Thinking about cooking your own food to save money? I'm here to say that always cooking your own food is a suboptimal use of your time. Instead, use the time you would have spent cooking to make more money instead.
One of the most common pushbacks from my series of income posts ($200,000, $300,000, $500,000, $1,000,000) is that the food budget is too high.
Some readers get apoplectic if a household of three is spending $1,500+ a month or a household of four is spending $2,000+ a month. Yet, look at what the rich and powerful do. California Governor Gavin Newsom was spotted in the middle of the pandemic eating at The French Laundry, which costs about $500 per person.
If you want to get rich, you might as well follow what the rich do. And the rich don't cook their own food. They get other people who make less money than them cook for them.
People Who Are For Cooking Your Own Food
Here are some comments from my household budget posts that show how angry people are about my food expenditure assumptions.
“Who pays $2,100 month for food! That's so ridiculous. Maybe they're buying all the avocado toast”
“HOW much are they spending on food in a month?! Oh, just as much as some family’s entire income. Cool.”
“$70 a DAY for food for 4 people????? They’re spending $500 a week on food???? I spend $60 a week for 1 person!!!”
“I’m literally upset if I spend more than 10 bucks a day on food. Spending around 30 is legit luxury.”
“And 70$ a day on food? What kind of spread are they spending on? These kids need to learn what a grilled cheese sandwich tastes like. I’m all for good food, but have these people heard of coupons or Aldi?”
The greatest irony is that over 70% of Americans are considered overweight today. Meanwhile, ~40% of Americans are considered obese. Yet today, 82 percent of the meals Americans eat are prepared at home, according to research from NPD Group Inc.
Cooking Your Own Food Is Unhealthy
Like hello, if 70%+ of Americans are overweight and will likely die earlier than they should as a result, perhaps these food budget complaints have no merit. Perhaps cooking your own food is not only a suboptimal use of time, it is also unhealthy!
Add on the fact that the typical American has less than $100,000 saved for retirement, and maybe we definitely shouldn't care what other people think when it comes to how much we spend on food.
These articles, which are sometimes syndicated, have been read by millions. Therefore, the feedback is a true reflection of the American public majority who aren’t very healthy.
In this article, I'm going to argue why cooking your own food more than 50% of the time to save money is a suboptimal financial decision. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of complaints, but hear me out. Remember it’s always good to see the other side.
Why Cooking Your Own Food Hurts Your Finances
1) Your time is valuable.
It doesn't make much sense to come home from a long day's work and spend an hour cooking a rubber chicken dinner. You should be using this time to unwind, play with your kids, work on your side hustle, start a blog, or make more money at your job.
Calculate how much you make an hour. Now multiply that hourly rate by how long it takes you to cook a meal. This is the true cost of your meal.
2) Your marriage is valuable.
Unless you make cooking together a fun activity, spending time cooking while your partner is doing something else, like sitting on the sofa watching TV, may be harmful to your relationship. In fact, the person slaving over the stove might start resenting the partner who is doing something else.
Roughly 50% of married couples divorce. Do not underestimate the level of resentment the person doing most of the household activities may have for the one who isn't. Resentment is one of the key reasons for divorce!
3) Your toddlers grow up quickly.
Let's say you come back from work at 6 pm after leaving the house at 7 am. Your young children leave for school at 7:45 am (partner drives) and go to bed by 8:30 pm. After not seeing your little ones all day, do you really want to then spend more time away from them by cooking once you get home? Of course not.
A loving parent would muster up his or her remaining energy to spend time with their children. Besides you're not going to willingly invite toddlers into the kitchen while cooking over a hot stove due to the risk of injury.
The average amount of time spent with our kids is very low. We're talking 120 minutes on average for college-educated mothers and just 80 minutes a day for college-educated fathers. Supposedly 80%+ of the time parents spend with their children is complete by the time they are 18.
As older parents who are financially independent, the positive is we can actually spend more time with them than if we were younger and working. We plan to make up tons of lost time for having kids 3-5 years later than planned.
4) You aren't a professional cook.
The reason why you go to a doctor when something is wrong is that the doctor has had years of specialized training. You may be able to self-diagnose by Googling, but it's probably better to see someone who treats big boils all day long.
Not only are you losing an hour of your time preparing a meal, but your meal won't taste as good as one prepared by someone who professionally cooks meals for a living.
5) You're too generous with the ingredients.
If most people eat at home to save money and also believe that cooking at home is healthier, there has to be a problem with the way we cook given most Americans are overweight. Home cooks are likely adding too many unhealthy ingredients to their food preparations.
It's obvious we're cooking and eating too much food as well. At least with food delivery and restaurants, they portion out their meals so you don't eat too much. They've got their profit margins to protect.
6) You might feel pain.
