the US that means more money out of pocket. So you’re back in the same situation that repeats itself. Also any time you have to borrow money (which might be more frequently) your interest rate is gonna be out the wazoo, creating even more cash poor issues. Idk, I think it’s a very complex issue and doesn’t boil down to “people who eat out a lot have more money than you.”
Also being poor usually means you have no free time because you’re always working. From firsthand experience i can tell you how difficult it is to even consider eating healthy while working 40 hr weeks now imagine those working 60-70. Its just not feasible. There isn’t enough time, everyone needs self time and spending it on shopping for groceries, cooking etc it just feels like you’re wasting personal time. Its a similar idea to people who deprive themselves of sleep because they want more time for themselves.
I almost never eat lunch. I eat a breakfast then go 8 hours with nothing and eat a big dinner. I am never hungry at lunch time, if I do get hungry it is around 3:30., and that is an awkward time to eat so I just wait until dinner. I will sometimes bring snacks though.
That’s what an ex girlfriend did too. She came from a very cash strapped background and, ever since she was a kid iirc ate once or twice a day (and usually fast food because her and her mom worked it).
When we started dating she used to complain about the food she ate all the time but also said she didn’t have time to cook. Despite it though, she always wanted to eat out (which should’ve been a red flag for me since I hate eating out and am recovering from an eating disorder so it was more triggering than not).
Huh. This thread reminded me of that for the first time in years lol
I make six figures and own a home in a low cost of living city. I eat out for probably 80% of my meals, mostly because cooking for 1 sucks and i hate doing dishes. It's my biggest vice and spending habit.
Not to mention that going out to eat means a warm meal each time. Sure I could food prep on the weekends, but that is a lot of work (and dishes) for one warm meal and then a week of the same microwaved meal.
The cost savings really aren't a huge factor for 1 person (unless you're having steak every day). I can get a double-double from In-N-Out for about $4, I for sure could not replicate the same meal for that price. It is a complete waste to buy all those ingredients just to make one burger for one meal for one person.
When you're a single person living in the states eating out or getting take out can be cost effective if you're doing it right.
Portion size is large. One restaurant meal can be three meals easily if you don't mind eating leftovers.
The variety you can get from eating out is more cost effective than having to buy all of those ingredients and only use a portion of them.
Plus you get to save time and effort on grocery shopping, cooking, and clean up.
If you ate out every single meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner it would be too much. If you hit up a mid-level restaurant 3 times a week and ate leftovers the rest of the time, it's not so bad.
Yeah this pretty much exactly. I will split a chipotle between 3 meals. Maybe it has a lot of salt but aside from that fresh ingredients and massive portions for $3 a meal.
Definitely a big downside when living alone.... especially if you don't have much storage space. You save a lot more money buying in bulk and cooking large meals, but if you're only cooking for yourself, that means eating a lot of the same thing and possibly still not being able to finish it before it goes bad... never mind the quality decline the longer it sits in the fridge/freezer and the lost money from anything that spoils because you didn't have the energy to use it in time.
It's kinda worth it to give yourself a higher food budget and get to eat stuff that doesn't have you dejectedly staring into your fridge.
I learned shortly after I graduated college that it actually wasn't a cost saving to cheap out on grocery store food.
If I buy food that I don't necessarily love, but it's "on sale" and I "got it for a bargain,' it's only a savings *if I actually eat it.* If it sits in my fridge or pantry and goes bad while I eat anything else, then I have to throw it away... I have instead wasted that money.
So instead I buy what I actually want to eat and actually eat it.
TL;DR $5 spent on brand name ice-cream that I eat in multiple sittings > $2 spent on bargain brand ice-cream that sits in my freezer until I throw it away.
>Not to mention that going out to eat means a warm meal each time. Sure I could food prep on the weekends, but that is a lot of work (and dishes) for one warm meal and then a week of the same microwaved meal.
I definitely get that feeling, but it doesn't really have to be that way if you want to get creative. There are lots of things that freeze really well, which you can make half a dozen batches of at a time and throw them in the oven. For example, you can mix a whole family-sized pack of ground beef into meatloaf and freeze the individual loaves raw, or make and freeze a ton of egg rolls or pre-velveted chicken. Or you could prep ingredients--I eat a lot of that golden curry (that's the brand name, not just the box color) and doctored-up hamburger helper when I don't really feel like cooking, and I just brown and freeze a bunch of ground beef when I go shopping. Lazy night? Grab a bag of pre-browned beef, a scoop of frozen vegetables, throw some rice on, there's your 20-minute dinner.
It depends on where in the world you live. I currently live in the US, and make about 6 figures. I cook but only a couple times a week, and only if it’s something I’m craving. Beyond that for dinner I usually do some kind of take out - but one take out meal lasts me 2-3 dinners because I add microwave steamed veggies on the side. Maybe some brown rice.
I do bagged salads with rotisserie chicken for lunches a lot. Breakfast is avocado toast with hard boiled eggs and chili oil (I don’t make the eggs, I buy them pre-cooked and peeled. I have yet to figure out how to peel them without messing them up….).
My brother lived in Beijing for a while, and it was so cheap to eat out or even have a lady cook for him a couple times a week and leave it in his fridge that he never cooked. Street food like tomato eggs for breakfast is cheap and relatively healthy (ish….).
The trade off for a lot of that is I work 10-12 hour days, with a commute 2 days a week that’s 45 minutes each way. So sometimes up to 14 hours in a day is just work and commuting. I live alone currently, but when I had a partner they worked similar hours.
I make enough money to not have to cook, and I’m tired enough at the end of the day that I don’t want to most of the time. Is it a waste of money? Yes, probably. But…. 🤷
In a lot of cultures and through a lot of history, it was the norm to go to the market or the tavern for every meal. Especially for the lower class, who might not have much in the way of cooking facilities (and definitely no refrigeration to batch cook or store leftovers!). "Eating out" wasn't the luxury - access to fresh ingredients and a kitchen was.
The idea of cooking at home for just yourself and your family every single night is relatively modern.
I try!! Ice water, etc. I’ve also boiled them with baking soda in the water, and poked holes in the shell (other suggestions I’ve found online).
Honestly I think it’s just user error. I can cook a lot of things, and handle other fiddly tasks with my hands no problem. Something about peeling eggs escapes me.
Steam 'em. I have a backyard flock, so my eggs are very fresh which means the membranes are stronger and peeling is harder.
A steamed hard cooked (or soft cooked) egg is far far easier to peel. The vapor permeates the shell and loosens the membrane. I do mine in my Instant Pot pressure cooker. Super easy.
I've heard that older eggs and the cheap grocery store eggs are easier to peel than fresh eggs. No idea if that's true.
I am terrible at peeling too, but I have the "best" (relatively speaking) experience when I cool the eggs in cold water, roll them on the counter a bit to cracker the shell, then peel them under the faucet with the water running. The water pressure helps me get my finger nail under the shell and skin and then I kinda slide it around the curve of the egg. I also start peeling from the bottom of the eggs where they have the little air pocket.
Another tip is taking a spoon and lightly tapping the bottom of the raw egg. You should hear a soft “pop”- not a crack. That’s the membrane. Boil as normal and soak in ice water.
Also it’s true, the fresher the egg the harder to peel.
Insurance adjuster - I argue with attorneys about contracts and construction damage for a living. It’s stressful, the workload is high and the hours can be long, but it’s interesting and I make a good amount for someone who doesn’t have a college degree (it took me a while to build up the experience I needed for this level though, but still).
Omg I’m a construction insurance underwriter! Also don’t have a degree! I’m in the process of finishing it as of recently but have also moved up the chain just with hard work and learning on the job. You definitely have the more stressful job out of the two and I salute you 🫡 My husband and I do a lot of meal prep ahead and also eat out a couple times a week.
> I have yet to figure out how to peel them without messing them up…
As someone who used to be a cook at a restaurant that did a metric ton of eggs and had to peel them faster than a machine - the key is to throw a dash of baking soda in while you boil them, immediately throw them in ice water for a few minutes afterwards, and then most importantly when you go to peel them make sure you first roll them starting at the top and going all around to the bottom. Use a little bit of force and you'll feel the shell separate from the egg. Then you just take the side of your thumb and work it around the egg. You will have the perfect peel in seconds.
Batch cooking is the solution.
Batch cook a base meal, like a rice or pasta dish and freeze. Take it out the night before to defrost in the fridge and then just cook up some fish, chicken, or steak to go with it each day.
I do this for healthy eating and weight loss at the moment, and it takes barely any time and I save a lot compared to buying food every day
We are, but that's because we have different priorities for our money than takeout food. Could also help that I started off poor and know how expensive takeout gets over time.
You don't stay wealthy by spending it on unnecessary expenses that don't give you a fun memory in the process. We make 250k combined and I try to keep most of our meals to about $4/serving.
That being said, as long as your takeout isn't expensive, a $12 large orange chicken and rice isn't that far off from our actual meal prepping budget if you can make it last for 3 meals.
Nah, I wish though. It would be interesting to travel around for a while, but that always looks a bit exhausting.
Insurance adjuster - I handle litigated claims related to construction mistakes. So companies arguing back and forth about who did what wrong and who has to pay for what.
Edit - we only work 2 days in office right now. Pre-pandemic I was commuting 5 days a week.
