to wonder if home cooked food is really cheaper than ready meals?

[Northeastgirl]

Current wisdom seems to be that home cooked food is far cheaper than ready meals.

I enjoy cooking so most of our meals are prepared from scratch. I can well believe that if you prepare your own food / batch cook / buy food when it's on special / stick to what is in season etc, then you are getting better value for money, but I don't think it can actually be cheaper than buying ready meals?

My cousin lives on his own and doesn't like to cook, so all his food is ready meals. There is no waste and I think it must be cheaper than our food bill. This evening I spent £5 just on 2 ingredients for a risotto, on top of the other ingredients that were already in the fridge. We do eat meat, but not every day and very little food is wasted as any random vegetables go into a stir fry or pasta sauce.

What were the ingredients though? are they items that were partly used and will still be ok for more meals.

Cooking from scratch is cheaper if you do it regularly and have a stock cupboard of the basics rather than having to buy them all when you are doing a recipe.

Also, when cooking from scratch, you are using fresh ingredients, and no preservatives, so the quality of the food you are eating is also much better too.

I make choc cookies, the bar of choc alone is about 80p.

Compare that to a packet of choc digestives, also about 80p. (but not as nice)

I think it depends on what you're cooking TBH.

Potato / pasta bakes that can be portioned up and frozen work out pretty cheap IME.

I wouldn't be surprised if ready meals are cheaper. The ones I've had the misfortune to taste seem to be made entirley of cardboard, water and salt.

I'd prefer to pay a bit extra I think!

I cook from scratch and spend at least £200 a week for 5 of us (inc 2 teenagers so 4 adult-sized plus a 10yo).

Yes. Shop bought cakes can be cheaper. Eggs cost a fortune these days but not as tasty IMO. Tho I will happily eat both :)
Shepards pies chilli etc makes enough for 2 meals so prob is cheaper in the long run. If I was single tho I'd prob be a ready meal girl too

Very cheap ready made meals can be cheaper than making from scratch. But this is because they use very cheap ingredients e.g. very fatty meat, that you would be unlikely to buy if making meals from scratch, or lots of artifacial ingredients to make poor quality ingredients taste good.

If you buy high quality ready made meals then making it yourself is usually cheaper.

Even when I was single I wouldnt eat processed ready meals. I would portion up home cooked and freeze it.

my sister only does 'ping' food and her shopping bill and she reckons that wastage is minimal and that she doesnt waste hours fannying about in the kitchen. Nothing goes off in the fridge (apart from milk/yogurt etc) and the choice is varied. Sainsbury's posh range/m&s/tesco finest are actually not bad if you ask me.

Have just talked myself into trialling a week on microwave meals just to see if I do save any money.

Is someone suggesting an economy drive to you NEG ?

Ready meals are a bit pants.

Think it is cheaper to cook from scratch if you don't mind a smaller variety of plain meals. If you make a chicken do three meals, and then do a double batch of chilli/spag bol, then it is cheaper. If you want different meats/fish and seasoning etc it is way more expensive. Definitely cheaper to buy puddings though.

Three meals from a chicken?!
< Hollow laugh >

I think that if you already have lots of the basics, so oil, pasta, rice, lentils, herbs, spices etc then just buying a few key ingredients can make you a good cheap homecooked meal.

But if you have bare cupboards, literally nothing, then a ready meal is often cheaper because otherwise to make a full meal (rather than a quick meal like beans on toast or something) you have to buy so many ingredients it all adds up to more than the one ready meal.

Of course, it is a false economy to buy ready meals, because if you buy the bag of lentils to pad out your chilli you will get much more than one meal from that bag but there is the initial up front cost of buying it which you need to pay, so it depends on how you look at it.

Ready meals are 10% melted plastic and chemicals...so cheaper schmeaper.

