Is “home cooking” becoming a luxury these days?

I’m with you. My food shop has been creeping up and up. I’ve started ordering one of the more expensive meal delivery kits (planthood which is £7.50 per portion or £48 per week for my 6 dinners) and I’m somehow saving money. I’ve always been a good cook and meal planned but I’m trying to lose weight, lower cholesterol and eat enough protein to keep my hair. I just didn’t have the headspace for it. I’ve settled into a couple of cheap lunch options and use the meal kit for dinners now.

We both work full time and I cook all meals from scratch including our breakfast granola at the weekend.

I cook at home from scratch for almost every meal and make most of my own bread, cakes, jam, chutneys etc. I have a gas double oven and plan meals to be economical with fuel. Over time and over the range of meals I cook, it is a lot cheaper even if one individual home made meal might on occasion cost more than a particular store equivalent. I don't serve meat every day (veggie curries, stews, stir fries, pasta sauce, risotto etc). In order to cook like this I keep a good larder and freezer of basic staples - an 'ingredients' household - so that I'm not buying items new per meal, I'm usually cooking from what I have in.

However, cooking like this is a way of life and it fits some people's situations more easily than others. A lot depends on individual skills and circumstances. I've been cooking for decades and am good at it - I know how to make a nutritious meal from unpromising odds and ends to use things up, and no food is wasted. I am also now virtually retired and we have a garden growing all our own herbs, soft fruits and some veg. So I have the time and the means. Cooking from scratch inexpensively all the time would be harder if I didn't already have good cooking skills, had no garden and was working full time.

Not at all, ready meals are way more expensive .

I think knowledge and time are real adavantages/privileges here. If you're a single parent working full time and have young children who need a lot of time and attention, it will be really difficult to fit cooking in, even if it only takes 20 minutes. Much easier to heat something in a microwave for 4 mins.

Knowledge is also a HUGE bonus as it takes a long time to cook from scratch if you don't know the recipe, aren't used to certain techniques, can't think of a variety of different options, can't easily replace missing ingredients with something else, etc.

My parents were not natural cooks so I left home pretty much only knowing how to do a simple bolognese. It took me a long time to build the confidence and knowledge to do things like one pot roast meals, curries, anything to do with meat, fish or lentils. I still panic if I don't have a recipe to hand or if it turns out we forgot to buy a key ingredient etc. Luckily DH is much more experienced than I am and does a lot more of the cooking, but equally his recipies take a while and we simply don't have the time for elaborate meals after getting home quite late and needing to get the kids to bed.

I would love to see proper details about these really good quality and good for you meals that cost so little or go so far. Actual details. When I have asked before the calories per portion were tiny (I actually calculated one suggestion because I am that pedantic and it came to about 240 cals a portion) or the cost is misleading with suggestions of using a bit of something you have left over in the fridge (not if you do not, in fact, have decent left overs in the fridge!).

Or the one where someone spent very little on their food shop for that week and turned out they were using lots from their freezer…

My DH always makes Kabsa with the intention of freezing some. The eats it over next 3 days (so 3 in total) with nothing going to freezer😂 He can genuinely just eat same thing for x days and be happy clam. Weirdo.
I grew up with once a week having 2 days the same thing in a row. That's my limit.

But yes, we do like you often. Cook some extra, freeze. You can end up with quite an eclectic freezer selection! Nice

@Amba1998

Tesco Extra Virgin Olive Oil 250Ml
£2.95

you're already 45p out of date.

Food is expensive.

Chocolate is going to go insanely expensive because of "chocolate futures" ...

@Muffinmam you don't have to eat the same thing every day if you batch cook, as long as you've got some freezer space.

I cook double portions of almost everything. It's just DH and I. If I make a casserole, for example, I'll make enough for 4 or 6 then freeze the leftovers in 2 portions boxes. We might have some the following week or even the following month. We might have it with mashed potato the first time, with rice the second and jacket potatoes for the final batch.

However, we also don't have an issue with eating the same thing twice in a week. I could happily eat something like Shepherds pie or lentil Bolognese on a Sunday and again on a Tuesday, maybe with different veg.

I appreciate you need to have a freezer and space for it in the first place, but our freezer cost £50 second hand and has paid for itself in saving leftovers rather than them going to waste.

When I was single my meal prep involved ordering Italian and putting it into glass containers in the fridge. It was cheaper ordering out rather than buying groceries.

Also, I couldn’t eat the same thing every single day to make batch cooking worth while.

Now I have a family my grocery shopping is so freaking expensive. It’s not just evening meals - it’s snacks and fruits and drinks and cleaning and laundry supplies.

I had no idea on how to budget for anything and my partner doesn’t like ‘poor meals’ because it makes him feel sad.

I, however, love cheap meals as it reminds me of childhood and it takes next to no effort.

I took DD out for Sunday lunch (roast beef) a couple of weeks ago and it cost about £55 including two glasses of wine and a basic dessert. Admittedly there were about four different vegetable sides as well as potatoes, but not impossible quantities.

