To get annoyed when people parrot that it's always cheaper to cook from scratch?

[Katypp]

Caveats: Home made food is usually:
A. Nicer
B. More nutritious
C: Made with proper ingredients that you can control
D: More filling
E: Not made with fillers, starch etc

But it's not always cheaper!

Time after time, when people post about food costs, the trope is always make it yourself, you'll save money. This post is in frustration after yet again, someone tripped it out on a budgeting forum. Someone commented that Tesco budget hummous is quite nice, to be told, as always, you can make it cheaper yourself.
You can't. Eastman's hummous 69p

Tesco chickpeas 60p + lemon 30p = 90p and that's before you add olive oil and tahini.

Yes I know you can soak your own chickpeas and buy in bulk at an Asian grocer etc, but that level of organisation for most people is beyond the effort of just picking up a tub on the weekly shop.

For the record, I am a very keen home cook and have also run a food business and written about food in the past. I enjoy cooking, but I am sick of people trotting out this line without thinking about it, especially on budgeting and money-saving forums.

@worriedatthistime not everyone wants it at all can't stand the stuff !!

Is it privileged to not have to eat the same food day after day? I suspect it probably is. I suspect the government thinks beans on toast 6 times a week and sausages on a Sunday is fine.

The government is playing lip service to ‘cooking from scratch’ and playing games with us. There is no way I could make a loaf of bread for 39p or pasta/beans in tomato sauce for 16p.

I think it’s definitely cheaper to say cook a couple of big curries for a bunch of people than get a mediocre take out.

im shocked at the price of take outs which where I am aren’t great.

but to buy some ready made curry from supermarket and a Naan…probably cheaper than a curry from scratch if you don’t have the spices in.

It is really interesting to actually look at the differences between poor people in countries where DH and I come from and poor here.
Now I am not talking about the ones living in tent on a corner of some public land (because that is totally different level), but the comparable to here with accomodation with microwave at least.
None of us grew up with money. Shared rooms until left homes etc. None of our families could afford ready meals if they were sold anyway.

I totally get the point about the butchers etc. It's such a shame they are not in supermarkets. We always went to Tesco and even budget ones like Kaufland, and were able to find deli and butcher counters, veg per weight, not just a bag of it and so on. Luckily we got few foreign supermarkets few miles away and they do provide all that including cheap tins and really well priced big bags of things like rice.

Pretty sure it would be more beneficial to people for asda to have small butcher counter rather than sushi stand. And rolls! Just let me buy 1 roll ffs, I don't need 4.

I think this makes some difference between UK and many non UK shopping habits and ability to then cook even on tiny budgets

A pp upthread mentioned something really useful, just buying a few spices or herbs/vinegar/whatever when you can. A jar of spices is around 60 - 80p. After a few months, you can build up a decent store cupboard of stuff that will make cooking much more rewarding, and make it easier to put a good meal together.

I would buy whole spices and grind as needed (you can literally do this with the back of a spoon) - but ready ground are obviously easier.

The nearest high street to me has no butcher. Or greengrocer

Most Asian food stores (about 99% easier to find on the average High Street than a decent local butcher) have fresh fruit and vegetables, and a meat counter located inside.

Being able to buy a single chicken drumstick, and one potato, and two carrots etc. is exactly what small shops can deliver, as opposed to supermarkets. We should try to support them, as they sell what so many people on this thread are saying they need.

“And rolls! Just let me buy 1 roll ffs, I don't need 4.”

Absolutely, @Bubblebubblebah

Asda do sell single rolls in some stores, but they are ‘artisanal’ and the same price as a pack of four. <sigh>

I'm on a low budget, but often cook from scratch, but then I cook very basic "British" or Italian dishes. So don't need a spice cupboard as such.

It's prominently meat and two veg in this house with the odd Chinese/curry or Mexican, but then those are bought as kits to make and I can afford the outlay on them.

I'll do things like roast a chicken on Sunday, even though there is only two of us. I'll then use some for the Sunday dinner. Then you get cold cuts for sandwiches, the thighs make a after school snack.

Common meals in our house cooked from scratch:

Sausage peas and mash
Spaghetti Bolognese
Sunday dinners (various meats/joints)
Cornbeef pie and beans
Gammon egg, chips and peas
Cawl/stew/split pea soup with dumplings
Macaroni cheese
Chili and rice
Sausage casserole
Shepard's pie or cottage pie
Toad in the hole.

Then your more ready made/kits

Tacos
Fajitas
Fish fingers/fish cakes or chicken nuggets from frozen
Stir fry bought as a kit
Curries bought as a kit
Frozen pizza

I can make bread from scratch but I have to be in the mood, it's all done by hand and I need the time and patience to knead the dough. I always make pastry for pasties and pies from scratch I also make suet dumplings from scratch.

I just don't have a wealth of a spice cupboard or the upfront cost to put one together so I'll just buy the kit for those one off meals.

I know eating tradition British dishes aren't as fun or a wealth of flavours, but they cost less. Between the greengrocer and the butcher in the market you can shop pretty cheaply for the week. Also you can ask the butcher for the cheaper cuts for things like stews and curries.

My pantry mainly consists of staples like various flour, yeast, bicarb, sugar, salt, pepper and the odd jar of dried rosemary, thyme, province herbs, Italian herbs.

So I can make pastry, cakes and bread. Just need a pack of eggs and some milk in the house. The dried herbs just lift the odd dish.

@CaptainBarbosa , the kits are relatively expensive. The spices last well and you can buy them as you go along, or you could even share with a friend. You only need to buy the ones that you like.
I find the kits too overpowering, and often the blend of spices has things in it that are too strong or are ones I'd omit.