Think about all the times you've sliced a finger, felt your eyes burn chopping onions, or splattered boiling water on your hand when you dumped ravioli into the pot too enthusiastically. Ouch!
Some injuries take weeks to heal. Feeling pain, even if it's only once out of every 10 times you cook, isn't a very good value proposition. Injuring yourself is one of the biggest reasons why I don't like to regularly cook. Pickleball is too much fun to miss!
7) You need your hands to play and earn.
Sometimes, you might feel way more than just pain when you cook. You might injure yourself to the point of immobility. If you slice your index finger, you won't be able to effectively swing a racket or a bat for at least a couple of weeks.
What if you accidentally pound your thumb while you're pounding meat? Any type of work that requires typing will be extremely uncomfortable. If you slice a tendon, your manual labor job might be at risk.
8) Food delivery apps are in abundance.
Since 2009, there have been a plethora of new food delivery apps to use. These apps have effectively infiltrated your city's best restaurants and now offer every type of food you can think of.
You want artery-clogging, artisan double cheeseburgers? They'll be at your doorstep in 45 minutes or less. You want a quinoa salad with a side of celery? No problem.
You can order as healthy as you want. Stop using the excuse that food delivery is unhealthy. To not take advantage of technology would be a shame.
9) Going out to eat spices things up.
Food is one of the best ways to bring people together. Not only can you take your partner out on a romantic date, but you can also invite your family and friends out to bond.
If you pay for the meal, the other side will greatly appreciate it and may potentially provide a much greater reward in the future.
10) No need for cleanup.
Not only do you not have to spend time preparing your food, by ordering delivery or going out to eat, but you also don't have to spend time cleaning up after yourself either. Less cleanup means less money spent on sponges, more room for trash, and a longer life for your furniture.
11) No need to spend as much time grocery shopping.
Nobody loves to grocery shop. It's all about coming up with a list and getting in and out as quickly as possible. Grocery shopping is like doing a chore because you've got to drive to the grocery store, look for the items, wait in line at the cash register, and then drive home.
Hopefully, you don't get an annoying door ding in the parking lot or a ticket either. Door dings can easily cost thousands to fix or are unfixable. Thankfully, there are apps to now delivery grocery for you. We use Amazon Prime and Amazon Fresh.
12) You're not out there winning business.
If you are in a marketing or sales role, then it should be your mission to go out to eat with as many clients and prospective clients as possible. Your firm should pay for all your meals and entertainment outings. If you want to save money, order extra and bring leftovers home.
Even if you have to pay for the food yourself with a dining rewards card, you should actively take interesting people out each week who can boost your network. We're in one of the biggest bull markets of our lifetime. Now is the time to press as much as possible.
13) You fall into a scarcity mindset.
One of the most important ways to get wealthy is by adopting the abundance mindset. If you constantly think that by spending time getting groceries and cooking at home will help boost your net worth, you'll develop a scarcity mindset.
Once you have a scarcity mindset, it's difficult to break out. You'll start shouting at the internet and blaming other people for why you're not wealthier, rather than take action to earn more.
Below is a chart that highlights the median and average 401(k) balance by age in America versus my recommended 401(k) amounts by age. Take a guess who has the scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset? To build wealth, you've got to aggressively go out there and earn. Think bigger!
Cook At Home In Moderation
By cooking at home, you can only save so much money. Yes, cooking is great if you enjoy cooking and are a great cook. If you are a stay at home parent, then, by all means, develop your cooking skills to provide for your family.
But even if only a few of the items pertain to you, I still say it's better to spend more time ordering delivery or eating out, than it is to cook at home. There are plenty of health conscious restaurants and vendors today too. And whether you spend 51% bringing food home or 80%, that's up to you.
Time Gets More Valuable As You Age
As you get older, your number one goal should be to win back as much time as possible to do the things that bring you the most happiness. To build wealth, you also want to allocate your time where you can earn the most amount of money.
For example, let's say I spend one hour preparing food a day. If I decide to completely eliminate cooking, I will free up 365 hours a year. With so much extra free time, I could write 182 new articles, which would fill up more than a year's worth of content. Damn, I'm never cooking again!
If you want to cook at home, do so during the holidays. No homemade meal feels better than during Thanksgiving or Christmas. Now those are special times where cooking at home is absolutely encouraged.
Cook for joy or cook for love. But don't bothering cooking your own food for the main purpose of saving money. Instead, cultivate an abundance mindset to build your fortune. Your time is extremely precious, especially if you have children and the older you get.
Cooking during the pandemic: Cooking at home to save money is more beneficial now because we're all stuck at home more often due to the pandemic. At the same time, time has become even more precious for households with young children not in school. Therefore, our family decided to order mostly take out to save time.
