Is “home cooking” becoming a luxury these days?

I don't think cost is the problem for most, it is just that many prefer to sit and watch netflix.

Come on, you're describing extreme poverty. People in extreme poverty aren't grabbing a Nandos for £20 because they think it's cheaper than making a stew.
And in places like southern Italy, they live in severe poverty, but eat vegetable soups padded out with pasta or lentils, and vegetarian pasta dishes. They cost pennies and need one pan to cook.
Yes some Brits are so vulnerable they can't rustle up a spag bol, but your average person who is eating ready made crap just can't be arsed.

In reality though this is a very niche situation and the vast majority of the country go for a Greggs sausage roll because they’re lazy

@PetsNPaws what are you cooking & for how many people if you find eating out & ready meals cheaper than cooking?

Even if you work FT, most every day meals can be done in around 20min.

The bigger issue is a luck of cooking sskills for many people- this has nothing to do with the cost of food.

@DeafLeppard and @TattooStan if you work with people living in poverty, you’d see the privilege. We have to stock supplies at food bank for people who have one pan and a single burner to cook with.

Some homes are chaotic and children don’t see food being cooked. I have seen children cry when food was put into the oven- they were unfamiliar with the concept, and thought the food was being taken away. Their experience of food was instant. Open the packet, eat.

If you have nothing, home cooked food is an expensive privilege in comparison with a Greg’s sausage roll.

Totally agree. It’s not a bloody privilege to cook and feed your family, and I do judge anyone who can’t be arsed to make the effort this day and age when we have a wealth of information about how to do so at our fingertips.

Next people will be saying it’s a privilege to be able to wipe your own arse…

Yeah definitely, I thinks it may be cheaper to eat out as a single person. It's definitely much more expensive to eat out as a family than cooking.

What did you study in university and what do you do to earn well in your 20s. I'm trying to guide my 14 year old to be financially successful. Please give me sone advice 😊

It’s still cheaper to cook at home than it is to buy ready meals.

I do all my bulk cooking on a Sunday. The smart meter shows the gas and electric go up to probably 75p per hour each, but that’s for the couple of hours that I’m cooking. So max £2 in electricity.

root veg etc this time of year is cheaper. You can make a leek and potato soup for under a fiver, which then gives you a weeks worth of lunches.

again with stewing steak etc., a week of meals for £10.

Yeah, she must be using steaks , lamb chops , fresh cod and salmon fillets. Cooking with mince, chicken drumsticks and thighs etc are really affordable. I only eat stuff like that as q treat maybe once a week.

Anything you cook yourself will always be cheaper than anything you buy of the same quality.

We have a whole rack of spices, use tinned tomatoes, own brand rice or pasta, baked potatoes, wonky veg. All cheap.

what I came here to ask!!

It depends what you like to eat as well...I would prefer a big meal at lunch (when I am usually at work) and something simpler in the evening, so the things I tend to make for dinner...e.g. pasta, jacket potatoes, noodle soup etc are quite cheap. I only tend to make fancier things at the weekend.

Baking tends to be quite expensive but it's healthier than buying cake and I enjoy it so I bake often, plus this Autumn me/my parents/neighbours all have a glut of fruit to use up.

How can that be true - even going to macdonalds with my 2 costs 30 quid now.

For that I can have full roast dinner, and whip up some kind of desert (kilo each topside roast, carrots, potatoes, peas, gravy granules, flour, plus, eggs, milk, sugar) - and apart from the meat (which will be gone by the next day with snacking) I'll have veg/flour/sugar/milk left over for use in the next meal

It’s the time more than the cost of ingredients for us- food is expensive whether we buy ingredients or something ready made, but carving out the time to buy the ingredients at the most affordable prices and then put meals together so that we’re eating at 6:30 and not midnight is quite a challenge. I do use some ready prepared sauces to help with that, Loyd Grossman or those Spice Tailor kits, because they don’t seem to put anything in that I wouldn’t.