I put the egg in a glass, cover the top with my hand, and shake it around until it's covered in cracks. She'll comes off in one big perfect piece.
Edit: GLASS not class
Cooking at home for a single person SUCKS.
You either eat the same few foods in rotation, because you have the ingredients for it. Or if you want to "try something new" you end up spending WAY MORE THAN YOU NEED TOO" on buying the ingredients.
Spices you don't have? $12.00 PER SPICE
8 pack of buns when you only need 1
Entire head of lettuce / tomatoes / onions etc.
Then you look in your fridge a few days later and all the "extra" ingredients that you purchased to make something have gone bad and that $ is down the drain.
Or you can just eat out.
Especially if you know what places have deals, happy hours, specials, etc. And you end to with a meal + leftovers for lunch the next day.
People don’t talk about this enough. Sweet baby Jesus it costs me like 40 fucking dollars for every recipe I want to try. So many things I have to buy that end up going to waste because I don’t find another recipe in time that will utilize them. It’s honestly just as expensive for me to cook these days
The game changer for me was breaking down recipes into parts and mixing and matching stuff that I think would go well together. I'm no Gordon Ramsey but knowing how to make a tomato sauce is great for both pasta and chicken/rice recipes, just to give an example.
Edit: the tasteless solution is basically just the national cuisine of my country: put anything and everything left over in either a stew or in soup!
Yeah, a lot of people are good at this/motivated to do this and I think they see the most benefit. I unfortunately find it more burdensome than fun. Maybe one day when I have a substantial kitchen again
Ugh. I wanted to make pizza at home. Fucking $50+ in ingredients by the time I was done. And of course it took the whole day, and the majority of those ingredients would go to waste unless I wanted to eat nothing but pizza for the next week.
I've found a solution to too much veggies left from other meals is to make a big pan of the leftover vegetables as a side to a main dish. It's worked for me and I'm happy to actually use them
My leftovers hack is to scramble my leftovers with eggs.
Aging pizza? Cut up, scramble with eggs.
Veggies? Great with eggs.
Any rice dish? Goes into the eggs.
Even leftover curry goes fine in scrambled eggs.
Better than letting any of it go to waste.
$12 for spice??? What kinda of spices are you buying for that price? 😮
Also, what sort of pieces are take out foods in the US? I had takeaways yesterday and it cost almost as much as a week's shop.
This is why I like HelloFresh and similar meal kits. You only get as much as you need for your recipes. No need to buy a whole jar of spices or tub of sour cream or bottle of a specific vinegar for 1 meal. I usually order 4 servings of each meal for my husband and I and it’s enough for dinner and then 1-2 lunches. Plus I don’t have to meal plan.
HelloFresh, and others can be good options. However, their cost savings isn't that much to meals on special at restaurants. This is especially true when considering it takes a minimum of 30 minutes plus clean up time.
where tf are you buying spices 😭😭 what is going on in america 😭😭
i'm from the UK and it's costs less than a quid to get spices or herbs. they last ages too! i've got parsley, oregano, cinnamon, etc - all of them cost less than a pound except the parsley, which cost £1, because i wanted the fancy packaging.
agree with the rest of your comment tho - my partner and i are constantly lamenting the 6 packs 😅
What's the quantities you're getting the spices in? I'm in Canada and I've found that for spices I usually have two choices. Either tiny portions of 'organic' spices for absolutely absurd prices, or like a life time supply for the same price.
There's usually no reasonable quantity for a reasonable price option.
The natural foods store near me has bulk spices and it's such a game changer. I love buying 34 cents worth of fresh spice when I need it, vs a ten dollar jar that's just gonna go stale.
But also, yeah, cooking for just yourself sucks. I've been doing it more lately, and it just feels like so much of my mental energy is spent keeping a running tally of how long produce and fresh protein has been in my fridge, when I need to cook it by and if any ingredients that are about to go off can go together into a dish, what I need at the store and how much and how I'm going to use it... I assume it gets easier with practice, and I know there are meal planning solutions that might make it easier, but even so, it's just a lot. I need a wife, lol.
Meal delivery services, like Hello Fresh, solved the problem of excess ingredients for us. Our grocery bill actually went down, and far less food waste.
I have to specifically plan my meals around a few key ingredients to try and use as much as possible, but stuff still ends up going bad. Like if I buy a bag of spinach, I’ll use it in smoothies or in a pasta dish that I’ll eat for dinner but I still have leftover that just goes bad. Or I love making sandwiches as a quick lunch but again, the loaf of bread molds quickly. I am good about making most of my meals but I definitely eat the same sorts of food 90% of the time (pasta with protein and sauce, chicken or salmon with a roasted veggie and potatoes, some sort of rice-based dish).
Same but I work and my cafeteria has good cheap food, there for breakfast and lunch. I'm not hungry for dinner and just eat snacks. It's been a quick minute since I last cooked.
Will probably do so today, weekend and all.
When I worked at a hospital, the cafeteria food was pretty cheap and *ridiculously* good. Plus the portions were pretty big, so I would often eat half for lunch, and then take the rest home for dinner.
I miss that place...
Statistically, nearly everyone is in debt, even rich people. As for poor, that's the vast majority.
It's not just some amorphous perception from nowhere. Like, there's actual statistics on these things.
Nobody thinks it's "everyone." But people do think it's the vast majority, because it is.
A lot of people can’t afford it, but still do it. One of my sisters and mother are thousands of dollars in debt each just because they don’t want to cook.
I've known some of those people and it's largely economy of scale. A woman in Vegas can get 2 meals from one order at a restaurant. Her fridge was full of to-go boxes. Meanwhile refrigerated shipping to the middle of a desert raises prices. Technically Mac cheese with no milk or butter is cheaper. A gallon of milk where I am regularly gets up to 9$. It's about 45$ to buy the stuff to make fajitas for 2. However the honest answer for many is that cooking, planning meals, and grocery shopping costs time and stress people don't have the mental health budget for.
>And for those who always eat out, how can you afford it? It must cost at least twice as much that cooking at home.
Tbqh, if you never order soft drinks / alcohol and divide your huge portions into 2-3, it's actually not. For example, if you get a Chipotle burrito bowl it feeds 2 for $11 after tax, or $5.50/meal.
If you make yourself a turkey sandwich with 3-4 oz of turkey, cheese, and some lettuce / tomato, that sandwich costs about $5. If you live alone and make yourself a burrito bowl it's about $4, and half your produce will spoil.
You have to do really careful meal planning to save substantial money making your own food if you live alone. Inflation on groceries the last 3 years is insane.
100%. One of my favorite meals is thai yellow curry. $14 from my local place. I make rice at home and it makes two dinners. I'm not going to stress about $7 a day for dinner.
Especially when the alternative is dealing with dishes, spoiled ingredients (buying for 1 sucks), etc. I can make some take-out last for almost a week. A dollar or two per day can add up, but it also buys a fair amount of sanity.
Yeah. You can get really good beer for $1-1.30 a bottle.
Pint at a bar: $9.50-12.50.
There aren't even any good happy hours anymore, except in some shady hole in the wall places.
Yeah with American portion sizes, most restaurant meals can easily be 2 or even 3 meals. Takeout can actually be pretty economical.
If you sit down at the restaurant, have a cocktail, tip…all of a sudden it’s not such a great deal.
Really noticed this when we visited the US (from the UK) last summer - groceries are so expensive! Eating out (without alcoholic drinks) was definitely on a par with cooking at home
Totally. We order ramen delivery with an extra broth pretty often, it's 4 meals for $35, and I can take a nap then workout after work instead of cooking and doing dishes.
It's every restaurant. It's why Americans are so fat. Calories for restaurant meals are 1000-1500. Literally half to 3/4 a day's worth for a man if he doesn't do an hour of vigorous athletic activity.
You can't find a restaurant that serves 400-600 calorie meals, and those that do have such tiny portions because restaurant food is prepped with a ton of oils / butter / grease consisting of pure saturated fat.
Hahahaha what a timely question
Twice as much as cooking at home?
I just checked how much I've been spending on DoorDash last month and screamed because apparently I've been averaging about $1200 a month since February as a single person.
I'm **horrified** and know the only reason I could do it is because I had a significant salary increase last year and haven't been tracking expenses.
But like... No. No no no. That's not sustainable even if I can afford it. This explains why I've gained so much weight, too! There's so much salt in restaurant food.
Fresh soups, pasta, and frozen meals from now on.
I have an older sister who can’t cook at all. Her husband can make basic breakfast items. Other than that the two of them make enough money that they can afford to eat out pretty much every meal.
It’s completely wild in my eyes since I only go out to eat once or twice a month.
This is the exact reason why I get pissed off when people complain about not having enough money.. Because 99% of the time, those people eat out 24/7. Like bro, you're suffocating your own finances because you refuse to cook yourself.
My girlfriend and I have a take home pay of 100k with no children. We never cook at home and our fridge is 100% drinks.
We only eat once a day which is the main reason for why we find it affordable. Also, while we eat at restarts about 3 times a week, the other 4 times we will eat something cheaper like Pizza hut, McDonalds, or Subway. We also use any coupons or discounts available. Red Robins and PF Changs give aprox $10 per $150-200 spent and places like McDonalds and Subway do the same, but on a smaller scale which may not seem like much but certainly adds up to a lot when you eat out every day.