Please utilize your time at home to build an online business, work on your X-Factor, or look for new consulting or employment opportunities. Within the privacy of your own home, you can take more risk exploring new opportunities. As the economy opens up, you want to be ready to go!
Recommendation To Build Wealth
Now that you know the downsides of cooking your own food, it's time to put your new wisdom to good use. Sign up for Empower (previously Personal Capital), the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your finances.
The more you can stay on top of your finances, the better you can optimize your finances. After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator. It pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible using Monte Carlo simulation algorithms.
I’ve been using Empowerl since 2012. In this time, I have seen my net worth skyrocket thanks to better money \management.
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I know this article is controversial, but I like the perspective. I am struggling at night to spend time with my toddlers and the nightly kitchen marathon is leaving me burnt out and exhausted and guilty. So now I am throwing together a crockpot soup every morning so I don’t have to do a single thing at night except see my family. Very balanced all in one meal. And from the “eat out” perspective, my supermarket has wonder pre-prepared soups and I grab a loaf of bread and some cheese and call it a night! No more zillion pots and pans and dishes and meals that don’t even taste great. I also have more time for tutoring after teaching all day, so I actually am making more money! No more missing out on my children’s childhood and losing my patience!
Wow, this article is so ridiculous that must have been written as satire.
And by the way, humans have been able to survive and thrive for millenia with cooking skills long before common life skills were turned into “professions”. Those professionally trained chefs you laud started learning from their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who did home cooking and sparked their interest. I’ve eaten at restaurants where the food prepared by the “professionally trained” was terrible and my grandmother’s and aunt’s cooking much superior in flavour and quality.
The article is about opportunity cost, and whether you could be spending your time learning more money rather than cooking. If you love to cook and have a large family to cook for, cooking can be great. However, if you want to focus more on building wealth, you might better spend your time elsewhere.
This is a personal finance, Blog after all.
I can’t “go earn more money” with the time I save from eating out because I’m a cripple scraping by on SSI and you’re literally not allowed to earn more than a little bit of money on the side without losing your benefits (which includes the best damn health insurance that I’d be literally dead and/or HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars in debt without.) A
fter paying rent (which is over half of my check thankyouverymuch) I get about $300 of spending money. Luckily we also get food stamps. We make $400 of food stamps for two adults and a young ravenous child work every month. We eat very lazily and never spend more than an hour TOTAL per day cooking. Yay for meal prep and microwaves. Even with the few good points you made (like your time is valuable and it makes sense to outsource certain tasks to professionals) this horseshit article reeks of privilege.
Our system is built in such a way that some people CAN’T climb the ladder. Not everyone is as lucky as you.
Thank you for your comment and perspective (I edited out the swear words and insults). It’s a good reminder that we all come from different backgrounds, abilities, and situations, and to be mindful of others.
I feel your anger, and I’m sorry. Roughly 15% of the world has a disability of some severity, and part of my mission is to make people more aware and fight for those with disabilities.
My goal of this post is to help folks think differently about food and time, to think about opportunity costs, if any.
Communal kitchens where everyone shared cooking responsibilities would be ideal. We have to move away from everyone having their own personal kitchen, cooking for 1-4. It’s highly inefficient and doesn’t make sense that the whole country continues doing this, as if we’re living in 1820.
I agree we should all eat out, but the “eating out” options now are unhealthy or expensive (or both). I want to eat foods recommended by the USDA, MyPlate, normal kind of foods. So for example, yogurt with fruit, or baked chicken with a salad and raw veggies. I don’t want to have to go way out of my way, so your system only works in the downtown of a major city.
Eating out would easily cost a family $4000 per month if I were to continue eating the quality & diverse foods I eat now. For dinner I like fresh veggies, broiled fish, and roasted chicken. This means nearly all restaurants are out (they’re too unhealthy). Looking at entrees from restaurants, you’ll easily spend $50 for a family dinner each night. Just dinners alone would be $1500 per month. I refuse to eat “cheap” because this usually means unhealthy (e.g. too much sodium or saturated fats).
$4000 per month just isn’t viable unless you’re pulling in some extreme income.
I made cooking my hobby. I buy a lot of BOGOs and look for meat deals, freezing for later. Last night, I made a quick bechamel sauce and used it to coat microwaved frozen vegetables before baking. I served it with flounder I buy in bulk from Costco that I dredged in flour and quickly cooked with butter and lemon juice. It was delicious and as good as I have had in any non-Parisian restaurant. At the same time, I made bread in my Goodwill bread machine, and soup from all of my leftover vegetables in my instant pot (carrot, apple, onion, curry, ginger). I probably spent 30-45 minutes total putting everything together for multiple meals.
