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.

I am talking to my DD about this and she reminded me of something funny. DH looks in fridge and claims there is nothing to eat (ready made) we look in fridge and produce a stir fry or a frittata/omelette from the past their best veg, and a couple of eggs.
Not a great deal of effort or knowledge required. Quick, easy, yummy food.

Not read the whole thread, but a massive hidden cost is the energy gas/electric to cook, water to wash/clean up. I think unfortunately with the current cost of living situation for many the Iceland pizza/nuggets/fries promotions will be the default choice. Absolutely we all need and should eat decent home cooked, fresh meals, but this government is condemning millions of people to that route of obesity/cancer etc, which will destroy the economy even more as they become unable to work and use more NHS resources.

It really feels like the Tory mission statement is ‘Fuck the UK’.

I thought that was Putins intentions.

Always cheaper to cook from scratch .. we eat so much processed filth disguised as food . We are all being conned by the massive food industry that rules us .. linked to pharmaceutical companies . This combo loves to get rich whilst we get more sick eating their boxed and packaged filth. Up your good fat intake , get off the plastic cheese train and you won’t have to eat anywhere near as much food as the advertisers tell you you must .
as for the animal cruelty involved in the food industry .I don’t know where to begin .
sent with love and hope

"Batch cooking" and 'cooking from scratch' are very MN things.

I have to disagree. They are how families have survived until very recently in human history.

But until relatively recently, mothers rarely worked outside the home, and most people had to depend on whatever food was in season and locally available. Even fridges, let alone microwaves, takeaways and ready meals, didn't exist until relatively recently. We now have options that previous generations did not.

• am talking to my DD about this and she reminded me of something funny. DH looks in fridge and claims there is nothing to eat (ready made) we look in fridge and produce a stir fry or a frittata/omelette from the past their best veg, and a couple of eggs. Not a great deal of effort or knowledge required. Quick, easy, yummy food.*

Glad I saw this post today. We had 'nothing in' today for lunch. I was going to nip to the supermarket and buy some shop sandwiches as really couldn't be bothered. I do cook most of the time but I'm definitely a bit guilty of what your dh does.

Instead I've made egg fried rice with veg using up whatever was in and a sad looking pack of frozen broccoli in the freezer, that had been sitting there forever, bonus the dc loved it.

Well you are going VERY back if we are talking even frodges at home.
Many women worked as well as cook. Batch cooking is very nuch not MN, middle class nor last gen thing. My grandmother's gen also often worked because they had to. Maybe not in uk but certainly where I am from.

Also previously, going before fridges, they still batched "cooked" for future. Preserved stuff. Fermentation, drying, curing, pickling and so on. That is basically batch cooking imo.

Always cheaper to cook from scratch

But it just isn't. Some things are but lots aren't. Like my earlier example of a Christmas cake or Christmas pudding.... the ingredients needed came to far more than the cost of a shop bought one.

I've 'cooked from scratch and batch cooked' for decades before discovering mumsnet and I'm not middle class. It was from necessity and for convenience for the nights when I'd been working all day. I still find it satisfying to get something made cheaply, just made blackberry cordial with about 20p worth of sugar, free fruit and whatever the gashob took to bring to the boil, the result is a bottle of squash full of natural vitamins equivalent to the Rocks organic style which would cost about £3. Nobody will convince me that cooking from scratch isn't cheaper but I guess that would also depend on your preferences/taste as some would argue you can get cheap squash at the supermarket........ But it's never seen any fruit🤷and isn't something I would want to feed to my children.

IcedPurple actually aside from a blip in the late 20th and 21st century poorer more working class mothers have always worked outside the home than haven't.

If you are hard up, and there aren't At least 4 of you, it's almost certainly cheaper to eat cheap ready meals , cheap frozen pizza, Iceland packs of various coated stuff etc. add some steamed veg to it or extra rice and it's bland and boring but does a job. What you can't be doing with is having to buy loads of ingredients you don't have in and use masses of energy most days. That doesn't mean to say it's not cheaper to make your own than live on a diet of M&S or Waitrose ready meals (however I do eat a fair few (with added steamed veg) because I'm big on 'yellow stickers' and have lots of freezer space

I forgot to add also, it's not always that easy to do tons of fresh homemade meals with a family- due to peoples comings and goings and often being picky!! Not every family sits down at the table to eat together together most nights. My H can't stand Indian food or lentils or eggs or red peppers (in fact quite a lot of things)- so lots of Indian stuff or omelettes or quiches are a complete no no.

