Is “home cooking” becoming a luxury these days?

You are 100% correct - when our business went bust we lived for 2 weeks on cauliflower cheese, cereals, mashed potato, beans and cheese made into a bake, sausages and mash and veg, omelettes, pancakes , veggie stir fry’s and veggie chili or veggie Dan Dan noodles - we didn’t starve- I just found it a bit dull - it was perfectly doable

It depends what you buy - I was including in that things like harissa paste / tahini - I agree basic stuff doesn't cost lots but it all adds up.

And as I say, I do agree with the fundamental point that cooking is a lot cheaper, I just don't think that list is quite right

Most herbs, spices and seasonings cost almost nothing unless you're daft enough to buy Schwartz jars. Almost all supermarkets sell 100g packs of spices for about £1 which is enough for 10 to 20 meals.

Buy potted herbs and repot in a larger pot and they'll live for weeks or more and I say that as the world's worst gardener

I thought the same about the butter! I don't disagree with the fundamental point that cooking is almost always cheaper than ready meals as well as nicer but I don't think this list is quite right.

It also misses all herbs/spices/condiments.

E.g. I do make a soup most weeks which is pretty cheap but it does involve salt, stock cubes, pepper, other spices usually, I don't buy these all every week but I usually need to top something up every week.

Tea/coffee/drinks also absent

Thank you for listing out a shopping list. I am unsure whether you can get 250g butter for a £1 nowadays but could you please show how that translates to meals for two people for four days? Doesn’t seem enough food for me. Or do you mean four main meals for two people?

Also a little to my point earlier if you are getting sausages for £1.50 the quality of your home cooked meal will be little better than a ready meal - in my opinion!

It's definitely still cheaper to eat at home.
I made us udon noodle soup today with some fresh prawns. It cost £4 a bowl. Same thing in a restaurant would be 4x the price.

I think I agree with everyone btw so I'm not sure why I'm writing essays when I think you already get me.

It's late on a thursday so apologies

I think this is great.

I wasn't pooing on these choices.
I was just saying, in a thread where the title is 'home cooking is a luxury',
That no it bloody isn't, and you can make some very very good healthy tasty choices that cost a lot less than the Mumsnet posts that are 😢😢😢 I'm spending £200 a week for 4 people and I can't bring it down.

Yes you can. My example, at the end of my long procastinated process, cost £25 for 6 days for 2 people. You absolutely can still, and if you have the money, please do, as food is life, have a budget for treats.

And treats are berries.

Trust me, if I had the cash, I'd be knee deep in raspberries and artichokes. But these are just as much a luxury as ready meals. You don't need them. But if you scrimp in other areas and you can afford them, them fill your boots!

My point being that's entirely possible to provide a non upf balanced diet for very little for comparatively little effort.

If people want to make the choices that cost more, that's great, and I would do the same. We all budget where we can.

What I absolutely object to is people saying they can't. The wah wah wah that they can't eat beef rib.

i also, for balance, absolutely object to people saying you HAVE to eat as per my example. No you bloody don't. But equally, noone can then say £95 a week UC is enough to live on while they're crying about how much their £6 of fresh berries a day cost. Those bitches can fuck off.

The bitches eating their lovely Berrys and salmon and understanding that's it's hard to eat healthily on a budget but support and understand it's not as fun and is hard for others absolutely have my support and I love them.

I'm not a shit. I was responding to a poster who said it was crap that you could well for little
You can.

It's just more fun and EASIER to eat well with more.

@Starconundrum I do totally agree with you by the way that home cooking is not a luxury - for me it’s my 1 big luxury (along with living in a nice area ) but as you say we choose to eat like this - I could just as easily cook well for 2 on £60 a week if my H was a bit less of a food snob!! The devil I think is in knowing how to make a decent stew, casserole, stir fry, curry, - how to bulk out ( I make chilli and cottage pie for instance with50% steak mince and 50% Linda McCartney soy mince ) and actually prefer it that way - or line tonight I made the big mushroom stroganoff with just 1 chopped up chicken breast added for extra flavour and texture. I make dumplings if I make stew etc, etc - it most definitely isn’t cheaper to live off ready made if you are at all interested in quality but then again plenty are more interested in £2.50 pizzas and quantity over quality- it’s a US attitude I think - I’ve had some appallingly bland beige meals there but are reviewed well because ‘there’s lots of it’ -

I think it depends a lot on what you’re cooking. There’s only adult ds and I at home, and, yes, food has got more expensive, but I still find it cheaper to cook from scratch, plus most ready meals I’ve tried are rank!

