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.

If you are comparing bland tasteless mass produced food to bland home cooked food I could agree with you. However it really doesn't take much additional cost to improve flavour and change taste.

Home cooked every day of the week and I work 60 hours, commute, have a dog and young son but food and eating healthily is a priority.

100% and the shops don't always sell things separately. One example was my salad I made the other day. Things such as spring onions, baby boils, potatoes salad and coleslaw and that went out of date before I could use the rest of it.

middle class is probably not the right word, what people really mean is families with some stability and flexibility in budget which includes lots of working class families.

But the thread was about the fact that if you are really poor - which means likely not working class at all but what is sometimes called the underclass - you are probably not in that situation. You are instead in the position of portioning out ramen, tinned beans, toast with some sugar sprinkled on, you will be more focused on bulk than nutritional value, and you will be very motivated to spend the tiny extra you might have on something sweet or with a bit of fat. If it's all highly salted all the better because otherwise it won't be very palatable.

If you said, "When people suggest it's always cheaper," or "When people argue it's always cheaper," I would think you were being reasonable, but when you say, "When people parrot it's always cheaper," I think you aren't respecting other people's point of view, and so I think you are being unreasonable. People may, in fact, have discovered it's always cheaper, or learned how to make food at home so it's always cheaper, and you need to give other people the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe you will learn something from them.

My electric hob is currently costing 1.97 an hour per ring for an induction cooker, thats not including the oven, this is on a prepayment meter, when the prices go up 80 per cent shortly cooking anything is no longer going to be viable even once a week. And if bread finally hits 2 pounds a loaf, cold meals might get interesting also

so 4.68 plus 37p pack spaghetti, plus maybe 2 hrs give or take cooking time on my hob , roughly costing 3.94 ( pre payment meter no debt, cooker hob a year old) , thats 8.99 to feed one meal to a family of 5...... freezer is currently costing approx 87p a day ( its a bit old, no chance of affording a replacement, totally screwed if that goes) to run if feeding 2 and freezing portions.. My weekly food "budget" is between 12 and 25 ( on a really good week) this is after allowing 5 per day on meter, when it runs out it runs out.

5 x 75p ready blurgh meals microwaved all together for 4 mins ( approx 35p on meter ) , 4.10 total for one meal for family of 5, would be considered a luxury meal treat in our household and far far cheaper.

Truth is our budget doesn't even extend to that, hasn't done for well over a year.
Yes I can cook, my once well stocked store cupboard ran out halfway thru covid , it got used up to make shite food taste a little better. My collection of bits and bobs in my box of tricks made even scavenged supermarket binned half rotten veggies taste and look good in a meal... sadly i priced up the other day budget where possible items and would cost just over 100 pounds to replenish my box of tricks to get us through the winter alongside more scavenging.. which obviously I dont have so looking very bleak for us.
Current treat hot meal is value gravy powder made into a cup of "soup" with a slice of bread each! We are all getting very thin, always cold and hungry, bad skin and no energy

I cook from scratch about 80% of the week. If you are referring to take aways cooking from scratch is decidedly cheaper. If you are referring to ready meals, then it's swings and roundabouts. I agree that cooking from scratch meals like Hummus, pizza and pasta can have an initially large spend and may require specialist equipment which can be rather costly. My parents were from the Caribbean they are now deceased, I was raised on Caribbean food and whilst I love cooking Caribbean food its something that I rarely do because of the I live outside London, so it can be hard to source Caribbean food like curry mutton or Ackee and Saltfish, the cost can be rather high (a simple dish like Ackee and saltfish with rice and plantain, whilst quick to cook 30 minutes would cost between £12 and £14 and would only be one nights dinner for a family of 4. Whilst spaghetti bolognese would cost closer to £6-7 and could be 2 night dinner for a family for 4 with salad and garlic bread and then theirs timing, cooking Caribbean from scratch could take anywhere from 2 hours say for Jerk Chicken, coleslaw, vegetables and rice and peas to 3 or more hours for curry mutton or Oxtail or soup. Cooking some meals from scratch feels like a luxury in terms of cost and time that I cannot always afford.

Home cooked every day of the week and I work 60 hours, commute, have a dog and young son but food and eating healthily is a priority.

What do you want a medal ??

and the last place i worked had nowhere for staff to store their packed lunches... only a tiny locker in a warm cupboard.... not sure I'd wanna eat that after 6 hrs sat warm....

we eat shite right now have been for almost a year and have lost weight, too much in fact.. the 2nd hand charity shop clothes that we bought 6 years ago on a splurge are now loose and hanging in ragged tatters on us.. am only slightly exaggerating there. I was recently refused a job interview because my shoes have cardboard in them to cover the gaping holes in the soles, and a bit of cardboard could be seen poking through.. apparently I was not making an effort..