I live in Turkey. 1 Meal costs around 25 TL (3.5 USD) so if I eat out in the evening and night, I would only spend $7!! That brings the total cost to 210 USD for eating out every day. (Except morning) I do prepare my breakfast myself which is very easy to do!
It saves a ton of time for me! I feel great not thinking about what to cook etc. I understand this might not be suitable for everyone but for me, it’s a really great option.
I live in a small area so the food is very local and people who make the food are trustworthy, we have a good relationship. I will be eating out as much as I can. Maybe If I get into a relationship, it would be great to cook at home with my future gf/wife for fun but as a solo male, it’s just a waste of my time to try and cook at home for now.
Wow, I never thought about how cooking your own food is a suboptimal use of my time and unhealthy. I never thought about it that way before because I was always taught it was the better option. I’ll talk to my wife about adjusting our budget to eat out more.
Cooking is one of the things that makes me happier even more in confinement times. I prefer dining out less often in more interesting places. Doing your grocery shopping gives you full control over what you put into your mouth and I am not giving up on this.
I found it very interesting to know how there are more benefits to not cook than there are for you to cook. I have noticed that cooking doesn’t only consume your time, but sometimes you spend more than eating outside. I will start taking advantage of my time doing more important activities than just cooking, and I will start eating at local restaurants.
Fantastic points Sam! I did fall in to trap of cooking for years and I agree, it wasn’t the best use of my time. Even as a dentist who makes decent amount of money, the cooking made me develop a sense of scarcity looking at the prices. I also hate cooking. I hated that my (now ex) husband watched football all the time I cooked and washed and cleaned . I hate every bit of it and still hate it.
I do cook at home. But because I am very behind with retirement saving and need to save money. Also because I got sick due to stress of old days I can not work full time and bring in decent money. But I am all with you about picking our battles and if we can use the same amount of time and energy to do something more productive which we enjoy, we should put the guilt away and learn to take care of ourselves more and not feel guilty ordering food from outside once a while.
The biggest issue with the article is point 6 and 7, which are practically the same – “6) You might feel pain” and “7) You need your hands to play and earn.”
This is way too general an argument as there are risks to any and every activity you undertake. Car accidents, sports injuries, repetitive strain injury are all possibilities, but that does not stop a healthy, well-adjusted person from driving to work, playing sports, or having an office job. So it’s ridiculous that one should reduce their cooking time. Moreover, the more often you cook and prepare food, the more proficiency you gain over time which will reduce the chance of injury.
While the article as a whole does have a flow to it, this point which has been dragged out into two is quite irksome.
You can feel pain without significantly injuring yourself. It’s painful to get splattered with oil. But usually, you don’t get burned so bad where you can’t work.
Ridiculous article. I ate EVERY day out. Then I changed my lifestyle and started to cook every day myself. I considered myself the worst cook and said I hate cooking.
What changed with it? I spend WAY less money, I eat better (yes, you read that right), I lost weight, I feel way more healthy, I became a much better cook and I discovered, that cooking is fun and great for me, great to unwind, great for the relationship. It’s not work, it’s therapy & adventure.
Who needs one hour for every meal to cook? I’ll literally throw in 10 minutes a great meal together. Salad & Pork chops? Or buy a crock pot and just throw things in.
I’m lazy as fuck, but I found a TON of recipes that taste AMAZING and really don’t need time at all. All you need is fresh ingredients. Something to manny restaurants don’t use.
I agree. This article is fishy and idiotic. I have eaten at home for the past 10 years, I learned to cook mostly from youtube and books. I never did it for saving money, but more for health. I must’ve saved a lot of money and time driving out. Best of all, I am in great shape and have instilled a lesson for my kids to follow.
Exactly!
Cooking is more than just money and health. It’s those plus it’s an essential life skill, the satisfaction of being able to take care of oneself without always having to rely on an app.
Everything in life could be deem as a waste of time. Isn’t life itself a waste of time? Why take holiday, why travel… What a waste of time, how many articles can you write in that time?
Why sleep? Write more articles, make lots and lots of money. Just do nothing but make money.
Why have kids? All that time you could be writing articles. Imagine playing with them and you get hurt. The drama. I have heard they bite and kick, too..
Wow Sam a lot of people still choose to cook because they have to save for retirement. And even when retired they still have to cook. And when I mean cook at home or eating a home cooked meal I don’t mean eating ramen or throwing things in the microwave for 3 minutes and then boom dinner for a family is ready. I mean cooking a healthy and well balanced meat for a family (or as a couple or as to cook only for a person).
I live in Paris so the things might be slightly different (never been to the USA) but to get a healthy meal from a normal restaurant here it would cost me a good 10 to 12€ per person. We’re a family of 4 so let’s say 30€ minimum for a dinner? What about healthy lunch and breakfast? And I already skipped goûter? And drinks aren’t included in my mental calculation now.
