To ask if you think this is a good deal?

[Sparksi]

Looking at stocking up the freezer for postpartum. Found a good ready meal delivery service, a healthy one and ingredients are nothing you wouldn’t use in your own kitchen- very few UPFs.

It would be £37 including delivery for 8 meals. They just need microwaving, a couple can go in the oven.

Our baby is due in a couple of months so I thought we could order a box to try now, see if we like them, and if we do, buy lots more. They last for up to 12 months in the freezer.

Does this sound like a good price for a service like this? Never done it before and usually cook fresh so don’t know if it can be done cheaper.

I know we could batch cook ourselves now but I am very tired and we are both very busy with work.

YABU - that’s expensive
YANBU - do it, you will thank yourself

Try one lot and see what you think.

I’d happily pay, only if the food is edible. No point spending X amount only to dread eating the food and end up ordering takeaways.

Order some now to try and decide from there.

It sounds expensive to me, but if you can afford it and it's healthy why not. But 8 meals is just two days I assume, breakfast lunch and dinner plus a snack each day?

It depends on what the meals are , are they single portions? Or would they do the two of you? If single that just under a tenner a day which is expensive. I'd rather cook some meals up and freeze them.

It’s 8 evening meals sorry, should have specified. And yes for one person so would last 4 days

We tried a similar thing while I was pregnant thinking it would be great postpartum but the meals really didn’t keep well! I ended up just doing some batch cooking when I got a burst of nesting energy because I’d already cleaned and reorganised the house about 5 million times! I just did slow cooker type meals so it wasn’t too much hassle so I did a big lot of chilli, a big lot of bbq shredded chicken, a bit lot of steak and gravy and a big lot of lasagne, 4 portions of each roughly and the stuff only cost maybe £30? It was so worth it postpartum to have good healthy meals to just chuck in! X

Thanks all so far!

We pay £39 a week for 4 dinners for 2 adults. So technically also 8 meals, with Gousto. If you can afford it, it’s worth it. If you can’t, it’s not. Make life easier for yourself in the postpartum period however you can!

Do you like cooking? I only ask because I loved cooking in the newborn phase. It gave me some structure to the days. I cooked a risotto on day 2 and I have a picture of me making chocolate chip cookies with DS nestled in my arms in the first week or so. I had batch cooked some stuff but we never ended up eating it.

Depends if you like the meals and can afford it. If you are used to home cooked meals the. You might find it disappointing to have ready meals regardless how good quality they are.

TBH you may find that you're so busy and exhausted it's nice knowing you have some decent meals up your sleeve.

I use AllPlants several times a week as I hate cooking but don't want to eat total crap and highly recommend them.

We tried a few ready meals services for my mum and we didn’t like any of the food. Two other options: buy ready meals from a supermarket and freeze them OR every time you cook make double and freeze half. that way you will have plenty of meals. When I was pregnant I did some batch cooking - bolognese sauce, cottage pies etc.

AllPlants is the one we are looking at!

@LycheeFizz how do you find the portion sizes?

Portions are really good. I frequently think a meal looks small and think about some extra veg on the side or garlic bread but it's not necessary, and I have a big appetite.

If you're thinking of AP have you got the 30% introductory discount?

Be aware that some of these services eg Gousto and Hello Fresh send you ingredients that you have to chop and cook, so all they save is making a list and buying the food. Cook might be worth looking at, there's also Mindful Chef, but I think that's a 'cooking' one like HF/Gousto. But if Allplants send meals, that's good.

All these are expensive for what you get in terms of food, but you have to decide whether the added value of being able to pull a healthy meal out of the freezer and put it in the oven/microwave is worth it to you. It's about £4.50 per meal, which sounds a lot if it's vegan like the name suggests because it's likely to be ingredients that are relatively cheap - pulses, seasonal vegetables, grains, spices. But if you like the food and can afford it, it could be worth it to you.

But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You could have these some of the time, and combine with batch cooking or really quick and easy meals, although that might be harder to do if you're vegan as you'll probably need to be preparing lots of veg and salad and won't be able to fall back on things like omelettes, egg on toast or a piece of meat or fish with salad or steamed veg.

I wish I did this. I was starving for 2 months after I gave birth. I think the price is decent, but do try it first. What kind of meals are they?

Cook isn't cheap but I gifted DD and her DP a voucher so they could choose which meals they wanted.

It's quite expensive but if you can afford it and it's just to get you through the newborn stage why not. Help yourselves as much as you can

Cook are great and they deliver. Never had a bad meal from them.

If you are using All Plants I assume you're vegan so it's actually expensive for what they are - meat/fish being the expensive ingredients.

No doubt that AP is expensive as it's just veg, pasta, rice and the odd bit of vegan cheese.

But the meals taste great and aren't full of fake meat or other crap so that's what you pay for.

You'll probably get more helpful replies if you say which company it is.

OP has said she is thinking about AllPlants

Is that some kind of special offer/bundle? I think they are more like £5-6 per portion.

Ocado stocks some of the AllPlants range.

Yeah 25% off

So about 70ish for a week
Just for evening meals
Sounds a lot
280 a month