Big bag of mixed sized potatoes goes a long way, I buy large bags of pasta/rice/flour too, Costco for big trays of chicken breasts etc (plus they currently have 5l of extra virgin olive oil for £24.39, so £4.38 per litre) and fruit is good from there.

This week so far, I’ve made fajitas, chicken parmo with potato wedges and coleslaw, casserole veg(mainly frozen veg plus diced potatoes and carrots) with mince (3 for £12 frozen from Iceland) done in the pressure cooker and chicken and bacon pasta bake with frozen broccoli, sweetcorn and peas, and a cheesy sauce. Nothing extravagant but not expensive either. Got rump steak tomorrow night which I got for less than £3 each from B&M of all places. Not the best quality, but we’ve had it before and it’s pretty decent, then homemade pizzas and salad on Saturday and chicken kebabs, flatbread and salad on Sunday.

I shop around a lot though, alternate supermarkets and buy in bulk, which I appreciate is difficult for some people, but our shopping budget is £100 a week, including toiletries/household items, and we eat pretty well on that, although we do only eat twice a day as neither of us are big on breakfast.

I buy frozen berries, not long ago they were 2.25/bag, then they went up to 2.50/bag and now £3/bag, they dont feel like a cheap option anymore if there isn't an offer on.
(And most offers encourage you to buy more - which is ok for me , I have freezer space - rather than reduce the individual item)

I agree. We have salmon once a week, including the kids. It’s all very, very affordable if you meal plan.
Same with chicken, I even buy loads of organic chicken breast and make my own mince in my food processor. With the mince I make my own flavourful burgers too! We are meat free twice a week, so that’s where my dhal, tofu , rice and veg all gets out to great use.
honestly people just don’t know how to cook properly. I can tell from the OP that she doesn’t. Who includes your pots and pans as an issue/expense stopping you? My set of pots are going strong 15 years later.

I’ve got some! I will report back… but not immediately. We get a food waste box, so have to eat that first!

I do appreciate youve taken the time to say you spend more money on better produce though.

I have a sneaking suspicion some mumsnetters budgets are taken up by Charlie Bingham, Toney baloney, and premium yogurts with probiotics and added protein shakes.

And the obligatory £6 of berries a day.

Good for you! And I don't mean that sarcastically, genuinely good for you!

But this thread is saying home cooking is a luxury, and it's genuinely not, unless you're buying as you do, which is the luxury. And any ready meals that contain the premium ingredients you are buying are going to cost a damn sight more than the bog standard crap.

Home cooking is cheaper and healthier. It's not a luxury. It's a damn necessity for people on a budget invested in their kids health.

And it's really easy.

You can tell it's easy as I wrote it in two minutes and amended it twice as I thought if cheaper and healthier ways to do it😂

Nope! I gave the same set of stainless steel saucepans from our wedding 25 years ago and they’re still going strong. I do replace my non-stick pans and sheets and chopping boards but not thst often.
Eating out is so much more unless you’re living off fast food (which isn’t cheap)! I cook from scratch for health reasons, yes I have time but even when I didn’t I still made most meals from scratch but maybe used some more upf ingredients.
Pasta is still cheap - 75p per bag? I use wholewheat - then whatever sauce you want to make or buy. Really not much at all…

