Anyone tried hellofresh? Do you think you're saving money?

[Knan10]

Anyone tried hellofresh? Do you think you're saving money?
Compared to buying the ingredients from the supermarket, having ingredients left over, etc. (as hello fresh do perfect portions of the stuff you need)

Do you sometimes get any challenging recipes? I find the ones provided are often quite easy so would be interesting to try a challenging one with tips.

I did look into simply cook but not a fan at all as that just provides the spices - I've got plenty of them already.

We have it at the moment - I enjoy it because of the instructions and not having to buy quite as much from the supermarkets in these weird times. I don’t think we’re saving money vs the ingredients but definitely vs takeaways which I suspect we would otherwise be having a lot of!

I have them but finding their recipes a bit samey these day’s. Was better before lockdown. Also had a lot of ingredients missing and boxes cancelled at the last minute (ie they day after they should have been delivered!). The quality of the ingredients has really gone down too and now for example getting all green peppers instead of red I es in the recipe.

Weve also tried it over the last month or so. I'd say I spend about the same maybe. We treat the hello fresh meals as our nicer meals so no takeaways etc and then on non hello fresh evening meals we have something relatively cheap. We order for 3 even tho we only need 2 and you can sometimes get enough for nearly 2 portions each so often have left overs for lunch.

I like it. We haven't got any wastage and it saves me time and effort and especially at the moment it is good as I don't need to go to the shops very often! I am deliberately being choosy over the recipes so we try a range but I'm going to look for harder ones now we have mastered a lot of the basic ones. It has given my husband confidence to eat monkfish etc that he hasn't eaten before and me to cook duck which although I would order it in a restaurant I wouldn't have the confidence to cook it! I also like that the recipes are balanced in terms of veg and a range of veggies rather than just boiled.

I thought about it but realised that I just needed to get myself just a little bit more organised. I now meal plan each week, make a shopping list and stick to it. We've halved our weekly grocery bill and now have very little food waste. So for us it would be more expensive to use Hello Fresh or similar service.

After lockdown when we have a bank if recipes we are planning to get home deliveries to do the same concept ourselves.

I wouldn't say it saves you money, but for us it does spice up our meals and makes quite a nice change... The quick and easy ones tend to be blander, whereas the recipes that take over 40 odd minutes tend to be really flavoursome.

When we are less locked down I would probably go back to having one once a month or so, not every week.

Hope that helps!

I definitely don't think it saves us money, but it saves time and thinking effort, so totally worth it atm.

I don't think you're going to get any really challenging recipes - if lots of people feedback that a recipe didn't work they'll never use it again. But ime if you choose the ones with a longer cooking time you get a more sophisticated result than the rapid ones. (Although I love the laksas 😋)

I don't think the point is to save money, more time, brain space and food waste.

If you have a well stocked storecupboard including a basic spice rack and are able to meal plan and think about using things up, it will work out expensive for what you're used to, and you will already have many of the storecupboard ingredients like spices, flour etc.

If you don't have storecupboard items it's an easy way to introduce yourself to that sort of food, as you don't risk buying something like miso paste for example that you might not continue to use and will waste most of.

Thanks everyone so far. Do recipes ever get repeated or can you guarantee different recipes each and every time ( those who have been long term users of hello fresh)?

They get repeated

Some do get repeated and there's often variations on a theme, but there are 40 recipes to choose from this week (for example) so most people will be able to find something they like. And you can skip weeks very easily.

I’ve been using Gousto for about 6 months and have really enjoyed it. I’ve probably only had the same recipe twice in that time. I do all the food shopping and cooking in this house so it’s quite nice to have something that removes one element of the mental load!

how frequently are they repeated @murinae ?

We used it for quite a few months, getting 3 family boxes a week. It worked as we combined it with doing the 5:2, so on the non HF days we just did meals for the children. And at weekends I did normal Sunday dinner, maybe F&C or BBQ or something on the Sat.
I think we probably ended up spending about the same, but the main benefit was all the new menu ideas. But yes they did start repeating themselves after a few months - maybe as we had specified family-friendly meals, we had a smaller list to choose from.
What made us stop in the end was the repeated menus, the immense amount of plastic waste, and also the quality of the meat ingredients was not great sometimes, we'd much rather buy locally produced meat and fish.
But now we have the recipe ideas, so best of both worlds.

