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My boyfriend (20) and I (18) have been living together for 2 years in an urban apartment. For us, it usually goes like this:

  1. Delivery
  2. Eating out
  3. Cooking at home

We visit our parents (and they visit us) often, and they give us lots of home-cooked food. We mostly cook at home just for fun.

I’m curious what it’s like for other people, especially in different age groups or family setups!

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[–] philpo@feddit.org 1 points 6 minutes ago

Cooking at home. The wife cooks "everyday" meals because somehow she is much faster than I am, I cook for special occasions (e.g. when we have guests),but she became so good over the years she also does that often.

We rarely (like twice a year) use convenience food due to allergies and quality and most of the time cook "from zero", so that's a bit more time consuming but still manageable.

Mealie or Tandoor help a lot here, as you can better plan your cooking and build a menu for the week. (E.g. "If I do this on Monday, I have ingredients B and broth left over/can easily do more so I will do something with B on Tuesday and Soup on Wednesday. Oh, when I do noodles for soup I can also do a bit more and make pasta for Thursday") Additionally it makes it easier to adapt new recipes - we do various European dishes,from Portugal to Romania, some African and Arabian ones, some Indian, some South-East Asian ones and some Japanese and a lot of Korean ones. (We both lived abroad for a long time when we were younger). Especially for these rather "unusual" dishes planning is required as we sometimes need to order things online. (As getting some things is hard in rural central Europe). Grocy helps with that.

Delivery or Take Away is a rare choice,not only because it's often inferior quality, it's also fucking expensive. I can literally cook for a workweek for the money greek takeaway costs here. While we would have the financial means it's simply, well, wasteful. In all aspects.

Eating out is something we rarely do. We both do have probably four times the "eating out" occasions due to our jobs than private ones. But when we do it, we plan it very carefully. It can be everything from a "hole-in-the-wall" in a sketchy backyard to a Michelin three star restaurant,but when we do it, it's never out of "we are hungry, let's go" and more a "we are interested in this and this, let's find a restaurant that serves this."(E.g. the last time we went out it was a Persian/Iranian restaurant that various Persian/Iranian friends recommended. It was absolutely worth it)

The funny side effect? The kiddo(s) have been to three Michelin star restaurants before they were three. They know how to behave in a restaurant. They only sometimes used to get angry when someone handed them the kids menu. K1 cooks African, Georgian, Romanian, etc. dishes on the same level as my wife and went to shop alone at the African store in town when they cooked for us. Which is run by a few very scary looking (but in reality very nice and very correct - they saved two girls from sexual assault a few years ago) Nigerian dudes that half the town js scared off. They drag their grandparents - which on one side were born behind the iron curtain and rarely eat out- into hole-in-the-wall backalley restaurants in Berlin, etc. This is one of the achievements I am really proud of.

People: Learn to cook. Seriously.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

Prices where I live. Cooking at come cost like 2 bucks. Delivery cost 20. Eating out cost 50.

I'm cooking at home.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Cooking at home almost all the time. Sometimes though when im already out i want to treat me and my boyfriend to a nice date at a restaurant

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 4 hours ago

eating out is pretty expensive, if you are doing it everyday, at a restaurant.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 hours ago

Usually delivery and eating out ends up being much more expensive in the long run than cooking at home where you can buy things in bulk when on sale and store Ina fridge or freezer until you need it, but you need the space to store a lot of food which many apartments don't have.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

So you're saying you're constantly broke. Getting delivery all the time is hella expensive

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Or that they're very wealthy

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

3 kid family. Food is expensive. Wife learned to cook very well by her mother when growing up. She cooks most nights. We only go out to eat or have it delivered/takeout for 3 reasons: 1) she’s exhausted, 2) we’re traveling, 3) special occasions. Unfortunately, she’s such a good cook that we rarely eat at a place that made the dish better and it leaves the kids wishing she just made it at home which is awesome for me since it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.

So:

  1. Cooking at Home
  2. Eating Out
  3. Delivery/Takeout
[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Single guy, single family home with two teens just leaving for college

  1. Cook at home
  2. Takeout (because chipotle exists)
  3. Eat out

I essentially never do delivery, it’s too expensive. You’re paying extra for eat out food but don’t even get to eat out.

Chipotle has an excellent group order function in their app! I can send an invite to my kids while they’re out so they can add to the family order and have them grab it on their way home.

Plus I love cooking. I need to find some sort of group for sharing meals. In fact I have a 12 lb pork shoulder ready to go on the smoker tomorrow but it’s just me. Who wants some pulled pork?

Edit for the folks at !fuckcars@lemmy.world , as the last breakfast before my little one left for college, we walked about a mile, half on trail, to an old-style diner for breakfast.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 points 14 hours ago

Cook at home every time, I could happily never have fast food again. The only reason I ever eat it is when in a group and someone else decides that is what we are doing.

[–] scoobford@lemmy.zip 3 points 13 hours ago

I'm poor. I rarely eat out and I think I ordered delivery once in college.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 12 points 19 hours ago

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.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

Same here. Except pizza. I'll get that delivered, because it doesn't involve a third party.

Id like to go out more often, but nowadays, I can't take my family out to eat for under $100.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

I have a different point of view. Pizza is one of those things that's easy and cheap to make myself, so I make that myself.

On the rare occasion I do order or go out to eat, I prefer food I can't cook myself very well, like persian or asian food.

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[–] grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

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

[–] hedge_lord@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

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:

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

  2. Delivery (it always ends badly)

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

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 14 hours ago
  1. Cooking at home
  2. Take out (not delivery)
  3. Eating out (sit down)
[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 18 points 23 hours ago (33 children)

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?

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 hours ago

£15 each for 2 of us here. I just don't really see much need to spend more than that.

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[–] safesyrup@feddit.org 25 points 1 day ago

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

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

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.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 9 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 15 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

Holy moley, the expense of that

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So nobody's going to bite on the "moved out with your partner at 16 with your parents' blessing" thing? You guys have way more self-control than I do.

[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean that's how they afford to get food delivered every day. Too much money, spoilt.

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[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 13 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Who can realistically life off eating out or delivery in 2025?

The math don't math for 80% of population unless you can get every meal under 10... Which is nearly impossible

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