@Starconundrum you are missing the point - not everyone spending £120 a week for 2 is strapped for cash ( or moaning about food costs)!- not everyone will buy £1.50 sausages or £3.95 chickens if they don’t have to do so and yep lots of people can tell the difference. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with buying cheap quality food and I totally get that many people need to budget tighter than others -I’ve been there myself at various points years ago , but being honest my H in particular wants organic chicken from the farm shop at £14 to £17 ( very dense meat and lasts us 3 meals genuinely)? He wants the M&S Cumberland sausage at £5.50 , he eats salmon , sushi and good quality mince, nice Greek yoghurt, berries, nice veg, good pies etc - very very easy to spend £100 a week if you eat well for 2 and it’s one of the few things I don’t begrudge - and we aren’t wealthy but do prioritise food- rarely have takeaways or meals out at night unless on holiday -

And there's not one upf if you swap out the sausages.

Apart from the bread, but if you got yeast instead of bread you could make your own with the flour. I just can't be bothered with that any more now the kids are grown.

If I get onions kilo for 95 and pork mince instead of sausages, an extra quid, and a bag of pasta and a tin of tomatoes, 1.50, a bag of value appl3s or Clementines, I'd have enough for 6 days for 2 people for less than £25.

There's loads. Really loads of examples. Look on the food section.

What I don't get is the people that spend £120 a week for two. What on earth are they eating?!

Medium chicken £3.95
350gcheese £3.20
250 g butter £1.00
4 pts milk £1.55
Flour £0.90
Kilo carrots £0.55
3 kilo potatoes £1.45
Head broccoli ££0.89
Cauliflower £1.10
Sausages £1.50
Sage and onion stuffing £0.45
6 eggs £1.45
Celery £0.60
Bunch bananas £0.85
Kilo parsnips £0.55
Bread £0.85
Oats £0.55

Thats what, £20? It's enough for 4 days for 2 people.

One of my cheap, reasonably healthy go-to's is pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas). It's a traditional Italian peasant's dish and you don't have to use any fresh ingredients if you don't want to, which makes it economical. Base ingredients:

supermarket own pasta shape of choice
olive oil (doesn't need to be extra virgin, and at times of greater need I've used rapeseed oil instead and added more garlic and chili powder to make up the lost flavour)
can of tinned chickpeas
can of plum or chopped tomatoes
garlic (either powder or fresh)
salt
chili (optional)

The garlic, if using fresh, is fried in heated oil until it softens, then the chickpeas are added plus salt to taste (if using garlic powder then add this at the same time as the salt). These are fried for another minute or so on medium heat. Add the tin of tomatoes and fry for a couple minutes to reduce water, then cover and simmer for ten mins. Uncover, add a couple ladles of your pasta water and simmer for a further ten mins on medium heat, then add your cooked pasta and you're done. If you want to be fancy, you can add some grated cheese at the end, but this isn't necessary.

Most Brits don't eat enough beans/legumes so it's a good meal idea to get a portion of these in to your weekly diet. And the carbs, chickpeas and oil all lead to it having a decent calorie content and leaving you feeling full and satisfied.

I’ve simplified.
I just buy flavoured pork chops or chicken and have it with a bagged salad or basic veg like cabbage. Lunch box and for dinner It’s £1.50 a portion.

I’ve cooked elaborate meals because I thought I had too. Not fussed with it all now.

Home cooking is always cheaper

We have just had fish, chips and peas - for less then a fiver for 3 of us

Cod - 5 pieces - £3.50 YS from M&S, a couple of large spuds and a measure of peas

What's a fish supper from a chippy now? Here its £12 - take out

I have enough spices , herbs, vinegars, sauces, oils to open a wee shop. but they are all bought over time - maybe a £2 a week spend? Plus I grew rosemary, thyme, sage, bayleaf, and chives

I aim to feed us at £2 - £3 a head for dinner - easy done. That's meat/fish, veggies and carbs - I cant get a ready meal or take out any less

Fuel for me being out in the country is expensive. So I make the most of the microwave, slow cooker, pressure cooker and what's really opened up our diets the air fryer . Two drawers - two mini ovens that cook in minutes - with good results

Whenever I go through a phase of home cooking, my expenses go DOWN. So I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m afraid.

I hate cooking so i dont do it not unless i feel like it very rear.