(15€ for breakfast + 30€ for lunch + 30€ for dinner) *30 days = 2250€ per month
???? Only for food? And that’s not even a good restaurant meal that you would sit and drink and have some good times with your family. That’s just the very basic. People still have rent, bills, gas, internet, shopping, clothes, leisure, vacation fund, retirement fund, insurance, emergencies etc
I cook everyday and my husband is proud to bring his lunch box from home. I manage to cook a lot better, healthier and packed with nutrients and varieties of food with guess how much? 350€!!!!!!
So you see the difference Sam? By just cooking from home I manage to save 1900€ per month and imagine what we could’ve use that money for. We do eat out every weekend when we go out and spend our family time. We still do and I’m not saying that we have to only eat at home but 51 to 80% isn’t a good advice from a financial blog. Well at least not everyone is paid 100€ an hour and I’m sure a lot of people reading this article are from the same background as me, regardless of which country we come from.
I still have a lot to say about most of your points which are totally ridiculous but I guess I would just choose not to
I agree. This article is fishy and idiotic. I have eaten at home for the past 10 years, I learned to cook mostly from youtube and books. I never did it for saving money, but more for health. I must’ve saved a lot of money and time driving out. Best of all, I am in great shape and have instilled a lesson for my kids to follow.
Cooking at home to save money is obviously more beneficial now because we’re all stuck at home more often due to the pandemic. However, I would still encourage you to utilize this time at home to build an online business or look for new consulting or employment opportunities. Within the privacy of your own home, you can take more risk exploring new opportunities.
You’re ideas are half baked and anytime someone mentions it you come up with with some bs excuse.
This persons comment has nothing to do with COVID. Swallow your pride and admit your ideas aren’t as good as you think.
Will do. Half baked is a good term for this post.
You’re free to use your time to cook more food if you want. Don’t let me stop you.
But if you want to get wealthy, I think people should work on their X-Factor instead.
Cooking takes time and I actually don’t like any aspect of it. But guess whatnot? Work takes time and I fckng hate it. Not everyone wants a second job or side gig. I’m happy that you have found your family’s priorities in life. In our family, my husband and I have come up with an agreement that I cook (yes, I spend 20 hours a week with shopping, cooking, etc) and he pays ALL of the bills. Some of us appreciate and want to live out a traditional family lifestyle. We’re simpler, meals aren’t extravagant and guess what – we still eat out here and there and my husband doesn’t bish about it.
Sounds like a great compromise to me! Thanks for sharing.
Ever since the pandemic began, we have done mostly food delivery to save time. With two little kids under five years old at home, we simply don’t have enough energy and time to want to spend an hour a day cooking.
When you add on other responsibilities, like work for most people, it gets hard. But thankfully, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic. And we did do a lot more cooking this week on vacation.
Wow. This article resonated with me. I cannot stand cooking. Despite my pleas for help with cooking OR cleaning up afterwards, my husband does not help. If he is home when food prep is occuring he typically sits and watches TV or lounges upstairs in the bedroom (likely also watching TV). Also, I rarely receive a thank you for dinner efforts from him. I installed Alexa in the bedroom so I can let him know dinner is ready. Can you say RESENTMENT? We do have children so I am not just cooking for the two of us. I may hate the planning more than the actual cooking part.
And I am guilty – I cannot seem to cook without a recipe. I am fairly health conscious when I cook and tend to make meals that require chopping and fresh ingredients. So my husband says the fact that cooking takes so long is my fault due to my cooking choices. I am so SICK of this continual strife in our household. It is horrible for our marriage and every time I see him having what I call “butt time” while I am in the kitchen I am angry. I have expressed this frustration to him many, many, many times. I have asked him to do one meal a week (to mitigate for his explanation he won’t help because my meals are too much work). The answer from him at that time was “no.” because he was busy coaching soccer for our boys. I have asked him if he thinks it is my job to cook for the family. Never received a clear answer on that question. Second disclosure is that I do not work – BUT I care for my Mom, have serveral volunteer jobs that either benefit our children or the community, take care of the kids, and manage every other aspect of our lives. My personal goal is to work through the food in our freezer and pantry and then I think I am going to do Home Chef or something of that ilk. I cannot believe the level of anger I feel towards this one aspect of our lives and that he is unwilling to help. I watch my brother and his wife cook together every time we are over there and wonder why my husband cannot partner with me in that way. And I do not micro-manage – I know that is a guarantee he will never help again. I have had enjoyable time cooking with my friends and my brother – because it is a joint activity and we have a good time. But currently in our household it is a solo chore I loathe.
Open to advice.
Sorry to hear your husband isn’t pitching in! How annoying and frustrating.
You must not let your resentment fester. Sit him down, tell him calmly and precisely what is bothering you and how he can help. See if you can do other things in exchange.
