Is “home cooking” becoming a luxury these days?

[PetsNPaws]

I was chatting with a friend the other day about how expensive cooking at home has become — not just food prices, but everything else too. Energy bills, cookware, ingredients that used to be cheap but now feel like treats. Even a simple pasta dish doesn’t feel “budget” anymore if you want decent olive oil and veg.
It used to be that eating out was the luxury and home cooking was the sensible, money-saving option. But now, between the cost of groceries and the time it takes (especially if you’re working full-time or have kids), I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
I genuinely enjoy cooking, but I’ve noticed I’m doing it less because I can’t justify the effort when it’s often cheaper or easier to grab something ready-made.
Has anyone else noticed this shift? Do you still find cooking from scratch worthwhile, or is it turning into something only people with time and money can afford to do properly?

Depends what you cook, surely?

I cook about 90% of our meals from scratch. We always have oven chips in the freezer for an easy option, I also sometimes buy tortellini, ready made soup, pizzas, garlic bread, and samosas! Oh and ready rolled puff pastry for pies. Other than that it's pretty much all home made.

There is absolutely no way I could afford to feed us all on ready meals day in day out though. I don't understand how anyone thinks that's cheaper for a family? Maybe for a single person if they don't have proper cooking facilities.

Quite right.
Tescos own is £2.95 for 250 mls.

Eating out is outrageously expensive now. Even fish and chips costs a fortune for a family.

That's a greay example of what the pp and I mentioned.
It's 10.70 a kilo. Probably what should be very cheap cut.
Wagyu brisket is 11.99 a kilo.
21 day matured roasting joint 9.99
Meat prices have nearly leveled on medium priced and cheap cuts.
Which is annoying.

Yes food is more expensive than it used to be but eating out is astronomical - our weekly food bill is roughly the same as one meal out would be.

It's a mind set. The fast food industry has had a hold on us too long. Time to take our health and money back. Once you start it doesn't take longer than grabbing a take away.

I've noticed im getting less colds because of this!

We do still cook from scratch most nights, however food prices mean it is more expensive than it used to be.

I cooked steak last night and for a 2 pack of rump steak in Tesco it was £12.75 so that is £25.50 for 4 people just for the meat. Cooked a simple lasagne at the weekend and a 500g pack of meat is over £5 now.

In comparison we can order a chinese takeaway for the 4 of us for around £25.

I don’t think home made is more expensive unless you are eating total crap - which isn’t really comparing like with like - but even crap processed food is expensive

Comparing a ready meal to a home cooked meal solely on the basis of price is a bad comparison.

And I still think home cooked is cheaper.

Whole an issie for the very low income, I think the cost of energy for cooking is rather over estimated. I cook from scratch pretty much every day and our daily gas and electricity cost (without heating) rarely goes above £3. With heating it may reach £6 on a very heavy energy use day. Are people baking and roasting things in the oven for hours or something?

Not world wide. I am an immigrant my parents worked and cooked. So did my grandparents, so does our gen. Dh admittedly did have non working mum which was standard there (different country), though this gen, both parents work.
When my family first visit me in UK they were taking pics of ready meal isles in supermarkets to show back home. They were stunned by the sheer amount of these.
Now there are few racks, not just shelves, of ready meals too in there, but still nowhere on UK scale. Most people still cook whether they work or not because it's just basic function.

Mentioning that I always saw big difference in attitude to food and cooking between my immigrant and british friends.
We also do have a giggle when some of our "chaleap poor foods" are called MC here.

We have the budget to cook what we like, but steak or lasagna would definitely be an 'occasion' meal for us.
A chilli made with a beef/pork mince mix, and padded out with value kidney beans, is the kind of cooking we do through the week.

I don't think it's always a luxury in terms of cost (how much is a lentil and veg soup and crusty bread?) although will be for some people. I do think it's a luxury in terms of time for a lot of people who work, commute, knew in after school care etc when you've also got kids clubs and homework etc to fit in. Also in terms of knowledge, I'm not sure that as many people know how to cook cheap healthy meals as they used to

I've yet to find any ready meals which taste really good. Even the posh ones like Charlie or M&S.

Food is definitely much more expensive. I used to be able to do a weekly Lidl shop for £60. That would now be at least £80.

Still cheaper than eating out though. I can buy the famous Mumsnet chicken for DD and I and make a roast or Bombay chicken then make soup for the next day which I usually pad out with rice. There is also usually some soup left over for the day after that.

Even Macdonalds isn't cheap any more.

DD and I love eating out but we just can't really afford to do that much now. Even chain restaurants are horrendously expensive.

Lol at "steak for four at home was more expensive than a Chinese takeaway" steak is and always was a luxury meat.

We are having spiced fried rice with smoked mackerel tonight. It will cost about £2.50 per person and takes about 20 mins to.cook on a gas hob.

It's much cheaper to cook from scratch if you are comparing like with like.

I cook from scratch about 4 evenings per week, usually double portions so I can freeze half. DH doesn't really cook but he reheats something I've shoved in the freezer at least twice per week. And then once a week we eat something easy like beans on toast as we are out doing sports.

I very occasionally buy a Charlie Bigham or Cook ready meal - probably about once a month - as an easy option. They are probably twice the price of making it myself but the quality is similar.

Surely it is "privileged" to expect someone to cook for you? Ok, you pay for it, but "I say, Mrs Patmore, cook me dinner"

Reduced to clear. I don't have a single thing in my freezer which doesn't have a yellow sticker on it (apart from ice cream). In Asda yesterday picked up a massive 1.3 kg brisket beef for £8 reduced from about £20, that will feed us for at least 2 meals.

But I'm sure someone will be along shortly to say what a privilege it is to buy yellow stickers, have a freezer etc etc.

Iceland family size lasagne is £5. Im pretty sure i couldn't make a lasagne for £5. The cheapest pack of mince in Tesco is now more than that for a start(although im sure by stealth they gave also removed the smaller packs)

Also a MN favourite is batch cooking but that relies on being able to afford larger amounts of ingredients in one go. If you buy in bulk that is often cheaper per portion but again a bigger expense to start with.

Or being able to get to a supermarket with a decent selection of food. Larger shops are often out of town and less accessible without a car. Smaller supermarkets and corner shops are always more expensive. DD had uni halls in a town centre last year, and it was a 40 min walk to 30 min bus ride to Aldi or Asda. She noticed how much more expensive and less choice there was in the co-op or Tesco metro nearby

Home made food is way, way cheaper in cost than ready made food. I think the highest cost to me is time. As a working parent in a professional job, having the time to meal plan / prep / cook from scratch is what I struggle with. Not the cost of ready meals! And tbh if ready meals weren't so processed I'd buy them every day in a heartbeat, even if it cost a fortune!

We do everything homemade, except pizzas on Friday evenings. There’s no food delivery here and ‘grabbing something ready-made made’ means minimum 40 minutes driving by which time we could have cooked dinner.

Or having enough freezer space to freeze things you've batched! We don't have room for an extra freezer so batch cooking is limited for us.

My asda is very disappointing compared to that! The best we got was 30-40% (not to be sneered at but it used to be better) and I would fight people for brisket🙈

But this, while heartbreaking, applies to a specific section of the population. the majority of us are not living in these circumstances.

Presume they mean this (and have rounded down) https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/258061785