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Comment by kingkongreveng_ | Hacker News Reader

OK, let's allow $4 for dinner: frozen chicken, bagged frozen vegetable, bagged frozen squash; takes about 15 minutes to nuke up.

$2 for breakfast. Three eggs scrambled in plenty of butter. Some nuked frozen berries in half a cup of whole plain yogurt. Five minutes prep.

$2 for lunch. Some celery, a can of sardines, and a large glass of half&half. Zero prep time, aside from rinsing celery.

This is roughly what I eat and there is no way you can save time or come close to matching the cost at restaurants or even with pre-packaged food. I don't even go to the grocery store: peapod drops my list off every two or three weeks.

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You are making an effort to eat cheaply. Clearly it can be done. I think most people will lose the $2/person/meal lunch budget because they aren't willing to eat a can of sardines every day forever, and I think $4 is (a) a noticeably cheap dinner and (b) more expensive than some takeout meals portioned appropriately.

Also: a glass of half and half? Really? I get the milk carb thing, but why not just drink something with no carbs or fat?

> You are making an effort to eat cheaply

It's more about convenience and I what I like, actually. No real effort to each cheap. I like eggs and I like whole fat dairy. And in truth I do often eat cod or flank steak or whatever, so up the daily cost by maybe 50%, but it's still peanuts compared to eating out.

> a glass of half and half? Really?

I go through half a stick of butter, a glass or two of half&half, and some whole fat yogurt daily. First, it's delicious. Second, dairy fat is frickn diesel. You can run on all cylinders for ages.

If you control for portion size (instead of just eating what the fast food chains give you), your meal plan is just barely cheaper than Domino's Pizza, Chipotle Burritos, Subway Footlongs, and Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets value meals (and those come with not one but three different kinds of peppers and savory spices).

I agree, don't eat Wendy's (it will also kill you), and I salute you for operating almost entirely on dairy fat, but I think my point stands: it isn't necessarily or even likely cheaper to cook than to eat out.

To be fair, if you're comparing against McD's, you're comparing the cheapest foods available on both sides. You have a point that the costs tend to converge on the low end, so if your primary metric is cost it doesn't matter so much. However, when you get past fast food to the mid-range, your average dinner entre at a restaurant is going to be at least $10, while the home-cooked meal is going to be like $5.

For food of the same quality, cooking at home is cheaper. The absolute minimum cost of either food is comparable (corollary: there is worse fast food available than you could cook yourself).

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