Your husband’s actions are foreign to me b/c I’m in charge of the income, wealth management, food, and cleaning in the house . But I do the work b/c I want to provide and care for the family. Perhaps he feels unappreciated by you regarding all his work and money he brings?
Easiest solution is to tell him how much you appreciate him working hard to provide for the family, and then move in to suggest some different things. Men, like women, want to be appreciated. Otherwise, things go to hell.
Just fyi Buckeye Girl, that is not great advice.
If he sees your work as not valuable and his as valuable, he doesn’t value your time. Obviously, he doesn’t respect it, as he makes you do something you hate. If you explain you hate it and he doesn’t care, that says a lot. Ask him how he would feel if you made him go to a job cleaning storm drains for a living or something he equally hates as much as you loath cooking, but because it was “his job” he shouldn’t complain (when in reality, all people complain about their jobs, but women are not supposed to complain about “household work” it’s just expected.) Also, if he only values “hard work” point him to this study that showed that Stay at home mothers work the equivalent of 2.5 FULL TIME jobs! (This is just one of a million articles on the subject, just look up “moms work equivelant of” ) https://bigthink.com/news/no-surprise-to-moms-everywhere-its-equivalent-to-25-full-time-jobs
So while he might feel too tired from his full time job, remind him you also have a full time job, which when stretched to include cooking, is unbearably straining for you. Add if he wouldn’t like to help with cooking, ask if he wouldnt share one of the dozens of other responsibilities you’ve had to take on that he just assumes you should do. As a last resort, you can make the world’s easiest meals, reheated, frozen, throw-together meals only. You’ll probably spend more money, but you’ll save yourself valuable time; and hey, if he complains he wants a real, slow cooked, complex four course meal, you can tell him to make one himself, because you do not have it in you. Use your brother’s relationship as a positive model for what would make you happy, and I hope I hope he does see you as an equal partner and not the nanny/cook.
It has also been shown that if SAHMs were paid, the salary would be 162k/year, so your time IS valuable. Ask him what he would do if you just stopped doing all of these things for him? Remind him you are not an employee to him, you are supposed to be his partner. https://www.mother.ly/news/sahms-would-earn-162k-survey-finds
lmao, 2.5 jobs. you’re high, that is grossly misleading. The study is horseshit and I question the methodology.
2,000 American moms of children aged five to 12 were surveyed for this study by the company Welch’s. Some of the results:
– Average daily start time: 6:23 a.m. (fair)
– Average end time (when they are officially “off the clock”): 8:31 p.m. (fair)
– The average mom gets just 1 hour and 7 minutes to herself every day
(horseshit) this is highly dependant on firstly how you qualify “to herself” as, if you mean the average mother is literally chasing a child or engage in a task actively for 13 hours a day, either you have a newborn or you are fucking everything up so badly.
If you only have 1 hour to yourself you are fucking up being a stay at home parent or being a cry baby about what you qualify as “time to yourself” being a stay at home parent is basically a standby job with some errands thrown in, half of which you’d already be doing and now you are just scaling up.
I don’t disagree completely with this article. But it’s harder to argue against cooking your own food when you are married with four children (especially when some of those children are teenagers with huge appetites). Our food budget is around $1200 per month — that’s about $1000 for groceries and about $200 for eating out. If we ate out for even one meal every day for six people, that would be something like $1200 to $1500 per month for eating out, and we would still need to buy groceries for the other two meals per day. So our total food bill would go from $1200/month to maybe $2000/month, as a rough estimate. Could we make up that extra money with extra income, with the time saved by not cooking? Maybe, but it would mean earning a very high hourly rate for those hours saved — high enough not to be realistic for us at this time.
By teaching your kids not to cook, you are setting them up for a disaster. Cooking is one of the most important thing you will learn because food is what humans need to survive. If we don’t know how to cook food we won’t be able to survive in case of emergency. I was tweleve years old when the war in Bosnia started and we had to go back to stone age for next 4 years. No electricity, no water, no food, no medicine and no cosmetics. In this age everyone worries about now and everyone wants everything now. No country is immune to natural disasters or wars. People take everething for granted and they don’t realize that everything we use including electronics and internet can be lost overnight. That’s a big problem. We need to learn how to be patient and enjoy life. So what if it takes more than an hour to cook dinner? Having a home made meal is much more important than staring at a computer trying to work on your side hustle.
Restaurant food is full of calories, salt, sodium and it is not fresh. If you cook at home you may spend the same amount of money, but when it cones to food, health should be more inportant than money.