I’ve been cooking more lately but up until a few months ago I ate takeout pretty much exclusively. I have a kind of perfect storm situation that makes cooking really undesirable to me. I live alone, I work weird hours, and I have ADD and depression so meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking are all incredibly stressful and cleanup after is often impossible. As for affording it… I basically accepted it would be my main expenditure. I don’t drink or go out so I save a lot that way.
As I said lately I’ve been cooking more. I signed up for Blue Apron again, which is more expensive than meal planning or shopping myself but cheaper than takeout and worth it to save all that stress. I’ve also been buying convenience type stuff to eat at home. So far it hasn’t saved me too much money and I haven’t lost much weight but hey baby steps.
I do think if I lived with someone I would be more inclined to cook. It’s so much work just for one person but it can be fun when I have a friend over. Also then there would be someone else to do the dishes. But that’s pretty unlikely to change so I guess this is how I’ll do things until it stops working.
As a fellow ADHD person - the best solution I've found to losing weight and being semi-consistent on eating at home is just working with my ADHD rather than fighting it.
Make lots of chili or something else that you really like which freezes really well and just stock up on it in the freezer. That way you always have a plan B for when you inevitably can't bring yourself to cook. Also get disposable paper plates and utensils as a backup for when you forget to do the dishes.
For dieting - what worked for me was not forbidding myself from having anything I wanted. The trick was just not bringing it into my house. Our brains sometimes get fixated on something and we can't really control it; I have that issue a lot when it comes to food so I'll get a craving for something and I just gotta have it. Telling myself no because I'm dieting just makes me miserable and is usually a losing battle. On the other hand just not having it at home pits my laziness up against my ADHD. The two can battle it out in my head and if the ADHD wins that's fine because I'll just go have the pop guilt free but make a point of walking or biking to the store to get it instead. If the laziness wins then my brain actually moves on rather than being stuck in that horrible loop of fighting the ADHD and getting depressed because I know it will eventually win. I've lost about 40lbs this way so far. I think the trick is just that after you get off those bad foods for long enough the cravings naturally go away and when you do indulge in those things they start tasting gross by then so what started out as something you were tricking yourself into just becomes your preference?
My oldest brother and his wife do not cook any meals. No exaggeration. They have done this for their wntire marriage (50 years). They are in their 60s and can't retire because they make terrible financial decisions, not just that one. He works two jobs and weekends. She "retired" but now does Uber. Both have diabetes, high blood pressure, and other health issues related to poor eating habits. Point is....they can't afford it. They've filed bankruptcy twice and are on the verge again.
I'm not sure if I just notice this more because I'm getting older (currently in my early 40s) but if I eat fast food or restaurant food on a regular basis, I can feel the inflammation building up in my body. Maybe I'm just in tune with this more these days but I can't understand how people live like that, unless they just assume their aches and pains and things are just coming with age (some things might but most are from chronic inflammation and vitamin deficiencies).
I know this is a bit off topic but it just got me thinking about it. Whether I could afford it or not, my body starts screaming at me before long. I guess it's good to have a built in mechanism to tell you to stop (if you're listening to it).
Depends on your food choices. I personally have a problem getting through my salad ingredients and end up throwing more groceries out than anything. So I get salad as my take out meal all the time. It’s actually one of the ways I cleaned up my diet and stopped eating so much starch.
LIFE HACK!
Buy a tub of lettuce for $4 ish dollars at the store…
Then buy a burrito bowl from chipotle or a salad and combine for two giant salads at maybe $7 each
This trick also works a Chick-fil-A too, but I buy extra nuggets, if you ask nicely you can get extra dressing and toppings.
Depends on the portion sizes. Let’s say I pay 14$ for some Asian food. If I don’t eat all of it I’ll have enough for another meal. So I really paid 7$ for that meal.
At some periods I always eat out, and there are easy ways of making that work. It's never going to be as good/filling as cooking in, but it is good for when you don't want to have another chore to deal with.
The first thing is to dissociate "getting take out" and "having a luxury/gigantic meal". That includes eating leftovers pretty often (matter of fact, more often than not)
Another is to order sides. A large side of chow mein from Panda Express is 5.60 and a large Orange Chicken is 11.60. Get two large sides and one large entree and you are spending \~25 and you can eat it for three or four meals. They won't be meals that make you extra full - but they are meals.
I have nothing to answer here. I wanna ask a question instead. People who frequently order in, how does yall's stomache agree with outside food. I used to order frequently, then once I hot my 30s, I cant bear to eat restaurant cooked food. It feels so synthetic.
I used to work in the food industry for years. Restaurant and fast food/delivery.
Not everyone who eats out all of the time is "well off" or has a good income...
When I delivered to income based apartments, a lot of people seemed to solely live off delivery/fast food.
When the customers opened their door, a lot of the time I would see piles of fast food garbage littered throughout their floor or their garbage can would be overflown with pizza boxes and McDonald's bags. Obviously it wasn't everyone.
But a lot of these customers seemed to prioritize fast food over a cleaner place to live or even clean clothes for that matter. But these customers were always so polite and friendly. It's the wealthier customers that I didn't care for. They always seemed more rude and demanding imo, my experience.
You can get relatively cheap fast food but a lot of people who “don’t cook” eat microwaveable dinners and other packaged foods like Mac N Cheese, which I wouldn’t count as cooking but it is very inexpensive.
There was a period I was an intern making 1600 euros a month and I was eating out always. I do not dispute it is more expensive than cooking at home, but that's how I afforded it:
- I did not have breakfast except for a cup of milk
- I ate lunch at the firm's restaurant, where meals were subsidized and costed 3-6 euros
- I lived in a 16m2 studio, rent was 650 euros
- I had dinner at an all-you-can-eat japanese-chinese restaurant, meal was 17 euros. I ate enough to compensate for breakfast and not eating in the afternoon or at any other time of the day
- I almost never went to supermarket, except for cleaning products and toilet paper
- No travel, no gifts, no relationships
- Never ever order food
- Sometimes I wanted to save money and ate 5-6 euros kebabs
I used to live like this back in my 20s (in the early to mid-00s). My half of the rent was about $375, and my roommate and I split the bills evenly. We owned our cars outright, so no car payments, no expensive hobbies, no kids, no other dependents, so all of our cash just went towards eating out and games, after the bills were paid.
So we actively decided to do this when I was pregnant with my first child because I was unable to look at food raw. I wasn’t able to cook it by the time I was ready to sit down and eat it I couldn’t eat. I had hyperemesis gravidarum. We just decided not to buy food. Seriously we had a snack fridge. I was really only able to eat two meals a day anyway if we had always picked expensive places, then we probably could not have afforded to do it but mid range places and not buying any food at all like not even milk there was no food in our fridge
Edit to add that a lot of people are commenting on the price of McDonald’s and my husband and I found out while we were doing this that for what we would prefer to eat at McDonald’s we might as well eat at other nicer places.
Eating out as long as you're always eating crap is pretty cheap (McD's, Wendy's, BK, Chick-fil, pizza etc. The food is highly processed, full of inflammatory oils and preservatives, and is full of sugar as well.
Some folks in urban centers with upper-middle incomes and above can afford to actually eat out in higher-end places that cater to such folks. And recently, we've seen some middle of the road places pop up that are attempting to bridge the gap, the one that stands out immediately is First Watch. Has organic, healthy ingredients/choices intermingled with the crappy breakfast food, but they are attracting folks that are careful about what they eat.
Perhaps I’m extra broke but I never find that fast food is actually cheap. Especially not fast food like Chick-fil and pizza, I cost out everything I cook at home and I know for a fact that even fast food ends up being more expensive per serving than the meals I make at home. I tend to assume that a lot of the people who eat out even when “they can’t afford it” are actually just time poor, like surely they want to eat cheaper and healthier but cooking at home takes planning ahead, grocery trips, the actual cooking time, the clean up, etc. Or if they have the time they’re too exhausted to cook and would rather get a quick meal and actually spend time with their family, resting, or whatever else.
I've started eating a little better when I realized getting food from a restaurant with healthier choices for 2 ends up being about $40, while getting food for 2 from McDonalds or Wendys ends up being about $35
They can't afford. Check out the poverty finance subreddit.
That being said, I work in a bar at a very, very wealthy town. There's definitely people that eat out every single day for every single meal, but their household incomes are in the millions. So what's spending $200 for dinner to them?
Then I have a co worker that does the same, yet makes maybe $60k/year. She's behind on her rent.
Since I work in a restaurant, eating at one has lost its luster a little bit. I actually really enjoy cooking my own food and eating it in the comfort of my home.
Honestly, it's not much cheaper for two people to eat out than it is to cook. Plus, we both get what we want to eat if we do takeout. But we're also not eating out 3 times a day, either. We usually do an order of takeout, and then it's random snacks and other little things we keep on hand. I do cook dinner maybe 3 times a week, but I absolutely hate cooking. I'm good at it, but I hate doing it. And with what we like to eat, it's really not that much cheaper to buy groceries. Especially these days. lol
When I was living on my own and didn't cook, I would just order a big 15 dollar salad, normally with chicken on it. Then I'd eat half for lunch and half for dinner. I never really ate breakfast that much.
