How Much Money Do You Save by Cooking at Home? | Hacker News Reader

How Much Money Do You Save by Cooking at Home?

priceonomics.com

8 pointszvanness11 comments

I assumed that a website like “priceonomics” would factor time spent on shopping and prep. I’m a reasonably good cook, but “eating in” means losing about 90 minutes to shopping, prep, and cleanup, that could otherwise be spent on work, side projects, or reading (mix recreational and vocational).

I suppose it varies based on career and lifestyle, but I believe that most of the readers of this site, at least, feel more of a crunch on time than cash.

Food preparation and shopping, like a lot of skills, becomes a bit more efficient the more you do them. Eventually you become better at using your time.

And, you can cook more at once. Nothing says you have to start from scratch every day of the week; in my case I often cook Sunday nights and make 2 or 3 dishes. If you read through recipes a bit, you can find ways to reuse the same preheated oven, etc.

And, home cooked meals tend to be healthier. This is a form of time saving; while pretty hard to prove unfortunately, I strongly suspect that “losing about 90 minutes” now and having a healthier life will buy years down the road.

Well yes, but:

1. You might want to see prepping, cooking and cleanup as relaxing activity that let your brain work in the background. The very same way taking a break and going out for a walk or taking a shower help you come out of a dead end.

2 - phase can be optimised or skipped altogether. Everyone comes up with their own way. For me this means taking as much advantage of my microwave oven as I can (a microwave pressure cooker really is one of the best deals I got recently).

Not only that, but their home "meals" are a little bit ridiculous. Evidently "less than 250 calories [1] of straight pork with no veggies, carbs, or drink" is what they consider a meal.

[1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(32+%2F+6)+oz+of+pork+...

In which the cost of labor is apparently excluded.

Also excluded: food wasted at home.

To me the big pro of cooking at home is truly knowing what I eat. No nasty oils, no food preheated in plastic trays, etc.

Admittedly, I'm quite lazy so I just have very easy to prepare stuff. Salads, stews and steamed or roasted fish or lamb (only twice per week).

I honestly waste a lot more food when I ordered take out or eat at a restaurant.

While I once used to eat everything that's on my plate because it's a pity to waste food, I've then learnt to just stop eating when I'm full.

On one hand this alone made me lose some weight, on the other hand I can't always save excess food for the next meal (example: restaurant or delivered things like french fries and things like that).

> I can't always save excess food for the next meal (example: restaurant or delivered things like french fries and things like that).

This doesn't quite make sense to me. Although there are certainly items that don't keep particularly long, say, more than a day, I have trouble coming up with a common restaurant food that can't be saved at all, with proper refrigeration.

Fully cooked potatos, such as french fries, I've never had trouble with, and they even reheat well and easily in a convection toaster oven.

I've never been able to do anything with day-old rice.

What happens to it after 24 hours in your refrigerator that makes it inedible? What temperature is your refrigerator? (Yes, I know few fridges have actual thermometers, but it's remarkably important both for food safety and, in many cases, palatability)

My go-to suspicion would be drying out, but I've never had a problem with that, even in an incompletely sealed takeout container kept refrigerated for a couple days. With the most-moisture-permeable container, I just sprinkle some extra water onto the rice when reheating in the microwave, and that makes up for it.

Aside from microwaving it with a tablespoon of water (which perks it right up), it's perfect for making Asian-style fried rice dishes.

It's also not bad in chicken soup.

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