The only applicances I have in my kitchen are a double gas oven and stove, and a hob top kettle.

I have a microwave and a electric hand whisk. (I don't have a toaster, a mixing machine, a air fryer, a slow cooker) I use the gas oven for everything really. Now and again something might go on the microwave for re-heating.

I have utensils, and then I have 4 sauspans, frying pan, soup pot. Two baking trays, a roasting tray and then a small cake tin, loaf tin, pie tin and a 6 muffin tray, (I use this one to make Yorkshire puddings or fairy cakes)

It's a basic kitchen, but it does everything I need it to do.

True, I think part of me just finds them as convenient also 😂 just shove it all together and it's done. I generally use them for days I don't have much time in the evening.

I may look at adding the odd spice in now and again to my shopping list though.

Lucky for me DS isn't a fan of spicy food really, so I don't cook them often. He will eat anything with gravy though (I'm sure he has some sort of gravy addiction) so as long as I'm boiling some potatoes and have some juice from a meat I can make gravy easy.

@CaptainBarbosa , buy them in asian shops or the world foods section, not in pretty jars. They work out much cheaper.
The ones that need grinding last a lot longer than the ground stuff.
A pestle & mortar is not expensive if you look in somewhere like TKMax. Get a big one.

With herbs, growing them is much better than dry ones. You can pot most of the ones from the supermarket.

Not here. Cafes, betting shops and lots of nail bars ...

There aren't many "Asian" shops in rural mid Wales 😂 there isn't the "demand" shall we say.

I do make my own curry from scratch but DC likes the basic mild curry sauce you can get from asda and morrisons mixed in with rice. Its only 30p.if I was on a very tight budget week I would def buy it for all of us to eat cheaper than doing it from scratch. Tin of tomatoes cost more than that now.

“Tbh I wouldn't call that bread....”

Because you can afford better bread.

“If anywhere near Central London, the Indian YMCA hostel does pretty healthy Indian meals for less than £4 per person on weekdays”

£4 will feed 4 people for a full day though with cheap bread and cheap nuggets or sausages.

if you are able to a little cost using the microwave and have any leftover bread you can make toastie breadcrumbs in the mic which give the deconstructed pie a crunch top when you sprinkle them over!

It isn't easy to make food from scratch when you're working 80 hours a week in poor paid work and living in a poor quality house share or flat. It's a middle class brag when people show off their batch cooking - it comes from having time. Not everybody can afford time.

Er, yes, actually, according to my kids, their teachers and those around them.

What was the need for the vitriol in your comment? Why try to tear someone down when you could celebrate success?

My children learn to cook (which is always lamented as a skill that is dying out precisely because of lack of teaching), budget and generally organise their lives. It's my job as their parent.

It's a middle class brag when people show off their batch cooking - it comes from having time. Not everybody can afford time

No. You can batch cook in 30 minutes.

Not every single bloody thing on this thread is a 'middle class brag.' It's just people TRYING to say helpful stuff, so people can take something useful away or not.

Jesus. Not everything will work for everyone, but posters laying into other posters for having a spare saucepan and two hours to cook a week is getting draining.

I agree, nothing wrong with making a meal plan and budgeting, it's a skill, children will then grow up with this skill so when they are running their own homes they will be ok.

I was born in the 90's raised on a shoe strong, and my mum always did meal planning, I thought it was "normal" I never understood how people shopped and prepared if they didn't do this! Do they just wander around the shop thinking of meals as they go? 😳

I always ask DS what dishes he fancies to eat for tea next week and we plan. He also now that he is older (8 years old) "helps" he chops vegetables, peals potatoes, finishes mixes the batter for toad in the hole or yorkshire puddings after I've started it, same for gravy. We cook together he enjoys it.

He's not that academically great, he just isn't, but sport, cooking physical things he enjoys doing and he gets praise that way. Who know he might be one a chef one day! 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

regard the barbed tome comments,that batch cooking is a middle class hobby for those awash with quality time, that’s a tired trope. Also, simply not true
Batch cooking a big pot dinner saves time,as you don’t cook every night. You reheat what’s prepared. Or take stuff out the fridge. In the time it takes to have a cuppa watch news,decompress I had batch cooked soup, made a pasta bake. It doesn’t require an aga and hours in the kitchen.

All through covid and beyond I worked 80+ hour week travelled to work and I batch cooked approximately once a month. It was straightforward and it saved time , meant I ate well and it was cost effective. Also I didn’t have the time or inclination to traipse around under stocked shops to try buy item

Yup
30- 45 min you can knock up a lot of dinners
its really not that hard. You don’t need a. Aga and hours. Couple of pans and freezer bags to portion up,.
I grew up in a working class single parent home. My mum worked FT and batch cooked. That’s what we did, cost effective and less hassle.

I think the comments about it being middle class thing are quite insulting to large portion of working class...

These threads and generally threads which descent into "ME cooks WC can't" kind of suggest that every working class person is in abject poverty, can't learn to cook, has no idea how to cook, doesn't have kitchen etc.
We all know that's not the case yet that is the picture many paint. If I remember correctly about 3% of population is living without a cooker. While it's shit and it is something to consider all these threads keep sounding like it's 50% with all the "this is priviledged, people live without cooker so your advice is useless" type of answers.
Half a population is WC in UK. People need to stop saying essentially that half a population can't cook

It depends what you mean by batch cooking.
When we were really skint I could afford to make a big pan of something that we'd eat it as it was or in various forms for most of the week.
I couldn't afford the ingredients to make multiple meals to eat in future weeks.