Ask Lemmy

My partner and I are mid-40s, and our meals go like this:

1. Cooking at home
2. Delivery
3. Pick-up/take-away that we pick up from the place ourselves and then eat at home
4. Eat out at restaurant

Reason being for all this:

I enjoy cooking

Partner and I both have no issue eating the same thing for dinner ever day for a week or more, so I make a huge portion and then we eat it for an entire week/until it's totally gone

Delivery costs are expensive, even before tip

Partner and I both have dietary restrictions that make ordering from somewhere difficult when they're not clear about what ingredients they're using

We save a ton of money by cooking at home

1. Cooking at home
2. Take out (not delivery)
3. Eating out (sit down)

I live alone and I get meal kits delivered so I can cook at home

Keep track of your spending. Don't just eyeball it. Dining out and delivery are very expensive.

Like a couple weeks ago I ordered dinner to eat with a friend realized the bill was like a whole week's food budget all at once.

Rice, beans, vegetables, cheese, wraps? Like $5. Ordering two similar burritos? $30. That savings adds up.

Anyway, to answer your question and stop giving unsolicited advice: I almost always cook at home. I don't have the income to do otherwise. When I had a high paying job I would order more food delivered.

Cooking at home
getting cooked food from home
Eating out (usually due to work)

I have always cooked at home more. At this point I can make food as good or better than what we get at restaurants so only go out to have a good time. Once every two weeks or so we do get takeout (or more precisely, husband gets takeout) because I won't have time to cook, and about once a month we go out to a restaurant.

Work lunches half leftovers and half restaurant, there is a Panera across the street from work and a cafe in the building that has a grill, a fully cooked meal, and a sandwich line, so not like fast food.

ETA: Mid 50s, work full time and then some, husband and still 2 kids at home plus usually the girlfriend of one or the other of them (the kids not husband, lol)

Haha I wish I could afford that! I live alone and I'm in my mid twenties. Instead it's more like:

1. Quick meal (requires little prep and little cooking time, maybe some garlic spaghetti)

2. Big meal (a big stew I made a few days ago and put in the fridge)

3. Porridge (super reliable, very cheap, incredibly fast to prepare, add frozen blueberries)

And then:

5. Eating out (a good treat for a special occasion)

6. Delivery (it always ends badly)

Pad with rice if ever possible. Eat some beans. Frozen vegetables with seasoning salt.

95% cooking at home. It can be like simple meal to more complex. I love cooking so I don't mind. And we are saving up so such that way. Eating out is getting more and more expensive and what I am getting in my plate is just shrinking. Delivery? When we want something very specifics. It happens once or twice a month.

We would go out once in awhile when back when but that sorta transitioned to pickup as we found our home just much more comfortable. We were doing it pretty often but inflation has us almost always cooking now.

We tend to do pickup 1-2 times a week, and 1-2 times dine out. Occasionally somethibg fast for breakfast or lunch.

85+% cooking at home. Cooking is often a little generous - sandwiches, something premade from the grocery, simple things like cereals are maybe as much as half of that.

Holy moley, the expense of that

Eating at a restaurant easily costs 4x+ what I can make at home, even fast food.

I've done the math many times. My average plate at home costs no more than $2 (and I eat pretty much whatever I want).

Let that sink in. Calculate the difference over a week, a month, a year.

Delivery: never, too expensive when we can just take the car and get what we want.

Eating out: mostly me on her, oh you mean food, nah, only ever on date nights, which with two kids is maybe once a month if we're lucky.

Cooking at home: probably 345 days of the year. Cheaper, tastes better, more healthy, setting a good example for the kids.

I envy your financial situation that you can afford to do that.

My weekly grocery budget (single person household) is £25 (~US$34), which is about the price of a decent meal for one person in a low-end restaurant here. Seven days food and other household supplies for the price of one meal. Stop and think on that for a bit, maybe.

Family do help me out from time to time, but they're not exactly rolling in money either, so what they provide would otherwise be covered by that budget. They just help me stretch things a bit further.

Could I afford to spend a bit more? Possibly. But I like to keep a little extra put by for that inevitable disaster where I have to hire someone to fix what neither I nor my family can handle.

Perhaps importantly here, I like to know that I could get by without family help, and I'm pretty sure I could. Can you say the same?

Always cook at home, eating out as a treat once in a while and never use delivery.

Cook at home is the default; even the lunches our kids eat at school are packed from home.

We never get delivery; we get takeout sometimes when it's getting late and we're tired, but usually that's just the mains and one of us still makes the starch and the veg sides at home while the other goes to get the takeout.

Eating out is pretty much only special occasions and when company is visiting town.

Couple with kids, very small SFH in Chicago but it was the same when we lived in an apartment. If anything we are at home more, because taking young kids to a restaurant is risky at best.

85% cook at home, 15% eat out or take out (around once a week), 0% delivery. What we save from eating out and delivery goes into buying more stuff at the grocery store to make various dishes at home.

Delivery isn’t worth it a lot of the time. Even eating out costs too much. I can cook, so I’d rather just do it myself. If restaurants start to fold, I will have no sympathy. They priced out the working man, and if the rich man doesn’t support them, well, they gotta lay in the bed they made.

Making a burger was easy before. Air fryers mean anyone can make a burger that beats any fast food place and most sit down restaurants. What separates a burger made by a pro chef from mine is, the pro chef uses better meat, that is freshly sourced and ground that day. They also mix two or more kinds and grind them together. They use American cheese and pickles for chemistry reasons and they’re good enough for most people. I use pepper jack because it’s higher quality and tastes better.

I’m working on my taco game. Tacos are so hard to get right, but when you do, when you get on par with local Mexican places with Mexicans cooking it, it’s so rewarding. (Getting over Taco Bell is child’s play.) I will not say I’ve done better than authentic. I’ve gotten close to their level though. A local taqueria is hard to beat!

Pasta is too easy. There are a couple tips. Learn al dente and stop cooking pasta just before that stage. Drain but leave a little of the starchy water. With pasta sauce, check the ingredients for sugar! If they’ve included it, fine. If not, add some! So tomatoes are super acidic. They will upset your stomach. Sugar counters that. I also add crushed red pepper, cayenne powder, Abe either Texas Pete or Tabasco — basically a red hot sauce. Frank’s is another one. So basically I make something called arrabiata — that’s Italian for angry pasta. Not too hot but a bit of a kick. With meatballs and penne pasta.

I almost exclusively cook at home because it is much cheaper for a warm meal. Same when i am with my girlfriend.

Groceries delivered, make my own meals.

I haven't eaten at a restaurant in years and I don't plan on that changing any time soon.

I cook the vast majority of my meals. Wife and I eat out a couple times a week to mix it up a bit. My lunches are probably 90% cooked.