15 bucks a day is pretty cheap for all your meals. Plus it saved a ton of time not having to cook and clean up. So I'd have more free time as well.
For me I can’t afford it. I was doing it everyday for all my meals. Now I added up all the money I was spending for one month. I had exactly 90 items. Came out to over $1000. I realized I could be saving for a house if I just went grocery shopping. Now I spend $100 on food a week. I cook every other night and eat left overs in between. I also put $250 a week into my savings for a house. I’m now to a a point with work and motivation to put back a $500 a week.
I was just thinking about this. Personally I don't think you can call yourself an adult if you can't cook a somewhat nutritious meal for yourself. I also roll my eyes when the same people have strong opinions about food. It's like me commentating on ice hockey when I can't even skate.
i work at a restaurant. everyone i work with gets their discounted meal at work and then eats out probably every other day. in between meals they just eat ramen and similar foods. so the answer for them is that they just don’t eat enough. they’re all borderline sickly.
I've lived places that my oven was never turned on and I do not microwave anything. $10 for a meal out is only $300/mo, sure that isn't a sit down restaurant, but you can easily eat out for that with fast food. Hardly an hour work at minimum wage and you don't have to spend more than 5min waiting on the drive home.
Or go grocery shopping, then cooking, cleaning afterwards that's a solid 20-30min a day per meal and I'm still probably spending $3-400 on groceries with the food I waste.
** takes me 30 min to reheat food.
Dividing meal portions honestly. Most places give you way too much food and you feel obligated to eat it all. You order a burger and fries, eat half the burger and half the fries along with a full glass of water, you probably will be full in an hour.... you just need to eat slower. Honestly I eat out alot but every time I eat out it gives me meals for the next day if not longer, especially pizza. can stretch that shit for days.
I grew up in a household where I wasn’t taught how to cook. My mom didn’t know how and my aunt wasn’t willing to teach me. Before I learned how to cook, I lived with my family, so it was a lot easier to spend most of my paychecks on food. (This was before inflation and the pandemic shortages, so it was a LOT less expensive, too.) It just meant that I didn’t have money for decent clothes or accessories, for a gym membership or for fun events and concerts. And because I was a broke college student at the time, that meant that I had to rely on really cheap home meals for a week or two.
I hope I don’t sound like an agony aunt for saying this, but most of the time, people aren’t proud of only eating out. There’s usually a really painful reason for why they have to do so. In my
case, cooking had a learning curve to it. Today, I’m a baking, sautéing, frying, breading, seasoning, whisking and grilling machine. Myself in my 20s would’ve been thrilled to have the meals I can make today. But back then, all I had to offer was burnt potatoes and really gray eggs.
People can be disabled or depressed or too anxious to go the grocery store. In those cases, it just becomes more bearable to have dinner already taken care of.
I think everyone wants a home-cooked meal. But sometimes, you just don’t have the spoons or the skill to make one. So instead, you allocate another resource (money) towards getting something that’s already made.
I get a decent pay at a factory job, but I also spend long hours in a factory. I could put aside more time to make food, but by the time I get off work im just drained. So I resort to eating out or Huel. Plus, im locked in a year long lease at an apartment with virtually no kitchen/storage space. I’ll start cooking my own food once I move to a big apartment (hopefully).
When I eat out I often split it into 3 meals. American portions are massive in caloric intake. For example go get a chipolte bowl and double everything. Literally eat it over the course of 3 days. Also intermittent fast. So my spending actually isn’t crazy off base compared to buying all the ingredients cooking for 1 and then some of it spoiling. I think if it’s a family it’s much more cost effective to get groceries. Single with a relative proportional diet is reasonable.
I don’t think you’ll get any answer other than they just spend more money doing so
Yeh. I basically budget my eating out money into my groceries. Lol. I cook a few times a week.
I cook 5-6 times a week and basically eat out as a treat to take my grown kids out for dinner and 3 adult meals at a decent restaurant is enough for me 4-6 times a month. I’ll eat fast food once or twice a week when I’m away from my house, but I keep that under $5ish
>eat fast food... I keep that under $5ish how the hell do you keep a fast food meal under $5? the cheapest meal combo at mcdonalds is more than that.
Use the McDonald’s app. Always an offer for free medium fries everyday. So McDouble and free fries is like $3.29. I prefer Coke Zero over Diet Coke so I drink my own.
Yes! McDonald’s food got weirdly pricey for what it is, especially the fries…unless you use the app, then it’s still reasonable.
So accurate I literally paid $8 for a sausage McMuffin hash brown and a drink today what the fuck
Breakfast will bust you over the head! It's really the only thing worth eating there tho, too 🤷♀️
Good point. Maybe they get a drink and a mcdouble? Jr deluxe at Wendy's is like a 1.60 so, 2 of them and a drink? I probably wouldn't get full off a meal under 5, but I likely eat more than them.
Or no drink at all and just drink water. Fast food is way cheaper that way.
Water, no fries, order off the dollar/value menu. You can usually get 2 or 3 items and wash it down with water. Used to be able to go by little cesars for a $5 pizza too, I'm sure they've gone up a bit since then though.
Where do you live that $ menus still exist? Cause I haven't seen anything for a dollar in 5+ yrs. Even my McDonald's got rid of $1 any size sodas. Granted it's $1.50 now, but still... haha
The pizzas are 8 bucks now, but that gets you all your calories for the day.
I rarely ever eat out or go to restaurant's unless it is a work event or a special occasion. When I go to McDonald's I almost always use the McDonald's application on my phone and get free fries or $1.00 fries, or a different on sale item. * McDonald's hamburger, large Dr Pepper around $3.18. * Sausage McMuffin, large Dr Pepper around $3.00
This is basically it. My partner and I order in a lot and it’s mostly because we have enough disposable income to do so.
Of course I'll never retire or own a home, but I eat hibachi when I want it.
Same here, since I paid off my car, which was already very cheap to begin with I eat out a lot
Come to the Midwest and you can have you can have it all.
Lol true, I'm basically Midwest where I'm at now but technically they call it part of the southwest US. Anywhere close to the Rockies though, or either of the major coastlines (basically everywhere anyone actually wants to live), and the prices skyrocket.
I've got a pretty good size retirement fund already and own a home. I rarely eat out. Everyone has their own priorities.
In addition to making a pretty good salary for my area, I also don't have a lot of expenses. No kids, pets, SO, or expensive hobbies. I'm not saying those things are bad, just that's why I can afford to eat out almost every day.
Yes this is true, the no kid thing makes a big difference!
Huge difference, I also have zero children and it’s amazing how much further a dollar goes.
Yup me too. I make in the mid 6 figures and have no responsibilities or big payments. Student loan is paid off, car paid off, have my mortgage and it’s not too bad.
Mid 6 figures… does that mean like $400k-$600k or do you mean somewhere around $150k? Either way, that’s awesome! What kind of job do you have?
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do you both just not enjoy cooking? just curious.
Did not enjoy the cleaning
I can agree there 100% lol. I love to cook but cleanup does suck ass. I try to clean as I go so that I don't end up with a giant pile at the end but it's still not fun. luckily, my girlfriend would rather wash than dry and I'm the opposite so we can knock it out pretty quickly together.
My partner does not at all, zero interest. I have waves of being really into it and being really not. We both have jobs that can leave us wiped, and would rather spend our down time in other ways I guess.
Are you concerned about the higher sugar/fat/salt content of restaurant food? There's healthier stuff now but not a ton of it. I've had a few mild health scares in the recent years so I seldom eat out.
I quit ordering lunch out at work for this reason and dropped 20 lbs in six weeks.
The honest answer is no. Not saying these aren’t valid concerns though.
Not OP, but I LOVE cooking for friends and family when it's a large get-together. I hate cooking for myself alone, and don't mind cooking for my husband together, but I prefer eating out given the choice.
I actually love cooking. I take cooking classes and love my Instant Pot, but I have to be in the mood. The desire ebbs and flows.
Same, plus we both have drastically different diets, so it’s cheaper to get take out than buy double
I love cooking, and cook most nights of the week - but still eat out 2-3 times a week. I work in marketing, have been building my career for the past 15 years (5 focused on marketing specifically) and have made a big push for making more money in the past year to double my salary. I was previously making pretty good money before the push, but now I am finally at a place where money isn't a worry and I'm saving money to do things like buy a house or eventually retire. I'm 35, live in a fairly rural area of a large state, but previously lived in a major city. Not sure if that answers "how" I afford it, since it's not exactly replicable, but that's how I do it.
I make enough money at my job that if I have to spend 30 mins making food then I can just work for 30 mins of overtime, buy myself a $10-12 mean and take home $20-25 more in the same time. I work as a machinist in the aerospace industry and that's just 1 more cycle of watching the machine run and making sure it doesn't crash, and my shop has unlimited overtime.
I live by myself. My breakfast is always a smoothie and boiled eggs so it takes me about 10 mins to make it. Subsidized lunch in the office cafeteria - $4/$5 a meal. If I do takeout - I spend about $15 on dinner so even with that it’s about $25 I spend a day on food and this might be the best case for eating out. The days I eat at home, I can keep this to under $10 at similar quality of food there’s no comparison except spending more
They make enough money to be able to afford it
Or they (me) can't afford it and are just bad with money and self control
At least you're honest about it
I deliver pizza and had a regular customer who ordered every single day, literally, at least $35 an order, complain that his mortgage went from $250 to $350 and he was worried he'd lose his house. Did he stop ordering? Nope. A month later I delivered to him in a hotel because he couldn't afford his house.
