Assuming you have … appliances to cook and prepare the food
An inexpensive toaster oven and hot plate is all you need to make anything. The money you save in the first week of buying groceries instead of eating out will more than pay for those two appliances. Every week thereafter is more money in your pocket to put toward debt, fun, etc.
How rich are you that $20 in savings isn’t worth 30 minutes cooking time? That’s $40 per hour after tax, which if you work full time puts you in the top 20% richest Americans.
Even if you can’t share appliances with friends or neighbors, a stove, pan, microwave, and fridge combined cost only a couple months’ profit up front. Save up $400 one time and in five years you’ll have $5000 more than if you keep buying takeout.
(I’m assuming you cook for multiple meals at once and put the remainder in the fridge/freezer)
My jobs don’t have “work as long as you like” schedules. You work until the day is done - even if you’d rather be cooking. I’m up at 5 to start the day and don’t get home until 8 or 9 most nights. With so little time at home, I don’t have 30 minutes to dedicate to cooking.
Yeah - I could spend my weekend cooking and cleaning, but then my life would entirely be working or prepping for the week in which I’ll be working. I need to have some time that’s for me.
I have, on several occasions, realized I was waiting longer for ‘fast food’ than it takes to make the food myself at a quarter the price. ‘Fast food’ is no longer fast or cheap, which were pretty much the only two things it had going for it.
If you are buying groceries, you are spending more efficiently than half of America.
Groceries are 3x-4x cheaper than eating/ordering out.
Assuming you have the free time/appliances to cook and prepare the food, yeah
An inexpensive toaster oven and hot plate is all you need to make anything. The money you save in the first week of buying groceries instead of eating out will more than pay for those two appliances. Every week thereafter is more money in your pocket to put toward debt, fun, etc.
How rich are you that $20 in savings isn’t worth 30 minutes cooking time? That’s $40 per hour after tax, which if you work full time puts you in the top 20% richest Americans.
Even if you can’t share appliances with friends or neighbors, a stove, pan, microwave, and fridge combined cost only a couple months’ profit up front. Save up $400 one time and in five years you’ll have $5000 more than if you keep buying takeout.
(I’m assuming you cook for multiple meals at once and put the remainder in the fridge/freezer)
My jobs don’t have “work as long as you like” schedules. You work until the day is done - even if you’d rather be cooking. I’m up at 5 to start the day and don’t get home until 8 or 9 most nights. With so little time at home, I don’t have 30 minutes to dedicate to cooking.
Yeah - I could spend my weekend cooking and cleaning, but then my life would entirely be working or prepping for the week in which I’ll be working. I need to have some time that’s for me.
You can meal prep on one of your days off. Would take an hour or two. Then you’re set for the week and off the fast junk food that’s bleeding you dry
I have, on several occasions, realized I was waiting longer for ‘fast food’ than it takes to make the food myself at a quarter the price. ‘Fast food’ is no longer fast or cheap, which were pretty much the only two things it had going for it.
30mins of cook time actually equals
30 mins to prepare
30 mins to cook
30 mins to eat
30 mins to clean up
So now it’s a two hour thing when I just got home from work and I’m tired and just want to relax.
Why are you including eating time?
Also there’s no way it should be taking you 30 mins to clean up.
The extremely drawn out timetable feels like me unloading the dishwasher as a kid, a task which took 30-60 min.
See, the dishes were 6 min, and the rest was watching Dragon Ball Z. :p
Yeah, even an hour to prep and cook feels like a lot for an average meal.