On average, how much do you save by cooking at home compared to eating out? Personally, I can save two-thirds of my food budget if I cook at home compared to eating out but it is only because my food budget is low overall. For example, my weekly food expense is around $30 if I cook at home for the entire week and if I eat out, my weekly food expense will be around $90. I wonder how do you guys compare to this figure especially if your food budget is considerably higher than mine.
That is a big difference. I can't really give an exact number, but I know when I bring my husband lunch instead of him going out to eat, it probably saves at least $20 a week. I have never eaten every meal out for a week, but guestimating... the cost would be roughly 2-3 times my grocery bill.
I estimate cooking foods at home instead of dining out saves up 45%, possibly more. For example, when I cook hot dogs on a bun and include the usual condiments involved (ketchup, relish, mustard) will be cheaper for me to do so than to go out and order a deluxe hot dogs on a bun at Wienerschnitzel for $1.79, being that the general hot dog pack consists of 8. It always cheaper to buy foods and then cook it at home, but it's also one's lifestyle that attributes to whether one has time and opt to eat out instead, plus a lot of people simply cannot cook if their life depended on it.
The cheapest meal in any one of the local restaurants costs no less than $4. That's just one meal. So if you were to have three meals in that restaurant, that would mean you'll spend more than $20 a day and that's only if you stuff yourself with the cheapest meal on the menu. That would set you back $140 a week. Cooking at home, one week's food budget is about $50 because I don't have to buy veggies, milk or eggs. That's like $90 saved each week.
I've never calculated it, but there are cheap meals out and expensive ones, but eating in is only cheaper if you shop wisely. People who buy all their groceries from delis and upmarket stores aren't really saving that much IMHO as it can actually cost more than eating out. Those days are gone for me for the time being, but eating out would be at least $10-30 a head and as I can live off that for a week, I save a lot of money.
I'm with Theo: I've never done the math but I've felt the weight in my pocketbook. It really depends on whether you're planning things out before you head to market. You can easily spend as much on eating out as you do cooking at home if you do not make a plan & stick to it.
I save a lot of money by cooking at home. But it depends on what you're making and the ingredients. Prices have gone up in recent years so now you have to budget what you cook at home just as much as you would budget eating out daily. So sometimes, cost wise, it doesn't make a difference which you do.
I don't really track it that much but I don't think I save that much cooking at home to be completely honest. Restaurants here have very low prices on dishes so I spend just about the same when I cook the same types of dishes at home as oozed to just buying them off of a menu. The only time I favor cooking at home is if I prefer to do it differently than how a restaurant does it, such as when I want certain types of vegetables as a majority when I have a mixed vegetable dish, I would just do it at home so I can have it exactly the way I want it.
On a rough estimate, cooking food versus ordering food for delivery saves us 50% of the cost. Much more if we compare the cost with eating out. But we really do not scrimp on food particularly when we are so busy with work that there is no time to go to the market or supermarket. In those hectic times, we just order food for delivery or maybe buy cooked food as we pass by the mini mall by the village gate.
I save a lot by cooking at home personally because I have allergies and in order to buy food out that I can eat I end up having to spend quite a bit of money. Prepared meals from the supermarket also end up costing a lot more so that I can eat them. I don't mind paying a little bit more occasionally for a treat, or a special occasion, but I cook at home probably 360 days a year. It saves me at least 50% of what it would cost if I were to eat out.
Eating out for me is usually a salad, I have a funny stomach and have to eat what I eat when I am eating out to avoid getting sick. If I eat food at home I can eat what I want because I know what is in the food. I eat better eating at home but I do not save much money.
Well like other users above it is hard for me to really quantify, but I can say that it is significant. I think on top of saving money from avoiding eating out, I also eat less in general because I am a lot better with portion control, so that factors into it a lot as well. If I had to guess I would have to say around 100 dollars a month maybe. That sounds about right to me.
I've been trying to keep my monthly spending on groceries under $200, and preferably under $150 if I am really disciplined with my shopping, cooking, and food waste. Actually, $150 a month isn't much more than the "food stamp challenge" many people have tried doing in recent years - keeping your daily food spending to just $4 per day. I think it's certainly doable, but I think the whole $4 a day mentality can throw you off. You can actually stay under $4 a day if you think of it as something like $30 a week instead (or in my case a little more, like around $35-$45 a week). I mentioned in another thread that I recently found a nearby store selling bags of fresh chicken breasts in bulk for only $1.30 a pound. So on a given day, for example, I may have some scrambled eggs or an omelette and toast with coffee for breakfast, which is costing me maybe 40 cents, then a lunchmeat sandwich for lunch with chips, which again would be costing me like 60 cents, and for dinner, baked chicken breast with a baked potato and some steamed veggies for dinner, which would cost me around $1.75. So in total, I am well under $4 for that day at $2.75. And I'm not starving myself eating Ramen noodles or oatmeal either. I can get a month's worth of fresh meat for dinner for $30 easily, by shopping around for meat when it's on sale and buying it in bulk, and sticking with cheaper cuts as much as possible. That still leaves me plenty of money for stuff like coffee, bread, juice, salad mix, lunch meats, cheeses, and other ingredients.
The bigger your family is, or the people you cook for, the biggest the savings. For me, it's just me and my fiancé so I don't find that I save all that much by cooking at home. I love to find good deals on stuff on the supermarket and ready-made foods, and we love going to the restaurants. It's not all the time that you actually save by cooking at home for only two people.
You definitely save when you cook at home and you can get the benefit of custom foods that's nutritious. You can buy a bag of vegetables on sale for 3.49 and eat it with a .89 tuna for 3 days. If you bought dinner even at McDonald's MacPick 2 for $2 it's going to be $9 already for you got to add a $1 for drinks. Plus your cholesterol will go sky high if you eat out all the time!