I could cook a similar roast at home for the same price, feed 6 and have leftovers.
£20-30 for the joint (depending on the cut, the quantity and the quality)
£10 max for the veg inc spuds
£5 for ingredients for the Yorkshires and the gravy, any herbs, the fuel for cooking etc.
£7 for a bottle of wine.
£10 for an apple crumble with cream - you'd have change to use for some nicer wine.

Between £52 and £62, but as I said, it would feed 6 and we'd have leftovers.

I think this is over stated TBH. Take the pizza example - ingredients:

Flour - lasts for ages
Yeast - Ditto
Olive oil - same

Then your fresh ingredients -

Cheese - will last several weeks
Roast some mushrooms/peppers for the topping

You can have a hummus and roasted veg sandwich later in the week to use up the veg

Or fry up left over mushrooms and peppers and have that in fajitas later in the week

I don't think there is much there that doesn't last and I can live with having the same veg in two totally different meals in a week.

Again, I covered all that in my initial post. I’m pedantically repeating myself here but if one person is doing that, my experience was fresh fruit & veg tends to go off before being fully utilised. Plus meals lack variety, ie having to eat the same thing all week to use fresh ingredients up before they go off. I also specifically mentioned the same quality ie not buying the absolute cheapest food.

@Worriedalltheday I’m glad someone else said this- I do 90% of my food shop at M&S, Waitrose and farm shops and eat incredibly well for around £90 a week for 2 of us . That includes the fact my H likes expensive juice and vegetable juice, we have salmon every week, he buys ramen kits, I buy berries etc . I do however have 2 meals a week where I make something based on whatever I have left - so mushroom stroganoff tonight with a bit of added chicken breast etc - I can rage on rent costs or my ludicrous utilities or council tax , but food is one of the lesser of my issues because it’s controllable to some extent and if necessary could eat beans on toast, soup, omelettes, etc - I can’t vary my rent or council tax

I haven't missed your point, it's just not the case that you couldn't make yourself a chicken burger and chips for less than £20.

You may feel like eating out is cheaper than cooking on each individual occasion (I don't know where on earth you're shopping for that to be the case, but you do you) - but that £4 block of cheese wouldn't all be used on that one pizza, and you can then use the rest for other meals. I well understand economies of scale but you can also take advantage of them by utilising your fridge and freezer.

@Fabulously I could make a pizza from scratch for less than £12 and it would feed four adults, assuming I already have olive
oil in the cupboard. I would need flour, salt, yeast, tin of tomatoes or passata, mozzarella or cheddar and then maybe some ham, red onion and red pepper for the topping. Then there would be leftovers from all of the cheddar / mozzarella, ham, salt and flour to use for next time. The more you cook this way, the cheaper it becomes as you would rarely use up the ingredients each time. And you would have leftovers. It’s a lot cheaper in real terms.

I try to make stuff from scratch all the time we never eat out ( can’t afford it ) and Gadz Just eat and deliveroo to me is discusting always a disappointment ( I’ve seen others buy it )

Do you know how insanely easy it is to make up a batch of pancakes. My 9yo does it himself and I can’t remember the last time I bought ingredients specifically for that. People just don’t know/ too lazy to cook.

You are talking nonsense.

Do you even know how to cook. A pantry of your staples will go a very long way. Very long way. So will beans, spices, oil , baking goods etc.

Do you know how easy it is to make your own pasta sauce?

how easy and cheap it is to buy your meats, portion them and cook?

I have just a M&S and Waitrose near me so do all food shopping there. Meat is insanely cheap. Where can you get loads of chicken at reasonable prices and then meal prep them?

Theres a lot of things in this country that is expensive but food here is just dirt cheap. When family travels here from other countries, they always mention how cheap it is and I agree. You always have deals on everything too.

if you think food is expensive then you just don’t know how to cook.

Aww thanks! Well I got into tech which has been fulfilling. For advice for him, I’d say put yourself forward for new opportunities, don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself, equally don’t be afraid to say no to things that aren’t suitable for you/aren’t working towards your goals.

I can imagine this to be possible too. I’m really surprised at how cheap Sainsbury’s is. They have loads of things that cost under £1, I think they’re price matching another supermarket atm.

Appreciate your opinion however you missed my point - it would cost the same for me to get all those ingredients from scratch and make it myself!

As an alternative, I could get a large pizza for £12, all the ingredients at the same quality/taste would come to more. Cheese alone costs a third of that, if not more. It’s not like I can buy a handful of toppings either, I’d have to buy a full sized pepper or tomatoes or Parmesan etc and either make the sauce from scratch or buy premade. Likewise with the dough. All those individual ingredients are more than £12. Again, my point being that the savings from home cooking are more apparent when you’re cooking for more people.

Box of ceral, box of eggs, block of cheese, veggies, a form of meat depending on the week - bread, milk, condiments, and usually one a week depending on which is needed in the way of cleaning supplies or washing liquid. at a push at the end of the month i can do it for 10, though its nothing glamerous - usually omlettes and salad.

£20/week? 😳
Im pretty sure i spent more than that 25 years ago when it was single, and I didnt eat expensively

And no to ready meals being cheaper. The supermarket ones are barely food and the portions are tiny. With a house of teenagers they’d end up eating all evening in that was their dinner rather than as much as they wanted of a home cooked meal.