I think people dismiss how much things cost. It's all 'virtually free' or 'next to nothing' or 'costs pennies'. As I said earlier, I used to own a food business and did quite a few food fairs. I remember my mum being appalled at a stall charging £2 for a cake, as she was adament she could make a batch of 12 for the same price. When she worked it out, she was amazed at how much the actual cost would be. Because people tend to shop for the week, the unit costs of things get lost in the noise.

we eat shite right now have been for almost a year and have lost weight

I’ve always been sceptical of the people who claim that they can’t lose weight because they can’t afford the money/time or lack the skills/equipment to prepare “healthy” food.

You can lose weight and carry on eating rubbish. Just eat less of it.

Then the tv chefs made the cheaper cuts and simple meals into fancy expensive restaurant treats and the prices for pig trotters, livers, offal, etc soared beyond the lower incomes budgets..

2.2 kilos of Bolognaise sauce for £4.68. Fine, great.
Compares to Tesco 90p for 500g of Bolonaise sauce.
Or £4.16 for 2.2 kg.
Buying 4 jars of Tesco BS probably takes about an hour less & consumer's time (than making 2.2 kg), can be stored at room temperature until opened, and didn't require additional electricity cost to make or store it in freezer. Doesn't require mental effort to make sure you use it before it gets freezer burn. Freezer space is probably more limited than cupboard space.
There's a lot to be said for Tesco jar BS.

And you also need to have the time. Time is the most precious and priceless thing in life.

For me, main meals are often cooked from or partly from scratch, but I also buy a lot of convenience food because that is the pay off to having more time (or in my case to not burning myself out).

And not all convenience food is cancer and cardiac inducing crap.

the prices for pig trotters, livers, offal, etc soared beyond the lower incomes budgets..

The last lot of pig liver I bought was £1.56 with enough liver in it to feed 4 people generous portions.
I regularly buy heart and kidneys, too - it's how I was brought up. They usually cost around 50p per pack - hardly out of the price range of the vast majority of people, full of nutrients and excellent for anyone in danger of suffering from anaemia.

I do wish people would stop harping on about the need for knowledge (which is freely available) or loads of equipment. I have a student cook book with recipes divided into what you can make with just a chopping board, just one hob ring and a pot, just one pan, just a microwave etc. There is enough to have a different meal a day for a month, and they are all cheap, too.

There are also a lot of people here saying that once energy prices increase it will be even more expensive to cook at home - true, but do you not think that ready meals will shoot up in price, too? After all, they do need to be precooked.

Time is the most precious and priceless thing in life.

Health buys time, it is a very simple equation.
Therefore, a healthy meal is worth the time you stick into it. I can't stand JO for his smugness, but his 30min meals are absolute proof that good, wholesome cooking does not need to take ages.

If I am exhausted during the week I don't make lasagna, which would take about 2h to cook and leave loads of washing up, I make a chicken and vegetable stir fry in 15min and have one pan and a chopping board to wash up instead. The lasagna can wait until the weekend.

Do people have any idea how entitled it sounds arguing about whether it’s cheaper to make your own HOUMOUS!

Maybe you make your own gooseberry and cinnamon yogurt too? 😂

@MerryChristmasToYou we do something similar. 30p tin of chick peas from Lidl. Garlic clove, lime from squeezy bottle that lives in the fridge (Poundstretcher) we use spoon of peanut butter rather than tahini plus chick pea water and don't bother with olive oil. Blitz. Doesn't last long in our house!
We also grow garlic by sticking the cloves in the garden when they start to sprout.

@Fisifoofoo , yoghurt is easy to make and gooseberries are easy to grow. I don't like cinnamon.

@myfaceismyown , yes to the peanut butter instead of tahini. Much cheaper. Not as nice but ok. You can also substitute beans for the chickpeas.
The end bit of the garlic will grow in the garden. I save and plant the root bit of spring onions and leeks - free food.

Do people have any idea how entitled it sounds arguing about whether it’s cheaper to make your own HOUMOUS!

Oh yes, hummus...69p a tub yet seen as the preserve of the middle classes and privileged. Why? Your post has proved exactly what I've been saying...food and social class are linked in the UK in a way they just aren't in other countries. A tub of hummus and a packet of pitta breads does me lunch for a week for less than £1.20 for the entire week. It's an excellent cheap option yet has this bizarre reputation as being a middle class food. So odd.

I don't understand the overemphasis on hummus and other fiddly condiments on this thread. :)

As pp said a stirfry takes 10 minutes, one chopping board, one pan and is pretty cheap and makes a substantial meal with rice on the side. Made by people across the world who don't have cookers, fridges, freezers, benefits, housing...

The competitive hummous making is my fault. I stated this thread because I read somewhere that hummous can be made for less than 69p at home and I was challenging this statement. I don't even like hummous!

😂 my post wasn’t aimed at you. I am right on your side with the argument too. And I’ve never even eaten houmous/hummus - not sure I can even spell it 🤣

I am so hoping you were joking 😂

Catherine Tate gooseberry and cinnamon yoghurt