This might be something good for larger families. I live alone and only need to cook for myself. I can make something in an hour. Recipes usually are for four servings up to eight servings. I eat one serving and put the rest of the servings in the freezer. Then I have a home made frozen meal in the freezer waiting for me most nights that I just nuke in the microwave oven. It doesn’t take a lot of time for cooking or clean up. I don’t have toddlers running around. I’m not a corporate woman. I retired at a relatively young age and now work part time as a substitute teacher. This gives me time to cook and do crafts to give as gifts and saves a lot of money. I work in my yard and only hire out someone to mow. Sure, I could go to work and earn $15 to $20 an hour and work 80 to 100 hours a week while hiring out house cleaning and yard work. I could spend several hundred dollars on Christmas presents, but I enjoy cooking and I enjoy doing crafts. I like the smell of fresh home made bread throughout my house. I did not enjoy working as a data entry operator and being stressed out to make a quota and pass a quality audit everyday.
Cooking while holding a full-time job in the Bay Area can take the last bit of sanity out of most professionals, especially those who work in demanding tech jobs. Many of my colleagues cooked only during special occasions. Otherwise they are fine with a combination of takeouts, DoorDash, or Uber Eats to satisfy whatever meals they can’t get at work, even for married couple with children to raise. I was initially astonished but it’s simply how much people value their free time.
Don’t these so-call professionals have spouses that can cook? If the professional makes that much money why would you need two paychecks?
I agree
Because sometime starting in the 1970s, there was a women’s liberation movement, and more women wanted to enter the workforce, utilize their education, and become breadwinners.
More power to equality!
I don’t care to be out in the workforce. I’d rather do the work around my house than go to the office and face abuse so I can pay someone else to do work that I enjoy doing.
Well said! Could not agree more. I always thought going to work should be fit into life after everything else is taken care of, not other way around. Then as I grew up, there was this pesky little thing i learnt about called money ….
Thanks for giving me another thing to think about during my busy schedule, Sam!
Sam has a great list of rebuttals to “Cooking at home saves money” which is stated as fact by many budgeting experts. But if instead of time spent in the kitchen I can be performing some other high value/high leverage activity, then I should get out there and DO THAT. I cook a lot and I enjoy the activity, but looking at the time spent cooking, it is a bit of a selfish use of my time that maybe the rest of my family is not benefiting from as much as I tell myself.
Someone who aspires to be wealthy needs to maximize the best use his or her finite lifecycles.
When our kids were younger, I did a lot of cookiing at home using the microwave. Chicken, beef, steak, etc. Allowed me to do the side dishes on the cooktop. We ate our once a week. The microwave is under rated for its convenience and time saving. Now our kids are grown. I take a Walmart frozen dinner for lunch. $2 a day for lunch in DC area. Cheap eats and the taste isn’t bad. I prefer to fully fund our retirement instead.
The question is, with all the microwaved food and frozen dinners, are you and your kids in the ideal weight range?
This is the biggest variable thats missing from the comments. We can’t see how physically fit everyone who is against not cooking at home is.
Most people cook their own food; Most people are overweight. Therefore homecooking causes obesity, and eating out is smarter.
The rooster crows; the sun rises. Therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise. Huh?
Before RE, our food budget was $400/mo for two of us. Beef was out of the question. Every Sat., my wife cooked several meals to be consumed over the rest of the week, while I did auto/home maintenance; we each did what we were good at and enjoyed. Sundays, she baked fresh bread and the house smelled wonderful. Our smart co-workers ate out constantly.
Early Retired now, on a small ranch 35 miles from town. Food budget is $500/mo for two of us. If we want beef, we eat beaf. My wife still fixes multiple dinners on Sat., and I still maintain the car which now has 300,000 miles on it. Fresh bread still shows up, but since retirement, it shows up on any given day. Our smart co-workers still eat out constantly and are still working.
After reading your column, I feel so DUMB! :(
Maybe it is because you just realized you ARE dumb?
Of course cooking at home is great if you have your wife cook your food for you.
Do you think most people are early retired? Do you not believe having a wife cook at home while you don’t have to take care of kids makes it easy for you?
Pretty soon, you’re going to tell me that you only speak one language and have never left the country.
DLO
you seem to have missed the part where we each did something we love, that was productive for our family and saved tons of money. We both worked at work. We worked at home, and worked at having a great life. On a budget. Which is on-topic for this forum. No, not everyone is retired, but life does not end at FIRE. You may actually get there, too. If you can get there by eating out constantly, then great! We couldn’t possibly feed ourselves for $500 by eating out. None of what I posted is worthy of your insults, but to appease you, I speak two languages, and have traveled outside of my country. Neither of which has any bearing on my finances or success in life. While you clearly do not value my opinion, you are certainly free to express yours as you have. Tolerant much?
I’m very tolerant, but not of people who are ignorant and fail to see the other side. It’s as if you ignored all the points in this post.
