> Is that because, based on other comments here, you're already invested in a kitchen and, as a result, are forgetting to factor in that substantial cost? But that would be like if you owned your own silicon fab. You would no doubt also wonder how anyone could afford to buy their processors from Intel for hundreds of dollars when you can make your own for pennies. But you're not actually making them for pennies when you need to lay the capital upfront.
You're right that ignoring the cost of a kitchen discounts the cost of cooking at home, but I think you're drastically overestimating the cost of purchasing a kitchen. In another thread you mentioned $60,000 for a kitchen, a number which I think is way too high. I suspect that this is a case of the average being dragged up by the outliers. After all, high end kitchens can get very expensive, but we're not looking at high end income earners.
So, let's look at it from the perspective of someone buying a used home. Let's assume that they're buying basic, at median prices and reasonable sizes.
A basic kitchen remodel is somewhere in the neighborhood of $24,000[0][1], including all new cabinetry, countertops, flooring, plumbing, and appliances. Presumably installing a new kitchen in a new building is significantly cheaper since that is less labor intensive than remodeling. The median house costs in the neighborhood of $100/sq. ft[2], with a typical small kitchen being anywhere from 70-100 square feet. Even assuming that the cost/ft doesn't already include the kitchen itself, we have a bare minimum price of about $34,000 for a basic kitchen fully installed.
(This does not account for the fact that the $103/sq. ft. number includes the kitchen that comes with the house, and thus we are double counting some costs).
A 30 year mortgage on $34,000 is $441.76, which is $5.89 a person a day for a 2.5 person household, or $2.94 each for lunch and dinner. So in order for a basic kitchen to pay itself off, each meal must be at least $2.94 cheaper than what you would pay dining out. This is obviously quite hard to do if you're buying the cheapest calories available, but trivial if your typical meal is more expensive than say, Chipotle.
And of course, this is a pessimistic analysis. As you've mentioned, your typical American is purchasing a used house, which absent a growing market means that they're financing the depreciated value of that kitchen.
Now if the cost per square foot was closer to $850 per square foot, a not unreasonable estimate for San Francisco proper, one would quickly question whether the $59,500 was worth it for the space of a small kitchen alone.
> The luxury isn't cooking. The luxury is being able to have a large room full of machinery dedicated to preparing meals for, on average, 2.5 people. These days, average people can barely afford living spaces as-is.
I would argue that if having a kitchen is such an obvious luxury as you propose, we'd see more housing move to eliminate it. Instead our evidence is that you have to be extremely far up the COL curve before having a kitchen is no longer worth the space. Even in incredibly crowded markets like NYC it is more common to see apartments give up a separate bedroom before falling back to a half kitchen.
SF is certainly the outlier in terms of cost, so if any place in the US was going to have a local trend of abandoning full kitchens or even half kitchens, it would be there.
> Generally speaking, the poor have to buy used houses that already have kitchens for a lot of historical reasons. They have little opportunity to not become invested in the means of production, even when it is not ideal from a purely economic point of view.
Yes, the poor do have to buy kitchens. But they also buy cheap kitchens, which continues to tilt the equation towards cooking being cheaper. Instead it appears like time and energy are actually what drives people towards dining out, not cost.
0 - https://www.homedepot.com/c/cost_kitchen_remodel
1 - https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/kitchens/remodel-a-kitchen/
2 - https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-house-price...