We used it last month. The recipes are nice and definitely saves on food wastage, but it is expensive. We have a set budget/joint account for food and we were well over budget last month compared to normal (we were having 5 meals each a week for 2 people).

This month we're back to our normal shopping and the cost has come down considerably. We have all the recipe cards which were still using just buying our own ingredients.

I have had Gousto since lockdown started and found it great. There's a lot of variety and DC 14 and 16 each choose one a week and cook it for the family. I get it because it simplifies our very busy life and reduces arguments. DH does all the food shopping and is incapable of not forgetting things or changing the 'meal plan' when he sees 'bargains'.

I've used both Hello Fresh and Gousto in the past. I preferred Hello Fresh. Gousto just bunged all the ingredients into the box and the veg was often quite bruised. Hello Fresh packed each meal separately.

We did get bored of both as they do repeat meals and quite a lot of the meals are a small variation on a theme. We did keep the recipe cards and do the ones that were popular with everyone (family of 6) but buying our ingredients in our usual shop.

Also the amount of packaging is eye watering (although that may have changed since I used them).

I tried Hello Fresh a couple of times since lockdown. I found their recipe choices quite dull and also quite high salt content. Also, far too many choices have an excess charge but don't seem to be that extravagant ingredients.

I used to use Abel & Cole quite a bit and don't think I ever had a repeat meal; they were also much more interesting recipes. Sadly, they don't seem to be doing recipe boxes at the moment.

We have been using them for almost a year. You definitely don't save on ingredients but massively saving on time/effort/mental load. We have 2 preschoolers and both parents work full time so anything that can be cooked under 30 min without any additional planning is a clear winner. I find all recipes quite simple and small so often tend to add more veggies or meat if available. Overall it is great if you are short on time but also can be easily extended if you want more carried/interesting meal. The meals repeat quite frequently (every few weeks) but I always have enough choices to keep things interesting.

They repeat after a couple of months or so. We’ve had Harry’s chicken pie a few times now. There is however always a pasta dish with either beef, lamb or pork mince and spinach in various forms. Also seems to be now nearly always an egg noodle dish. So lots of similar recipes based around one theme.

I now tend to get a box for two or three weeks running then get bored and skip three or four weeks and then get some again when I fancy what’s on offer.

We’ve started using them in lockdown as I struggled to get a Gousto slot. I like them because my DP is extremely fussy and would be happy having a pizza every night. However he is open to trying new things so he picks out the meals that he’d be happy to try.
I don’t rate the ingredients that highly and it might be to do with the circumstances at the moment but all of our herbs this week came rotting and soggy and like a previous poster we’ve been getting a different variety of vegetable than what’s in the recipe. Overall I much prefer Gousto in terms of recipes.
Also make sure to remember to cancel, I completely forgot about this weeks and had meal planned separately so then ended up with a HelloFresh box and a supermarket delivery on the same day. There’s also the issue that if you don’t pick your meals they pick for you

I'm in the NL and we've done HF for the past three years. We are definitely saving money.

I've got a share link, if anyone wants to try. It's a £20 off referral link.

Hi, you’ve been invited to savour the joy of cooking HelloFresh and get a £20 coupon to spend on your first box of fresh ingredients and delicious recipes. Start your cooking adventure now with HelloFresh using the following voucher code HS-SKL6SM01V. Happy Cooking!

https://www.hellofresh.co.uk/?c=HS-SKL6SM01V&utmsource=raf-share&utmmcampaign=share-sms&utmmedium=app&utmmcontent=iOS&utm_version=c1

We’ve been having them since Christmas- it definitely worlds out more expensive than buying the ingredients yourself at the supermarket- even buying bigger bags!

I now only get a box once a month as I have built up a pack of the recipe cards from previous boxes and just order the ingredients in Tesco myself to remake the meal. I’ve not found any recipe that was cheaper from Hello Fresh than buying it yourself.