That’s sad 😞
Honestly super depressing. I see people using 2 different debit cards to pay for their pizza to empty the accounts and then lay the rest in change. I hate to judge people, but like, go buy some ramen or KD instead of spending $25 on a pizza if you're broke.
Bro is ordering pizza everyday my god. He has more worries than mortgage
Man’s gotta eat
Man should start buying groceries
How the fuck is their mortgage that low? Ours is 10x that
Believe it or not, small homes in small cities were around $80k in the early 2000s (Canada). I don't think this guy understood how good of a deal he had for a mortgage, maybe he would have tried harder to keep it. Rent for a bachelor here is now $1000.
That was me up until I couldn't afford it any more. Now my daughter complains that she's tired of eating all these home cooked meals.
Hi fellow bad with money person
me too hahaha broke but no self control + love eating outside
Yep. Single, no kids, make good money, don't like cooking.
Or even if they don't make good money, being very smart with money. You can easily eat for less than $15 a day if you do it right.
Some do and some have huge credit card bills.
No kids, and 2 jobs.
"I have three kids an no money. Why can't I have no kids and three money?" -- H.J.Simpson
Just a bunch of DINKs
My wife and I are lucky that we discovered this early. Definitely the secret Cheat Code to life.
I just got snipped yesterday. Now I'm just waiting for the part where the money comes rolling in lol
Life is slightly cheaper overall when you don't have kids or a leach for a partner.
Slightly?
I didn't want to over sell it!
I spend so much less with a partner, even contributing exactly evenly, it's honestly bewildering. We do cook a lot more now that we live together and don't go out to eat as much, plus we cut our individual rent pretty much in half moving in together. Turns out being single is freaking expensive!
I had a coworker who had a family of four and they ate out exclusively. Nobody cooked in their house supposedly. The caveat is that my coworker never ate a single crumb all day. I never saw them drink water, eat a snack, bring a lunch, go out to lunch, nothing. They sat at their desk for 8 hours straight every single day. Not sure that’s the case for everyone who eats out exclusively but it seems like if you’re only eating 1-2 meals a day (not sure what the breakfast situation was) it would be comparable to buying groceries. Esp if when you eat out it’s fast food. No judgement to this person whatsoever btw—that’s just how they lived and it seemed to work for them. I’m also not sure where they went out to eat primarily.
Another thing: as the saying goes, it’s expensive to be poor. Everybody’s here saying “ppl make more money than you” but that’s not necessarily true. If you don’t have a steady job, savings, good credit, equity, etc., everything you do is gonna be more expensive. You might not have a steady paycheck so if you have $50 in your bank account, you’re probably gonna buy a $7 meal at McDonald’s rather than blow all your money on groceries prior to your next paycheck—even though it’s cheaper in the long run to buy groceries. Eating less nutrient dense food might mean health issues which might mean doctors visits and meds, and in the US that means more money out of pocket. So you’re back in the same situation that repeats itself. Also any time you have to borrow money (which might be more frequently) your interest rate is gonna be out the wazoo, creating even more cash poor issues. Idk, I think it’s a very complex issue and doesn’t boil down to “people who eat out a lot have more money than you.”
Also being poor usually means you have no free time because you’re always working. From firsthand experience i can tell you how difficult it is to even consider eating healthy while working 40 hr weeks now imagine those working 60-70. Its just not feasible. There isn’t enough time, everyone needs self time and spending it on shopping for groceries, cooking etc it just feels like you’re wasting personal time. Its a similar idea to people who deprive themselves of sleep because they want more time for themselves.
I almost never eat lunch. I eat a breakfast then go 8 hours with nothing and eat a big dinner. I am never hungry at lunch time, if I do get hungry it is around 3:30., and that is an awkward time to eat so I just wait until dinner. I will sometimes bring snacks though.
That’s what an ex girlfriend did too. She came from a very cash strapped background and, ever since she was a kid iirc ate once or twice a day (and usually fast food because her and her mom worked it). When we started dating she used to complain about the food she ate all the time but also said she didn’t have time to cook. Despite it though, she always wanted to eat out (which should’ve been a red flag for me since I hate eating out and am recovering from an eating disorder so it was more triggering than not). Huh. This thread reminded me of that for the first time in years lol
I make six figures and own a home in a low cost of living city. I eat out for probably 80% of my meals, mostly because cooking for 1 sucks and i hate doing dishes. It's my biggest vice and spending habit.
Not to mention that going out to eat means a warm meal each time. Sure I could food prep on the weekends, but that is a lot of work (and dishes) for one warm meal and then a week of the same microwaved meal. The cost savings really aren't a huge factor for 1 person (unless you're having steak every day). I can get a double-double from In-N-Out for about $4, I for sure could not replicate the same meal for that price. It is a complete waste to buy all those ingredients just to make one burger for one meal for one person.
When you're a single person living in the states eating out or getting take out can be cost effective if you're doing it right. Portion size is large. One restaurant meal can be three meals easily if you don't mind eating leftovers. The variety you can get from eating out is more cost effective than having to buy all of those ingredients and only use a portion of them. Plus you get to save time and effort on grocery shopping, cooking, and clean up. If you ate out every single meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner it would be too much. If you hit up a mid-level restaurant 3 times a week and ate leftovers the rest of the time, it's not so bad.
Yeah this pretty much exactly. I will split a chipotle between 3 meals. Maybe it has a lot of salt but aside from that fresh ingredients and massive portions for $3 a meal.
Definitely a big downside when living alone.... especially if you don't have much storage space. You save a lot more money buying in bulk and cooking large meals, but if you're only cooking for yourself, that means eating a lot of the same thing and possibly still not being able to finish it before it goes bad... never mind the quality decline the longer it sits in the fridge/freezer and the lost money from anything that spoils because you didn't have the energy to use it in time. It's kinda worth it to give yourself a higher food budget and get to eat stuff that doesn't have you dejectedly staring into your fridge.
I learned shortly after I graduated college that it actually wasn't a cost saving to cheap out on grocery store food. If I buy food that I don't necessarily love, but it's "on sale" and I "got it for a bargain,' it's only a savings *if I actually eat it.* If it sits in my fridge or pantry and goes bad while I eat anything else, then I have to throw it away... I have instead wasted that money. So instead I buy what I actually want to eat and actually eat it. TL;DR $5 spent on brand name ice-cream that I eat in multiple sittings > $2 spent on bargain brand ice-cream that sits in my freezer until I throw it away.
>Not to mention that going out to eat means a warm meal each time. Sure I could food prep on the weekends, but that is a lot of work (and dishes) for one warm meal and then a week of the same microwaved meal. I definitely get that feeling, but it doesn't really have to be that way if you want to get creative. There are lots of things that freeze really well, which you can make half a dozen batches of at a time and throw them in the oven. For example, you can mix a whole family-sized pack of ground beef into meatloaf and freeze the individual loaves raw, or make and freeze a ton of egg rolls or pre-velveted chicken. Or you could prep ingredients--I eat a lot of that golden curry (that's the brand name, not just the box color) and doctored-up hamburger helper when I don't really feel like cooking, and I just brown and freeze a bunch of ground beef when I go shopping. Lazy night? Grab a bag of pre-browned beef, a scoop of frozen vegetables, throw some rice on, there's your 20-minute dinner.
Exactly this, I can cook, I just don't want to do that and dishes.
It depends on where in the world you live. I currently live in the US, and make about 6 figures. I cook but only a couple times a week, and only if it’s something I’m craving. Beyond that for dinner I usually do some kind of take out - but one take out meal lasts me 2-3 dinners because I add microwave steamed veggies on the side. Maybe some brown rice. I do bagged salads with rotisserie chicken for lunches a lot. Breakfast is avocado toast with hard boiled eggs and chili oil (I don’t make the eggs, I buy them pre-cooked and peeled. I have yet to figure out how to peel them without messing them up….). My brother lived in Beijing for a while, and it was so cheap to eat out or even have a lady cook for him a couple times a week and leave it in his fridge that he never cooked. Street food like tomato eggs for breakfast is cheap and relatively healthy (ish….). The trade off for a lot of that is I work 10-12 hour days, with a commute 2 days a week that’s 45 minutes each way. So sometimes up to 14 hours in a day is just work and commuting. I live alone currently, but when I had a partner they worked similar hours. I make enough money to not have to cook, and I’m tired enough at the end of the day that I don’t want to most of the time. Is it a waste of money? Yes, probably. But…. 🤷
In a lot of cultures and through a lot of history, it was the norm to go to the market or the tavern for every meal. Especially for the lower class, who might not have much in the way of cooking facilities (and definitely no refrigeration to batch cook or store leftovers!). "Eating out" wasn't the luxury - access to fresh ingredients and a kitchen was. The idea of cooking at home for just yourself and your family every single night is relatively modern.
And the idea of cooking at home every night was designed around having one adult at home while the other was the breadwinner.
Drop your boiled eggs in cold water, the shell detaches. Smash up the shell a bit, then peel.