I don't think I could feed the 4 of us (1 adult 3 children) on ready meals cheaper than cooking from scratch - unless I bought the value ready meals full of shite - the portions of most of them are so small for starters that they'd want topping up on something else afterwards anyhow!

agree with Sally though on needing to have your cupboards with the basics in first. I've not been cooking properly for a while (not quite ready meals - but not far off). Got Jamies 30 minute meals for my birthday from the DS's and it's inspired me into a frenzy of cooking and enjoying it again. My first shop though - ouch - it really hurt the pocket.

but I now won't have to spend anything like as much as that in one go when I do my next shop as I've got lots of the stuff in now.

For single people with no children living on their own? Yeah, I think ready meals might be cheaper.

YABU - I am always amazed how expensive ready meals are. Our food budget is about £40 a week for 2 adults and a toddler, which includes lunches, so that's 21 meals a week = £1.90ish per meal - pretty sure we couldn't get decent ready meals with decent fruit and veg on top plus bread, milk, yogurts etc for that.

Plus ready meals are vile (though I can go a chilled pizza from time to time ).

Absolutely agree that home made will almost always be cheaper than decent quality ready meals, assuming you already have some of the basics in.

But sadly, for a lot of people buying cheap food is just about being able to buy enough food to fill them up on whatever money they have. In those circumstances, cheap ready meals made out of crap ingredients are the cheapest way to eat. Not least because if you are on a coin fed/pre pay electricity/gas meter it is much cheaper to use the microwave for 5mins to do a micro lasagne than it is to have the hob/oven on for 20-30mins to cook the same meal from scratch.

I am absurdly poor at present and Eat Well On A Shoestring. The key to this is making my own 'ready meals' - I cook up large amounts of stuff in the slow cooker, using loads of onions & other veggy ingredients (whatever's on the 39p rack at Aldi) with - mostly - mince, chicken and/or bacon. Then I freeze it in plastic takeaway boxes. Add vast quantities of rice, pasta or spuds and I get decent dinners for around 50p a go.

Upside: I only have to do preparation every 3 or 4 days, the rest is just reheating. Downside: it gets a bit boring. Sometimes I get it together enough to make lots of different meals from my slow-cooked base, which is probably better, but - well. I'm lazy!

Oh, following on from SallyScuttles's post above - I use the slow cooker because it doesn't use much electricity. I use the steamer for my spuds & rice, as you can cook quite a lot of them for the price of boiling a few kettles. Then, as Sally says, reheat them in the microwave. I've also got one of those George Foreman grills (well, a cheap fake). These minor appliances are a godsend in terms of time & money saved!

They should teach more about food economics (and cooking) in schools. I feel sad for the young mums I see buying pizzas & ready-made burgers in the bun! Ready-made value shepherd's pie & suchlike are much better nutritionally, and work out far cheaper - about the same as my DIY dinners.

Depends on quality of ready meals - you can get some that on offer cost 75p each! Good point about less waste too.

And of course it depends on where you are buying the ingredients, and whether you have all the extras which really add up. I can do a Bolognese for pennies - tesco value frozen mince, cheap pasta, smart price tinned toms, cheapest veg available. But obviously if you choose high quality beef, posh fresh pasta, expensive veg, and add lots of seasonings etc, it will be more expensive!

I suspect you're right, though obviously there are some dishes you can cook for tuppence ha'penny (lentil dahl and a hard-boiled egg anyone? ).

The difference is of course that a lot of ready meals are not, IMVHO, actual food...

There's a very good book called Bad Food Britain (can't remember who by). The author points up the difference between % expenditure on food in the UK and in other European countries. Unsurprisingly we spend far, far less - because we're prepared to eat shite. Can't recommend the book btw!

As an aside, I eat no prepared foods at all, and never have; and although I'm fairly overweight and have in the past been stonkingly overweight, I have never suffered from high blood pressure, high blood sugar or high cholesterol. I'm sure the home-cooked biz has at least something to do with it...

erm, can't recommend the book enough....