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.

Oh I must watch that. I suspected it was the case, the recipe boxes just look so expensive compared with buying the ingredients, especially if you choose the vegetarian options. We nearly always have in the 'specialist' ingredients or a perfectly satisfactory substitute too.

Well generally it is cheaper to make from scratch but obviously that depends on the cost of the ingredients. Not sure what you would be annoyed about?

But yes there are very cheap budget items that are made in massive quantities that may undercut home cooking depending on where you shop . However, if you bought your tin of chickpeas from Lidl at 30p, didn't use tahini (which you can leave out) and blitzed up with ingredients you probably have at home (I do): water, oil, lemon juice, spice and salt, then it would be cheaper than the Sainsbury's one.

On a side note FYI if you cook the chickpeas first and then let them cool down before blending them they are much smoother.

Only thing woth gousto is I am not keen on the meat quality. The portions could be slightly bigger with bit more veg tbh. But yeah i think it will be more than £10. I am getting one today I could look at costing it.

There’s a sneaky way to use Gousto to make it cost efficient, too.

There are only 2 of us here but I always get a box for 4 because it’s cheapest per portion and I always get the meat because it’s the most expensive part of the box.

Freeze half the meat & spend the veg out on vegetarian equivalents. Just aubergine or tofu - or courgettes, I grow my own.

Then a few weeks later when my dcs come home, I remake the recipes but using Lidl equivalent recipes. A box stretches to 5 portions sometimes, so I freeze any extra meals. Sometimes I even use the meat for totally different things. Last night my dcs has the chicken for Chinese chicken in tikka kebabs with red pepper.

Not sure if that makes sense, but I use Gousto boxes to create further ideas & not just stick to what they tell you to make. Deviant 😁

Oh yes, and I never pay any extra for the frilly tecipes. Why do that? Just buy extra large prawns in Lidl, or whatever. The objective is to get as much food with as little money possible.

You can get their recipes free online😁 I am not sure their meat is worth this, but I can see how it can make it cheaper the way you do it

😁 Yes I’m not sure their meat is worth it, either. I try to think of it as a 3 for £10 style supermarket meat deal with a few added extras. I never pay full whack for a box. If you get a recipe involving mango, you can Chuck it with frozen bananas to make smoothies instead.

I think meat wise it’s only worth it if you’re mainly a household of vegetarians & cba to select meat. Plus I guess the longer you freeze it, the more cost efficient the investment.

I got few free boxes so I am surviving the meat😂
I know it's not up to taste of many but I found halal butchers to be great value. Never full of water so it doesn't shrink to half good price and just generally quite nice. Well the bunch I go to at least. Plus you can buy only what you need and they sell bones for soup which they also happily cut up. 😁

There are lots of reasons why I cook from scratch, but they have nothing to do with cost.

Fresh foods prepared from scratch are NOT cheaper than fast / pre prepped foods. Price is very important nowadays, and that has to include the cost of cooking. I get really cross when I see (often young), mums being criticized for buying pre prepped food.

Nowadays it's not unusual for girls to become independent with little understanding of budgeting, and nutrition. They do their best, and should be given support not criticism.

@SallyB392 that's exactly what I was talking about. There have been a few posters who have just popped on this thread to proclaim it is definitely cheaper to make your own, with nothing to back it up, then popped off again. That was what I meant when I said 'parrot', I meant always assuming home-made is cheaper without at any point thinking about it.
My gran was a great one for declaring 'when I think how much it wound cost me to make' every time she saw cakes, pies etc on sale, but that was the problem, she didn't think!

I think most said it is not always cheaper. It is sometimes consideably cheaper. Sometimes it is considerably more expensive.

I think like for like or the amount you need to make can vary whether it works out cheaper or not.
Though, when I had a limited budget, I wouldn't have considered buying ready meals as I knew I could make the money go further by making food from scratch.
I did buy the odd pizza, frozen chips and fish fingers but that was pretty much it.