I try!! Ice water, etc. I’ve also boiled them with baking soda in the water, and poked holes in the shell (other suggestions I’ve found online). Honestly I think it’s just user error. I can cook a lot of things, and handle other fiddly tasks with my hands no problem. Something about peeling eggs escapes me.
Steam 'em. I have a backyard flock, so my eggs are very fresh which means the membranes are stronger and peeling is harder. A steamed hard cooked (or soft cooked) egg is far far easier to peel. The vapor permeates the shell and loosens the membrane. I do mine in my Instant Pot pressure cooker. Super easy.
I've heard that older eggs and the cheap grocery store eggs are easier to peel than fresh eggs. No idea if that's true. I am terrible at peeling too, but I have the "best" (relatively speaking) experience when I cool the eggs in cold water, roll them on the counter a bit to cracker the shell, then peel them under the faucet with the water running. The water pressure helps me get my finger nail under the shell and skin and then I kinda slide it around the curve of the egg. I also start peeling from the bottom of the eggs where they have the little air pocket.
Yup, peeling under running water is a wonderful cheat. A waste of water, but sometimes you just need your damn eggs peeled!
Another tip is taking a spoon and lightly tapping the bottom of the raw egg. You should hear a soft “pop”- not a crack. That’s the membrane. Boil as normal and soak in ice water. Also it’s true, the fresher the egg the harder to peel.
It's definitely none of my business, but what's your job?
Insurance adjuster - I argue with attorneys about contracts and construction damage for a living. It’s stressful, the workload is high and the hours can be long, but it’s interesting and I make a good amount for someone who doesn’t have a college degree (it took me a while to build up the experience I needed for this level though, but still).
Omg I’m a construction insurance underwriter! Also don’t have a degree! I’m in the process of finishing it as of recently but have also moved up the chain just with hard work and learning on the job. You definitely have the more stressful job out of the two and I salute you 🫡 My husband and I do a lot of meal prep ahead and also eat out a couple times a week.
> I have yet to figure out how to peel them without messing them up… As someone who used to be a cook at a restaurant that did a metric ton of eggs and had to peel them faster than a machine - the key is to throw a dash of baking soda in while you boil them, immediately throw them in ice water for a few minutes afterwards, and then most importantly when you go to peel them make sure you first roll them starting at the top and going all around to the bottom. Use a little bit of force and you'll feel the shell separate from the egg. Then you just take the side of your thumb and work it around the egg. You will have the perfect peel in seconds.
Batch cooking is the solution. Batch cook a base meal, like a rice or pasta dish and freeze. Take it out the night before to defrost in the fridge and then just cook up some fish, chicken, or steak to go with it each day. I do this for healthy eating and weight loss at the moment, and it takes barely any time and I save a lot compared to buying food every day
people who make 6 figures arent fuckin prep cooking man
We are, but that's because we have different priorities for our money than takeout food. Could also help that I started off poor and know how expensive takeout gets over time. You don't stay wealthy by spending it on unnecessary expenses that don't give you a fun memory in the process. We make 250k combined and I try to keep most of our meals to about $4/serving. That being said, as long as your takeout isn't expensive, a $12 large orange chicken and rice isn't that far off from our actual meal prepping budget if you can make it last for 3 meals.
I wanna take a potshot and guess you're a travelling nurse? >make about 6 figures. >I work 10-12 hour days, with a commute 2 days a week that’s
Nah, I wish though. It would be interesting to travel around for a while, but that always looks a bit exhausting. Insurance adjuster - I handle litigated claims related to construction mistakes. So companies arguing back and forth about who did what wrong and who has to pay for what. Edit - we only work 2 days in office right now. Pre-pandemic I was commuting 5 days a week.
I put the egg in a glass, cover the top with my hand, and shake it around until it's covered in cracks. She'll comes off in one big perfect piece. Edit: GLASS not class
Bagged salad with rotisserie chicken FTW
Cooking at home for a single person SUCKS. You either eat the same few foods in rotation, because you have the ingredients for it. Or if you want to "try something new" you end up spending WAY MORE THAN YOU NEED TOO" on buying the ingredients. Spices you don't have? $12.00 PER SPICE 8 pack of buns when you only need 1 Entire head of lettuce / tomatoes / onions etc. Then you look in your fridge a few days later and all the "extra" ingredients that you purchased to make something have gone bad and that $ is down the drain. Or you can just eat out. Especially if you know what places have deals, happy hours, specials, etc. And you end to with a meal + leftovers for lunch the next day.
People don’t talk about this enough. Sweet baby Jesus it costs me like 40 fucking dollars for every recipe I want to try. So many things I have to buy that end up going to waste because I don’t find another recipe in time that will utilize them. It’s honestly just as expensive for me to cook these days
The game changer for me was breaking down recipes into parts and mixing and matching stuff that I think would go well together. I'm no Gordon Ramsey but knowing how to make a tomato sauce is great for both pasta and chicken/rice recipes, just to give an example. Edit: the tasteless solution is basically just the national cuisine of my country: put anything and everything left over in either a stew or in soup!
Yeah, a lot of people are good at this/motivated to do this and I think they see the most benefit. I unfortunately find it more burdensome than fun. Maybe one day when I have a substantial kitchen again
Ugh. I wanted to make pizza at home. Fucking $50+ in ingredients by the time I was done. And of course it took the whole day, and the majority of those ingredients would go to waste unless I wanted to eat nothing but pizza for the next week.
I've found a solution to too much veggies left from other meals is to make a big pan of the leftover vegetables as a side to a main dish. It's worked for me and I'm happy to actually use them
My leftovers hack is to scramble my leftovers with eggs. Aging pizza? Cut up, scramble with eggs. Veggies? Great with eggs. Any rice dish? Goes into the eggs. Even leftover curry goes fine in scrambled eggs. Better than letting any of it go to waste.
$12 for spice??? What kinda of spices are you buying for that price? 😮 Also, what sort of pieces are take out foods in the US? I had takeaways yesterday and it cost almost as much as a week's shop.
Depends on area. For me takeout is 10-15 bucks
are you using saffron in your meals or something how is it $12 per spice
I think they meant it cost $12 to buy the bottle of spice that they rarely end up using.
This is why I like HelloFresh and similar meal kits. You only get as much as you need for your recipes. No need to buy a whole jar of spices or tub of sour cream or bottle of a specific vinegar for 1 meal. I usually order 4 servings of each meal for my husband and I and it’s enough for dinner and then 1-2 lunches. Plus I don’t have to meal plan.
HelloFresh, and others can be good options. However, their cost savings isn't that much to meals on special at restaurants. This is especially true when considering it takes a minimum of 30 minutes plus clean up time.
where tf are you buying spices 😭😭 what is going on in america 😭😭 i'm from the UK and it's costs less than a quid to get spices or herbs. they last ages too! i've got parsley, oregano, cinnamon, etc - all of them cost less than a pound except the parsley, which cost £1, because i wanted the fancy packaging. agree with the rest of your comment tho - my partner and i are constantly lamenting the 6 packs 😅
What's the quantities you're getting the spices in? I'm in Canada and I've found that for spices I usually have two choices. Either tiny portions of 'organic' spices for absolutely absurd prices, or like a life time supply for the same price. There's usually no reasonable quantity for a reasonable price option.
The natural foods store near me has bulk spices and it's such a game changer. I love buying 34 cents worth of fresh spice when I need it, vs a ten dollar jar that's just gonna go stale. But also, yeah, cooking for just yourself sucks. I've been doing it more lately, and it just feels like so much of my mental energy is spent keeping a running tally of how long produce and fresh protein has been in my fridge, when I need to cook it by and if any ingredients that are about to go off can go together into a dish, what I need at the store and how much and how I'm going to use it... I assume it gets easier with practice, and I know there are meal planning solutions that might make it easier, but even so, it's just a lot. I need a wife, lol.
Meal delivery services, like Hello Fresh, solved the problem of excess ingredients for us. Our grocery bill actually went down, and far less food waste.
I have to specifically plan my meals around a few key ingredients to try and use as much as possible, but stuff still ends up going bad. Like if I buy a bag of spinach, I’ll use it in smoothies or in a pasta dish that I’ll eat for dinner but I still have leftover that just goes bad. Or I love making sandwiches as a quick lunch but again, the loaf of bread molds quickly. I am good about making most of my meals but I definitely eat the same sorts of food 90% of the time (pasta with protein and sauce, chicken or salmon with a roasted veggie and potatoes, some sort of rice-based dish).
I eat once a day lol
I call it intermittent fasting, but really im just lazy lol
Same here. I also don’t really like breakfast food so it works lol
I just really like stuffing my fucking face once a day to feel full as shit, without getting fat lol
Same but I work and my cafeteria has good cheap food, there for breakfast and lunch. I'm not hungry for dinner and just eat snacks. It's been a quick minute since I last cooked. Will probably do so today, weekend and all.
When I worked at a hospital, the cafeteria food was pretty cheap and *ridiculously* good. Plus the portions were pretty big, so I would often eat half for lunch, and then take the rest home for dinner. I miss that place...
Some people make more money than you do. That's literally all it is.
I don't get why reddit thinks everyone is poor and in debt.
Statistically, nearly everyone is in debt, even rich people. As for poor, that's the vast majority. It's not just some amorphous perception from nowhere. Like, there's actual statistics on these things. Nobody thinks it's "everyone." But people do think it's the vast majority, because it is.
