Are meal kits worth it? Gousto, HelloFresh, etc.

[ArtichokeAardvark]

DH and I really need to dial back on our grocery spend each week. Not so much that we buy expensive food, but more that I do a weekly online shop and half of it goes to waste (this makes me cringe both for my bank balance and for the planet) as we work long hours and by the time I've put DS (age 1) to bed and DH has finally got home at 8pm we're often too knackered to cook and end up ordering a takeaway. Double whammy there in that food in the fridge goes off uneaten and gets binned, and then we effectively pay for another meal on top of the one we should have had.

I'm now wondering whether a Hello Fresh style system would be the answer. Pre-portioned so no waste, and menus for the Rapid box all take less than 20mins to prepare. I enjoy cooking and do try to batch cook at weekend, but there's only so many times you can have Bolognese... At least with HelloFresh we'd get variety beyond my limited repertoire of speedy stir fries, fajitas, pasta, etc. And best of all there's no meal planning involved, all that bloody time spent thinking of what to feed my family for the week.

Does anyone use mealkits? Can you give me honest opinions?

And to pre-empt all the slow cooker promoters... I had one and gave it away. DH and I both loathe casseroles (and to be honest anything that's been boiled for hours) so we never used it.

[HCHQ]

Hmm, this is something I'm wrestling with at the moment. I periodically use Gousto, usually when I'm busy with work (yes, no division of labour in our house!!).

PROS
~Not having to meal plan for a week then shop for it
~Different meals to my "go to" favourites

CONS
~ Portion size is stingy , e.g.1 chicken breast between 2 people
~ Sometimes don't feel like what I've ordered - but I can usually rustle something else up with whats in the box & in the store cupboard

At £35 for 4 meals (for 2 people) I don't think its too badly priced given there is no waste however I do tend to top up the meals with extra veg which I suppose makes it not cost effective!

For what its worth I prefer Gousto to Hello Fresh but thinking about giving Mindful Chef a go ...

Have you tried one yet?

[Chancewouldbeafinethlng]

I’m not a fan, I end up spending more as I still have to do a food shop alongside.

What sort of meals are you planning on making and what do you end up with in replacement?

[StuntBottom]

I do HelloFresh and absolutely love it. I've been doing it for a year and have only had one meal I didn't like. It isn't exactly cheap but there's no wasted food plus it's made us try lots of new meals.

The only thing I don't like is the amount of packaging. As everything is measured out, you get little plastic tubs for each herb, spice, etc. I'm now trying to buy my own ingredients to follow their recipes and it's not too difficult as the same ingredients crop up in lots of recipes.

PM me if you fancy giving it a go as I think I've probably got a discount voucher you can have.

[PinkSpring]

I have been using gousto the last couple of weeks and I have now stopped.

I found I was still spending the same per week at Tesco more or less, then gousto was another £20/30 a week (offers for the first four orders) and sometimes the meals were hit and miss and other times I just didn't fancy cooking what I had ordered (the timings are ambitious at best).

This week I ordered the ingredients for two of the meals we tried and it was far cheaper to buy them that way than via gousto.

I think maybe we will get one once a month but weekly gets expensive

[BrillyPribble]

We use gousto and it's brilliant for us. Massively cuts down on our food waste and I'd actually say their portions are generally huge.
I actually have a free HelloFresh box code to use at the moment as we tried them recently (but deactivated as prefer gousto) and they gave us these codes. PM me if you'd like one.

[woodcutbirds]

imo they are annoying. We had Hello Fresh for quite a while. It got the DC interested in new flavours which was good but pretty much after the first two or three orders the portion sizes seem to half. I was bulking out with a lot of my own veg - they never seemed to supply greens which defeats the point, as I would have to run down to the shops anyway.
But what really annoyed me was they use every bloody pan in the house. roast this, fry that, steam this, boil that and then, once you;ve assembled them, they taste not that different to my home cooked one-pan-wonders. As I hate clearing up when I'm tired at the end of a long day, this was what put me off most.

[RosaWaiting]

I don't understand how this could be cheaper than your supermarket shop.

[LittleMissBrainy]

We use Gousto and we love it! It saves us loads of money as we are rubbish at planning and when not using it, will end up 'popping' to the supermarket to get something for tea and end up spending £30 on bits.

With Gousto, we spend £30 per week on 6 meals (3 recipes) per week. We often find there is plenty for left overs and have discovered new food we wouldn't normally try. The Chickpea curry is amazing and has now become a family staple that we batch cook every month.

If you want a discount code, you can use this one:
https://cook.gousto.co.uk/raf?promocode=SONIA21492604&utmm_source=iosapp

Which will give you 50% off the first box and then 30% off your next 3 boxes. You can cancel at any time including in the first month if you decide it's not for you. For full disclosure, I will also get £15 credited to me if you use the code.

[emmaluvseeyore]

We’ve been getting Hello Fresh for a while now and it’s stopped us getting bored of the same food. I think the portion sizes are generous when it comes to the rice or pasta dishes but other dishes feel a bit stingy to me compared to what I’d cook for myself. They are expensive, so it’s not saved us any money but we didn’t really waste food anyway.

You can always give it a go for a few weeks. You often get discounted boxes at the start.

[LittleMissBrainy]

Ooops! Just read everyone else's messages about PMing for discount codes! Are we not supposed to put discount codes here? If my message gets deleted, then basically, I love Gousto, it saves money if you're not good at meal
planning but if you are good at meal planning then it probably won't.

And if you want a discount code, PM me!!