It is for some things but i like to eat something different everyday for my evening meal i havent a need to batch cook theires only me and hubby no kids if hes working late he only wants something light so why make a big meal

I don't batch cook either, half would go to waste, it's only me and 8 year old DS, and my freezer compartment is just not big enough 🤷🏻‍♀️

My child however loves a freybentos pie, home made cornbeef and potato pie, sausage mash and gravy (which I do, make from scratch, sausages are store bought though, But the potatoes are peeled and mashed and the gravy home made) he likes gammon, egg and chips (again I just peel and chip the potatoes and against all fire safety, have a chip pan I know I know, shoot me now but they taste so good....

We will also have lavabread and fried bread with eggs, beans and bacon. Things like that.

In winter months we have more stews/cawl and I will make fresh bread rolls to go with them. I also make heavier starchy things like bara brith. Bara brith, butter and tea is one of our favourite suppers in the winter or even better some old fashioned bread pudding and a cuppa.

As you can guess I make a lot of traditional seasonal Welsh dishes, because I'm Welsh and it's all we've ever eaten because we've always been working class. But they are easy and cost effective to make from scratch.

He's easy to cook for, we get a variety and it's a mix and match of fresh from scratch and pre made. I won't make my own quiche for example, I just can't be arsed when I can buy one for a £1 and then serve with some fresh side salad and a small portion of olive oil, sea salt pasta.

I strike a balance according to my budget, and the time I have as a full time working lone mother 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm single and I batch cook
I CBA trying to make 1 portion of cottage pie/lasagne/stew etc. Usually make 5-6 portions, put them in glass dishes and freeze them
Then I can just grab a "ready meal" out the freezer

Depends what you eat really

Some dishes really lend themselves to this, don't they. I think it's somethimes humanly impossible to cook 1 portion of things. Like rice.
Carefully, carefully, carefully... 16 portions😂

@Bubblebubblebah yes exactly! I mean if I'm mashing potatoes I'm not faffing about making 1 portion of cottage pie or putting the oven on for that. Plus it saves energy as I just microwave it to heat up

On other days I will have omelettes, salads, jacket potato etc that are more single portion meals

Same here. We make extra portions for freezer for busy days and then you have the quick and easy stuff to cook on a day.
For whatever reason I am also not able to make only 2 portions of roasted Mediterranean style veg... So I have often 2 in a freezer to which I can just then add fish or something.

But yes. It does depend what people eat. Lots of things have no point to batch cook as they take 30 min max anyway.

This is the same argument I have with my sister. It's me and husband no kids yet.
We get gusto. Everything you need for 2 for 5 evening meals delivered to the door every Monday. £42. Everything you need, portioned out, just what you need very little issues with quality over 9 months and 50+ plus meals to choose from a lot at 10 min meals so super convenient.
I know I am paying for convenience by about £10 a week. But if I had to go to Lidl and Aldi (cheapest) I would have to drive to round buy more than I need blah blah so cooking from scratch might a majority of the time be cheaper but it does take a serious amount of effort and organisational skill. My grandmother had 13 children she was militant but she was a homemaker it was her actual vocation? We don’t have that luxury.

We also need to stop being so snobbish over processed foods.that’s not helping people make different choices.we push people into a shamed and not good enough corner sometimes and that won’t encourage the masses to look after themselves or seek support.mental and emotional well-being are a lot to be said for cooking and making more nutritious choices.
some processed food aren’t not the felons some say they are.on balance in fact they’d be just fine. There are some extremes that don’t help.the diet culture clean eating blasting nugget bating that goes too far the other way.

A work colleague said she has £15 a week left for food, for two people per week….. to me that’s pasta, soup, cereal, beans on toast, milk, forget Gusto etc!

You're not wrong. Asda's 'essential range' are doing cod cakes at 11p each (£1.10 for a bag of 10) which my kids would have eaten when they were young, with tinned peas, beans or spaghetti hoops. Those cod cakes are majority cod flakes and spud. A tin of spag loops in tomato sauce is 16p. Peas and beans similar.

Two DC sharing that is (each) 22p + 8p = 30p (plus energy costs obvs, and bread & butter and maybe another vegetable). OK it's not brilliant but it really is a lot cheaper than cooking it 'from scratch'.

Plus, the time element DOES matter. For a lot of female single parents their time really is money, as pp have pointed out.

@Kate0902900908 food unwrapped compared like for like last night on TV, the equivalent ingredients at a supermarket were £17 as opposed to £42.........your paying more than £10 for the convenience😬