You forgot to mention kids. Who cooks for the kids after a long day’s work? You? I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like you have kids at all, which explains why you don’t understand the other side.
I have two kids with another on the way. My wife is a nurse and works 13 hour shifts three times a week. About a year ago, I started doing all the cooking, when I realized we were burning over $1200 per month on eating out. We now spend about $500 on groceries and $200 on eating out (It’s hard for my wife to give up on eating out completely).
My kids did not gain weight from switching to home cooked meals. They’re both at normal weights for their age and heights. I cook meals from scratch. I mostly cook Mexican food: tacos, tostadas, posole, beans, rice, etc. Sometimes I’ll make some Italian: spaghetti, chicken alfredo, parmigiana chicken, or lasagna. So not necessarily super low calorie foods.
I’ve actually dropped weight. At 5′ 8″ I was approaching 300 lbs, I am now at 200.
As for not spending time with my kids, I don’t think cooking takes away from that. I multi-task. I’ll feed the baby on his high chair while I cook and my 6 year old does his homework on the kitchen table. If he needs help with something, I’m right there. Often, I’ll cook a couple of days in advance so I don’t always cook everyday. When my 6 year old gets a little older, I’m going to have him help me cook.
I definitely understand the convenience of eating out and how much time it can save, but at the same time you can live a healthier life if you eat at home while saving a ton of money. It wasn’t easy finding the right groove but now that I found it I wouldn’t turn back.
What are some of the reasons why you cannot see the financial merit of spending your time earning more money, on a financial blog, in addition to the unhealthy eating habits of Americans?
The main focus of this post and the site is to build wealth, not so much lose weight.
Not being able to see different perspectives is a lack of intelligence.
What Sam says for the SF Bay Area residents is TRUE. We as a family eat out 4-5 days a week and it saves us on time and money. There are always healthier options on most menus and the time you’ll get back is absolutely priceless! Thanks for the post Sam and keep up the great work!
After I read this article, I decided to increase meals prepared by my personal chef from 1 per day to 2 per day. Now I just need to figure out how to get her to stop talking to me the whole time, so I can focus on work!
Dear Sam, I’ve been reading your blog for maybe five years and never posted before. Just want to say thanks for your content which always makes me think even if I don’t always agree. More thoughtful exchange of ideas wouldn’t be a bad thing given the current political climate. I think it’s great that you’ve done so well in life and share your helpful tips with us all. I’m grappling with the question right now of when to retire (aged 45 with $1mn net worth but very modest consumption habits).
Even though we are all bombarded with stats on longevity I have just seen many family members and friends family members pass away in their 70s. So I’d like to pull the ripcord now given that not so sure I’ll make it to 90s statistically but I hesitate because of age discrimination. Meaning, I appreciate I only have a few more years in a standard office job before I start hitting less ability to get hired and retain work. Anyway I always appreciate your posts and wish you all the best!!
Thanks for offering an interesting perspective on this subject. I have a few contributions I hope are valuable:
1. I think the correlation between people who make food at home and are overweight is off. I think overall food choices are the reason for the obesity epidemic. The same people who make the fattest, unhealthy food or quick food which is generally super processed and full of junk are going to eat the same thing when they go out. If they were going to eat a DiGiorno’s pizza at home, they’d just eat a Pizza Hut Pizza if they went out. If they were going to make a fatty cheeseburger and fries at home, they’d just go to Red Robin if they went out. If they eat healthy meals at home which cost more and have a larger time investment, they’d eat at a quality restaurant they know would be healthy and that meal would cost a lot more as well.
Until the food choices change, I don’t think it matters where people eat, they’ll still be overweight.
2. If you wanted to eat at home and cook and have the benefit still of having family time, there are a lot of healthy eating meal
kit delivery services around now that not only sell you healthy meals, but also in the proper proportions so you don’t overeat, and that are fresh ingredients that are good for you. This is a great article on Epicurious (https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/every-meal-kit-delivery-service-in-america-article) which lays out over 2 dozen and ranks them!! As you will see, this is a great compromise between making your own meals from scratch and eating out…there’s no food waste in your fridge or cupboards (think about the thousands of dollars sitting in your pantry and fridge that may never get eaten as we speak), and the cost of the top selection is roughly $200 a week for a family of four!! And you are eating fresh food that is good for you that can take as little as 10 minutes to prepare.
We just ate out lunch and dinner in very reasonable Williamsburg, Virginia and that added up to $120..so clearly there is money to be saved and time to be saved eating this way….
Might be a good edit for your article…make even be some affiliate link money to be made too!
I’ve tried out several meal kit services and none of them take less than 20-30 minutes to prepare. I don’t really save time by doing the meal kit thing. Maybe in the planning and shopping stages, but the actual prep/cook part is more time consuming than most of my own homemade tried and true recipes.