I was thinking about young mums on low incomes. I was reading yesterday on FB a post by a young woman, a family of 6, and trying to make £4 stretch until the end of the week, she'd bought 2 loaves of bread, a few tomatoes, 8 hot cross buns, a bottle of squash and a bag of porridge of oats.

The menu for the next few days is beans on toast, a thin spread of jam sandwiches, oats and water to make porridge, hot cross buns as cheaper than fruit, veg stir-fry using left over veg. And 2 carrots, and so on.

With £4 there was no way she could buy protein for even one day to then cook from scratch. She is doing her best, their diet isn't the best, but her children hopefully will not be hungry.

The realities are that a big bag of frozen value chips, a big pack of frozen value burgers are cheaper than a big bag of potatoes, pack of mince, onions, (maybe breadcrumbs), grated carrot, 2 egg yolks, herbs, oil etc. And that tends to be the case across the board.

Fresh fruit is expensive, fresh veg is expensive, cheese, yoghurts, milk, eggs, meat, and fish are expensive and that's before we consider all the other Ingredients, and the cost of herbs. Spices etc.

And we haven't considered the cost of cooking. A tin of stewed beef is by far cheaper than buying fresh beef to be braised.

I am sorry but I dosagree about basic fruit and veg being expensive when you can buy for example pack of bananas for 70p or pack of apples for about same price.

While it still may of course not be applicable to someone with £4 for big family for x days, it would still be affordable to most population. Cabbage is 50p, carrots are like 45p kg.

I don't understand why people here keep repeating fresh fruit and veg is expensive. It's the same like pretending no one with wage under 50k can cook😐

Value tins of veg are usually cheaper than fresh if you add the price of cooking them. I do cook from fresh by choice and steam veg which makes the time quicker, but many don't have a steamer or the money to purchase one.

Many young families today are eating a similar diet to that of wartime Britain and soon after. I'm lucky but many aren't.

You can cook veg very cheaply in microwave.
Most veg takes under 5 min. Broccoli takes about 3 min for example.
Over 90% of UK has microwaves, often people who don't have cooker (about 3%) have only that.
On current cap, cooking few portions of cheap veg in microwave (so adding couple of min since there is more) can cost about 4p. That's for 10-12 min microwave use. That's based on cheapest microwave 700w which is probably what people have in low budget situations. Majoroty of people can afford to cook veg. You can also do that with frozen veg (I defrost mine at least partially before) and than it becomes even cheaper.

Maybe it would help to stop telling people veg is unaffordable to buy and cook, but start telling them what the options actually are for most.

Saurce of times, I often microwave veg including potatoes to save time.

Damn it. Typos. Sorry

Fruit is expensive. I personally cannot stomach a banana. Some don't like Apples.

I like apples but some are nicer than others. Fruit goes off pretty quick so has to be used. Grapes and any type of berries are expensive.

Red Water melon is my favourite, mango and pineapple these are not cheap even in Aldi!

Veg is different you can buy a cheap frozen bag for under £1.

Of course berries and mangoes and watermelon, especially outside season are expensive.

That's like arguing bread is expensive because asda has some for a fiver.

No arguing here. I'm simply saying fruit isn't cheap to buy no matter the season.

No arguing here. I'm simply saying fruit isn't cheap to buy no matter the season.

It’s free around here in this season. Apples are anyway.

I think that 70p for 5 apples or 5 bananas is very much cheap. Pineapple in asda is 95p.
These are all fruit. A bsic fruit, but fruit nonetheless.

This makes me realise how blimmen expensive my supermarket is. 6 apples are 1.60 at least, or more for fancy ones like pink lady. We get the bags of apples that are 2.00 for more like 9 apples they change variety depending in whats cheap.

@AntlerRose tesco, aldi, asda and I assume others should have 70p bags. They usually price match these so if one keeps it low, others do too. They might get picked forst though. I like them and yes, they change based on what they have available.

Thank you. I dont have tesco, aldi or lidl close. Although tesco deliver to my village so i need to switch by the sounds of it