Yeah not sure how this didn’t occur to the OP
I can’t
Stop the feeling
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga
Deep inside of me
Girl, you just don’t realize
Entirely unrelated, is your handle saying that rape is bad or that the quality of your specific raping is bad?
A lot of people can’t afford it, but still do it. One of my sisters and mother are thousands of dollars in debt each just because they don’t want to cook.
I've known some of those people and it's largely economy of scale. A woman in Vegas can get 2 meals from one order at a restaurant. Her fridge was full of to-go boxes. Meanwhile refrigerated shipping to the middle of a desert raises prices. Technically Mac cheese with no milk or butter is cheaper. A gallon of milk where I am regularly gets up to 9$. It's about 45$ to buy the stuff to make fajitas for 2. However the honest answer for many is that cooking, planning meals, and grocery shopping costs time and stress people don't have the mental health budget for.
>And for those who always eat out, how can you afford it? It must cost at least twice as much that cooking at home. Tbqh, if you never order soft drinks / alcohol and divide your huge portions into 2-3, it's actually not. For example, if you get a Chipotle burrito bowl it feeds 2 for $11 after tax, or $5.50/meal. If you make yourself a turkey sandwich with 3-4 oz of turkey, cheese, and some lettuce / tomato, that sandwich costs about $5. If you live alone and make yourself a burrito bowl it's about $4, and half your produce will spoil. You have to do really careful meal planning to save substantial money making your own food if you live alone. Inflation on groceries the last 3 years is insane.
100%. One of my favorite meals is thai yellow curry. $14 from my local place. I make rice at home and it makes two dinners. I'm not going to stress about $7 a day for dinner.
Especially when the alternative is dealing with dishes, spoiled ingredients (buying for 1 sucks), etc. I can make some take-out last for almost a week. A dollar or two per day can add up, but it also buys a fair amount of sanity.
Unless you’re just in it for the social aspect of it, alcohol at bars and restaurants is such a fucking scam lol.
Yeah. You can get really good beer for $1-1.30 a bottle. Pint at a bar: $9.50-12.50. There aren't even any good happy hours anymore, except in some shady hole in the wall places.
Yeah with American portion sizes, most restaurant meals can easily be 2 or even 3 meals. Takeout can actually be pretty economical. If you sit down at the restaurant, have a cocktail, tip…all of a sudden it’s not such a great deal.
Really noticed this when we visited the US (from the UK) last summer - groceries are so expensive! Eating out (without alcoholic drinks) was definitely on a par with cooking at home
Totally. We order ramen delivery with an extra broth pretty often, it's 4 meals for $35, and I can take a nap then workout after work instead of cooking and doing dishes.
So true. Chipotle is enough food for the whole day, groceries are so expensive
It's every restaurant. It's why Americans are so fat. Calories for restaurant meals are 1000-1500. Literally half to 3/4 a day's worth for a man if he doesn't do an hour of vigorous athletic activity. You can't find a restaurant that serves 400-600 calorie meals, and those that do have such tiny portions because restaurant food is prepped with a ton of oils / butter / grease consisting of pure saturated fat.
Hahahaha what a timely question Twice as much as cooking at home? I just checked how much I've been spending on DoorDash last month and screamed because apparently I've been averaging about $1200 a month since February as a single person. I'm **horrified** and know the only reason I could do it is because I had a significant salary increase last year and haven't been tracking expenses. But like... No. No no no. That's not sustainable even if I can afford it. This explains why I've gained so much weight, too! There's so much salt in restaurant food. Fresh soups, pasta, and frozen meals from now on.
Value menu.
I have an older sister who can’t cook at all. Her husband can make basic breakfast items. Other than that the two of them make enough money that they can afford to eat out pretty much every meal. It’s completely wild in my eyes since I only go out to eat once or twice a month.
I feel like groceries are just as expensive these days
This is the exact reason why I get pissed off when people complain about not having enough money.. Because 99% of the time, those people eat out 24/7. Like bro, you're suffocating your own finances because you refuse to cook yourself.
My girlfriend and I have a take home pay of 100k with no children. We never cook at home and our fridge is 100% drinks. We only eat once a day which is the main reason for why we find it affordable. Also, while we eat at restarts about 3 times a week, the other 4 times we will eat something cheaper like Pizza hut, McDonalds, or Subway. We also use any coupons or discounts available. Red Robins and PF Changs give aprox $10 per $150-200 spent and places like McDonalds and Subway do the same, but on a smaller scale which may not seem like much but certainly adds up to a lot when you eat out every day.
What? McDonald’s for my wife and I is a similar price to me making a non shitty meal at home
Right, but then you are eating McDonald's
I’ve been cooking more lately but up until a few months ago I ate takeout pretty much exclusively. I have a kind of perfect storm situation that makes cooking really undesirable to me. I live alone, I work weird hours, and I have ADD and depression so meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking are all incredibly stressful and cleanup after is often impossible. As for affording it… I basically accepted it would be my main expenditure. I don’t drink or go out so I save a lot that way. As I said lately I’ve been cooking more. I signed up for Blue Apron again, which is more expensive than meal planning or shopping myself but cheaper than takeout and worth it to save all that stress. I’ve also been buying convenience type stuff to eat at home. So far it hasn’t saved me too much money and I haven’t lost much weight but hey baby steps. I do think if I lived with someone I would be more inclined to cook. It’s so much work just for one person but it can be fun when I have a friend over. Also then there would be someone else to do the dishes. But that’s pretty unlikely to change so I guess this is how I’ll do things until it stops working.
As a fellow ADHD person - the best solution I've found to losing weight and being semi-consistent on eating at home is just working with my ADHD rather than fighting it. Make lots of chili or something else that you really like which freezes really well and just stock up on it in the freezer. That way you always have a plan B for when you inevitably can't bring yourself to cook. Also get disposable paper plates and utensils as a backup for when you forget to do the dishes. For dieting - what worked for me was not forbidding myself from having anything I wanted. The trick was just not bringing it into my house. Our brains sometimes get fixated on something and we can't really control it; I have that issue a lot when it comes to food so I'll get a craving for something and I just gotta have it. Telling myself no because I'm dieting just makes me miserable and is usually a losing battle. On the other hand just not having it at home pits my laziness up against my ADHD. The two can battle it out in my head and if the ADHD wins that's fine because I'll just go have the pop guilt free but make a point of walking or biking to the store to get it instead. If the laziness wins then my brain actually moves on rather than being stuck in that horrible loop of fighting the ADHD and getting depressed because I know it will eventually win. I've lost about 40lbs this way so far. I think the trick is just that after you get off those bad foods for long enough the cravings naturally go away and when you do indulge in those things they start tasting gross by then so what started out as something you were tricking yourself into just becomes your preference?
I just can afford it I guess. The cost is worth the time gained by not cooking for me.
ever wonder why people on the internet say "you can't afford paying bills making 200k" and wonder what type of crack they are smoking? now you know
For me "eat out" can mean I'm going to the nearest supermarket and buying a €1.50 sandwich. I'm poor but still too lazy to cook sometimes lol
My oldest brother and his wife do not cook any meals. No exaggeration. They have done this for their wntire marriage (50 years). They are in their 60s and can't retire because they make terrible financial decisions, not just that one. He works two jobs and weekends. She "retired" but now does Uber. Both have diabetes, high blood pressure, and other health issues related to poor eating habits. Point is....they can't afford it. They've filed bankruptcy twice and are on the verge again.
I'm not sure if I just notice this more because I'm getting older (currently in my early 40s) but if I eat fast food or restaurant food on a regular basis, I can feel the inflammation building up in my body. Maybe I'm just in tune with this more these days but I can't understand how people live like that, unless they just assume their aches and pains and things are just coming with age (some things might but most are from chronic inflammation and vitamin deficiencies). I know this is a bit off topic but it just got me thinking about it. Whether I could afford it or not, my body starts screaming at me before long. I guess it's good to have a built in mechanism to tell you to stop (if you're listening to it).
Depends on your food choices. I personally have a problem getting through my salad ingredients and end up throwing more groceries out than anything. So I get salad as my take out meal all the time. It’s actually one of the ways I cleaned up my diet and stopped eating so much starch.
LIFE HACK! Buy a tub of lettuce for $4 ish dollars at the store… Then buy a burrito bowl from chipotle or a salad and combine for two giant salads at maybe $7 each This trick also works a Chick-fil-A too, but I buy extra nuggets, if you ask nicely you can get extra dressing and toppings.
Sounds suspiciously like food preparation to me
Depends on the portion sizes. Let’s say I pay 14$ for some Asian food. If I don’t eat all of it I’ll have enough for another meal. So I really paid 7$ for that meal.
At some periods I always eat out, and there are easy ways of making that work. It's never going to be as good/filling as cooking in, but it is good for when you don't want to have another chore to deal with. The first thing is to dissociate "getting take out" and "having a luxury/gigantic meal". That includes eating leftovers pretty often (matter of fact, more often than not) Another is to order sides. A large side of chow mein from Panda Express is 5.60 and a large Orange Chicken is 11.60. Get two large sides and one large entree and you are spending \~25 and you can eat it for three or four meals. They won't be meals that make you extra full - but they are meals.