We are eating more vegetarian meals than we used to because of the cost of food.

We do everything homemade. We tend to eat meat free in the week - environmental and cost saving purposes- I buy a bulk of veg - courgette’s, onions , peppers, garlic, broccoli, cauli,. I will do a pasta bake, curry, goulash, bulgar. I add lentils to bulk out. Sometimes we will have a jacket potato and filling. Definitely cheaper and healthier than ready meals.

I get your point OP, we wanted to make a slow roast beef dinner the other week and the joint of beef was extortionate! Plus the hours it would have to cook and then all the trimming on top. It was cheaper to go for a carvery! Although agree with many a PP, pasta and such should be a lot cheaper to make yourself. We make a lot of home cooked stuff like soup, chilli, pasta etc because that does work out cheaper. I have found though that the "big" things are definitely a luxury now x

Also, there is a privilege to home cooking, but it isn't really a purely financial association. Its more of a time/culture/education based privilege. It is having the time, having the health, the energy, the lack of burdens/stress/problems etc. and having grown up in a family culture that prioritizes it over alternatives, making it the norm.

Imagine someone in Italy calling it a privilege to knock up a quick pasta dish. British culture is such trash in so many respects, and we've set the lowest standards for ourselves.

Sorry, I'll rephrase that to "we eat home cooked food every day". It might be something we made 2 days worth of, or might be something we batch cooked at the weekend.

Yes I agree op. I like cooking but really well done home cooking is expensive...all the added ingredients, herbs, oils, vinegars...its a lot. I find we're eating home made still but a lot less elaborate.

What do you eat if you don't cook?

We cook every day. We choose to eat high protein, so spend more. This week we bought lots of chicken breasts, beef mince, eggs, good cheeses, nice veg like asparagus, salad ingredients, and some real luxuries, for £120 for 2 of us for the week. I could easily have spent under half that. And a pasta dish costs pennies too make.

I cant say I've seen anything that's cheaper ready made, definitely find cooking at home the cheapest option!

It's always been the case that you can get cheap processed food for cheaper than homemade, that's why obesity is high in deprived families.

This is a terrible example - Nando's is exceptionally simple and way overpriced 🤣

It probably depends on how many people are in your household.

I’m in my 20s, high earner and got my own place as soon as I left university. I’d say that sometimes it’s more expensive to home cook every meal from scratch as a single adult. Over the years, I definitely ate out much more than I grocery shopped. Or buy ready meals/ordering takeaways in etc. It often was the case that food would go off quicker than I could eat it, so my home cooked food wouldn’t have much variety as I’d have to ensure I’m using X and Y up before Z date first.

I imagine in a larger household that being flipped, where it’s cheaper home cooking every meal as opposed to eating out.

For example I could go to Nando’s and spend £20 on a meal and 2 sides for dinner. It probably would cost me the same in raw ingredients to make that from scratch at home to the same standard. Whereas that may present a saving on the cost for multiple people to order the same thing at Nando’s.

I would say it is still cheaper than the alternatives. like-for-like home cooking is still cheaper than ready-made food, or takeaways, or eating out.

The incorrect assumption that eating or getting ready made meals is cheaper, normally comes from comparisons that are either unrealistic (pricing in isolation, not by portion) or based on unfair comparisons between very healthy cooking and unhealthy alternatives.

That being said, Every year when I'm in the UK, it is notable how much more expensive it is... so I think your observation about things getting less affordable is 100% true. But for me it is across the board. Restaurants are crazy compared to what they used to be (not their own fault..) so are take-aways, so is everything. Its all gone up.

Also, there is a privilege to home cooking, but it isn't really a purely financial association. Its more of a time/culture/education based privilege. It is having the time, having the health, the energy, the lack of burdens/stress/problems etc. and having grown up in a family culture that prioritizes it over alternatives, making it the norm. Those are really where the inequalities in food/cooking come in, and it is finance's impact on those that impacts cooking, rather than just having money to buy or not to buy food.