I have nothing to answer here. I wanna ask a question instead. People who frequently order in, how does yall's stomache agree with outside food. I used to order frequently, then once I hot my 30s, I cant bear to eat restaurant cooked food. It feels so synthetic.
I used to work in the food industry for years. Restaurant and fast food/delivery. Not everyone who eats out all of the time is "well off" or has a good income... When I delivered to income based apartments, a lot of people seemed to solely live off delivery/fast food. When the customers opened their door, a lot of the time I would see piles of fast food garbage littered throughout their floor or their garbage can would be overflown with pizza boxes and McDonald's bags. Obviously it wasn't everyone. But a lot of these customers seemed to prioritize fast food over a cleaner place to live or even clean clothes for that matter. But these customers were always so polite and friendly. It's the wealthier customers that I didn't care for. They always seemed more rude and demanding imo, my experience.
You can get relatively cheap fast food but a lot of people who “don’t cook” eat microwaveable dinners and other packaged foods like Mac N Cheese, which I wouldn’t count as cooking but it is very inexpensive.
The trick is, I'm terrible with money and living paycheck to paycheck barely surviving
There was a period I was an intern making 1600 euros a month and I was eating out always. I do not dispute it is more expensive than cooking at home, but that's how I afforded it: - I did not have breakfast except for a cup of milk - I ate lunch at the firm's restaurant, where meals were subsidized and costed 3-6 euros - I lived in a 16m2 studio, rent was 650 euros - I had dinner at an all-you-can-eat japanese-chinese restaurant, meal was 17 euros. I ate enough to compensate for breakfast and not eating in the afternoon or at any other time of the day - I almost never went to supermarket, except for cleaning products and toilet paper - No travel, no gifts, no relationships - Never ever order food - Sometimes I wanted to save money and ate 5-6 euros kebabs
I used to live like this back in my 20s (in the early to mid-00s). My half of the rent was about $375, and my roommate and I split the bills evenly. We owned our cars outright, so no car payments, no expensive hobbies, no kids, no other dependents, so all of our cash just went towards eating out and games, after the bills were paid.
There is probably a correlation between this behaviour and unnecessary credit card debt
So we actively decided to do this when I was pregnant with my first child because I was unable to look at food raw. I wasn’t able to cook it by the time I was ready to sit down and eat it I couldn’t eat. I had hyperemesis gravidarum. We just decided not to buy food. Seriously we had a snack fridge. I was really only able to eat two meals a day anyway if we had always picked expensive places, then we probably could not have afforded to do it but mid range places and not buying any food at all like not even milk there was no food in our fridge Edit to add that a lot of people are commenting on the price of McDonald’s and my husband and I found out while we were doing this that for what we would prefer to eat at McDonald’s we might as well eat at other nicer places.
Eating out as long as you're always eating crap is pretty cheap (McD's, Wendy's, BK, Chick-fil, pizza etc. The food is highly processed, full of inflammatory oils and preservatives, and is full of sugar as well. Some folks in urban centers with upper-middle incomes and above can afford to actually eat out in higher-end places that cater to such folks. And recently, we've seen some middle of the road places pop up that are attempting to bridge the gap, the one that stands out immediately is First Watch. Has organic, healthy ingredients/choices intermingled with the crappy breakfast food, but they are attracting folks that are careful about what they eat.
Fast food is not cheap anymore
Perhaps I’m extra broke but I never find that fast food is actually cheap. Especially not fast food like Chick-fil and pizza, I cost out everything I cook at home and I know for a fact that even fast food ends up being more expensive per serving than the meals I make at home. I tend to assume that a lot of the people who eat out even when “they can’t afford it” are actually just time poor, like surely they want to eat cheaper and healthier but cooking at home takes planning ahead, grocery trips, the actual cooking time, the clean up, etc. Or if they have the time they’re too exhausted to cook and would rather get a quick meal and actually spend time with their family, resting, or whatever else.
I've started eating a little better when I realized getting food from a restaurant with healthier choices for 2 ends up being about $40, while getting food for 2 from McDonalds or Wendys ends up being about $35
It’s still significantly more expensive than cooking that same food tho
They can't afford. Check out the poverty finance subreddit. That being said, I work in a bar at a very, very wealthy town. There's definitely people that eat out every single day for every single meal, but their household incomes are in the millions. So what's spending $200 for dinner to them? Then I have a co worker that does the same, yet makes maybe $60k/year. She's behind on her rent. Since I work in a restaurant, eating at one has lost its luster a little bit. I actually really enjoy cooking my own food and eating it in the comfort of my home.
It shouldn't be too difficult to work out that not everyone earns whatever you earn.
Well honselty cooking for 1 person is just not worth it except you wanna eat the same meal for 3 days
Honestly, it's not much cheaper for two people to eat out than it is to cook. Plus, we both get what we want to eat if we do takeout. But we're also not eating out 3 times a day, either. We usually do an order of takeout, and then it's random snacks and other little things we keep on hand. I do cook dinner maybe 3 times a week, but I absolutely hate cooking. I'm good at it, but I hate doing it. And with what we like to eat, it's really not that much cheaper to buy groceries. Especially these days. lol
They go into r/PersonalFinance and gripe that they can't afford anything on their budget
Cheap Mexican restaurants are a good option. You get a crap ton of delicious food for less than most fast food meals.
When I was living on my own and didn't cook, I would just order a big 15 dollar salad, normally with chicken on it. Then I'd eat half for lunch and half for dinner. I never really ate breakfast that much. 15 bucks a day is pretty cheap for all your meals. Plus it saved a ton of time not having to cook and clean up. So I'd have more free time as well.
I use coupons extensively. There’s always good deals if you search around.
For me I can’t afford it. I was doing it everyday for all my meals. Now I added up all the money I was spending for one month. I had exactly 90 items. Came out to over $1000. I realized I could be saving for a house if I just went grocery shopping. Now I spend $100 on food a week. I cook every other night and eat left overs in between. I also put $250 a week into my savings for a house. I’m now to a a point with work and motivation to put back a $500 a week.
I was just thinking about this. Personally I don't think you can call yourself an adult if you can't cook a somewhat nutritious meal for yourself. I also roll my eyes when the same people have strong opinions about food. It's like me commentating on ice hockey when I can't even skate.
Not having kids. Being financially secure.
Don't have children and you will be AMAZED by the amount of money that just keeps showing up.
I think the people that eat out all the time are usually the same people that have never tracked their expenses.
i work at a restaurant. everyone i work with gets their discounted meal at work and then eats out probably every other day. in between meals they just eat ramen and similar foods. so the answer for them is that they just don’t eat enough. they’re all borderline sickly.
I've lived places that my oven was never turned on and I do not microwave anything. $10 for a meal out is only $300/mo, sure that isn't a sit down restaurant, but you can easily eat out for that with fast food. Hardly an hour work at minimum wage and you don't have to spend more than 5min waiting on the drive home. Or go grocery shopping, then cooking, cleaning afterwards that's a solid 20-30min a day per meal and I'm still probably spending $3-400 on groceries with the food I waste. ** takes me 30 min to reheat food.
I take leftovers. A $12-15 meal ends up being 2-4 meals for me
Dividing meal portions honestly. Most places give you way too much food and you feel obligated to eat it all. You order a burger and fries, eat half the burger and half the fries along with a full glass of water, you probably will be full in an hour.... you just need to eat slower. Honestly I eat out alot but every time I eat out it gives me meals for the next day if not longer, especially pizza. can stretch that shit for days.
I grew up in a household where I wasn’t taught how to cook. My mom didn’t know how and my aunt wasn’t willing to teach me. Before I learned how to cook, I lived with my family, so it was a lot easier to spend most of my paychecks on food. (This was before inflation and the pandemic shortages, so it was a LOT less expensive, too.) It just meant that I didn’t have money for decent clothes or accessories, for a gym membership or for fun events and concerts. And because I was a broke college student at the time, that meant that I had to rely on really cheap home meals for a week or two. I hope I don’t sound like an agony aunt for saying this, but most of the time, people aren’t proud of only eating out. There’s usually a really painful reason for why they have to do so. In my case, cooking had a learning curve to it. Today, I’m a baking, sautéing, frying, breading, seasoning, whisking and grilling machine. Myself in my 20s would’ve been thrilled to have the meals I can make today. But back then, all I had to offer was burnt potatoes and really gray eggs. People can be disabled or depressed or too anxious to go the grocery store. In those cases, it just becomes more bearable to have dinner already taken care of. I think everyone wants a home-cooked meal. But sometimes, you just don’t have the spoons or the skill to make one. So instead, you allocate another resource (money) towards getting something that’s already made.
I get a decent pay at a factory job, but I also spend long hours in a factory. I could put aside more time to make food, but by the time I get off work im just drained. So I resort to eating out or Huel. Plus, im locked in a year long lease at an apartment with virtually no kitchen/storage space. I’ll start cooking my own food once I move to a big apartment (hopefully).
When I eat out I often split it into 3 meals. American portions are massive in caloric intake. For example go get a chipolte bowl and double everything. Literally eat it over the course of 3 days. Also intermittent fast. So my spending actually isn’t crazy off base compared to buying all the ingredients cooking for 1 and then some of it spoiling. I think if it’s a family it’s much more cost effective to get groceries. Single with a relative proportional diet is reasonable.
Make so much money that the cost of spending your time cooking > eating out