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?

@TheGoddessAthena ooh I'm a big fan of a yellow sticker. My best find recently was a half price boned lamb shoulder in Waitrose. At £7 it was still a bit of a treat for the two of us but worth it.

A normal family dinner cost me about 15 pounds average (there's 5 of us and a baby)
Anything remotely extravagant like pulled braised beef and crispy potatoes about 20 pounds plus. I used to batch cook huge mince dishes relatively cheaply but my daughter hates mince now 😡

That’s an interesting point about alcohol - with current concerns about grocery prices we should be a nation of teetotallers!

If only they were “niche”.

A career in community nursing and social work gave me an insight into the struggles that enormous numbers of people face.

It is easy to think that what are basic norms in your own life experience are pretty much universal.

Sadly that really isn’t the case.

Its actually 2.65. still bloody expensive for a small amount

I'm waiting for the inevitable thread where someone chastises the poster for daring to cook from scratch because it's a luxury.

Utter tossers. In advance.

You probably could if you use 200g of meat to make 1.5kg lasagne...

I cook from scratch most days (or DP does). I think the key is routine and preparation. We have set meals for four days a week so for example it’s always salmon and salad on Wednesday. Then three “freestyle” days to allow a bit of variety.

The beauty of this is that you can shop and batch cook which takes the thought out of food prep.

The stress and cost mainly comes from having to think about meals on the fly after a day at work and ending up wasting food.

Home cooking can be very cheap if you plan it properly. Takeaways are not cheaper than a simple pasta dish or a salad with protein.

It’s showing as £2.95 for me on the app. And yes, only a small bottle.

This is so well put. Time, health, energy, stress levels - all hugely influenced by economic factors. Something which is too little taken into account in judging people who resort to ready made food.

Cooking dinner from scratch is very difficult when you’re so tired, or so in pain, that you can barely stand, in a small kitchen you haven’t had time to clean & clear, stressed, unhappy, with kids clamouring for food, and knowing you have to get up at 5.45 the next morning and the endurance test that is your life starts all over again.

Oooh- where is the wagyu brisket from, please?

To me it makes no sense to complain about the price of olive oil but then buy a bottle of wine. We use extra virgin olive oil for all our cooking, but a bottle lasts 3 or 4 weeks whereas wine, what? Some people might stretch a bottle to a couple of nights...?

Aldi. I checked their website. Tempted to go in for once but somehow expecting it to be a typo or absolutely terrible brisket😂

Supermarket veg is really cheap and it's probably even cheaper on the market. Ready prepared may seem cheap but just don't read the ingredient list usually high in salt and sugar, tiny amounts of the most horrible bits of meat (sometimes even mechanically recovered), and very small very expensive portions of vegetables.

Re olive oil. I think it's quite reasonable expectation that oil from something we really don't grow, actually most countries don't, will be premium price.

My Asda is all over the place with the reductions and I think it depends who is in charge on that particular day! A couple of weeks ago it was 10% reductions - so a large pack of chicken breasts from £6.50 to £5.85 or similar. Then the next week, the £6.50 pack of chicken is £2.80. Who knows.

I have also had some really good things in my local Co-Op on my way home around 6pm. Always buy the proteins like chicken, the good quality sausages, beef or salmon when I see it.

These threads always go the same way. Ingredients are expensive but folk will strongly push that home cooking is always cheaper and people
are just lazy if they don’t cook from scratch - reminds of the eat less move more than is rolled out to people struggling to lose weight.

These same people then describe meals that always cost ‘pennies’ however by the time you are buying the cheapest ingredients the result is no better nutritionally then the ready meals or the ingredients are so stretched (500g mince does us a meal for six with leftovers for the next day - yeah right!) the calories per person are so low as to not be enough food anyway - therefore needing bulking out with snacks or bread or whatnot.

We cook from scratch but by the time we have bought a decent amount of food and more than the very basic range we spend a significant amount in the supermarket however we can afford to do that. I am not so unaware to understand why others can’t though.

Similar with us and I would also add there is a knack to using up leftovers sensibly

We always do extra vegetable with every meal - these get recycled into soup/salad/frittata and once a week on the day the kids have activities at different times, we have wraps for dinner, which is basically raid the fridge for left over meat/fish/cheese/veg and everyone assembles their own.

I disagree. For a start, don't use EV olive oil in cooking, the heat destroys the flavour anyway.

I cook from scratch every day. Last night we had salmon cream pasta. £3 for two salmon tails, a handful of frozen mussels, some wholemeal pasta, a few ground-up fennel seeds, some broccoli and a tablespoon of creme fraiche. I used half a kettle of hot water and two cooker rings for 10 mins. About £1.80 per serving. Less than a cheap supermarket pizza.

Our food budget for ds and I for a week is £60. It is all home cooked, varied, healthy. I eat 30 different fruit & veg every week (NHS advice post bc).

It's more expensive than it was a year ago, but still less costly than pizza, takeaways, chicken nuggets, ready meals etc.

I'm single and out of the house a lot! I work a late shift so don't cook 'from scratch' when I get in, but I do use my slow cooker and cook three days worth of meals in one go once a week. The rest of the time is usually salads, although I do give in to the odd ready meal. The dog costs more to keep than I do!

I don't mind the odd pre-made meal but I prefer to cook for myself because I can put exactly what I know I will like in. There's nothing worse than sitting down at eleven o clock at night, tired and starving, and starting to eat a ready meal that they turn out to have tweaked the recipe to and now it's 80% potato (I don't like potatoes).

I do think there is a privilege associated with preparing freshly cooked meals every day. I home educate my DD so, apart from the days when we’re out all day for a trip, I’m at home a lot and can take the time to cook from scratch daily (we often have a ‘proper’ home cooked lunch like a salad, soup, or roast veggies too). And even on busy days I am never so tired that I can’t make a quick sauce and boil some pasta. This also means we can eat as a family when DH has finished work, apart from when DD is out at clubs. But I have often thought about how much harder this would be if we were both working outside of the home. I’m in awe of my friends who manage it!

I buy mince and chicken and special offers on meat in the supermarket and use an online butcher for all other meat. The range of cuts in the supermarkets is really terrible these days and beef is often just beef joint, which bit? The steaks seem to be a reasonable price, but the quality matches the price unfortunately. The exception is Christmas when suddenly all sorts of nice things are available!

And where is the fresh fish these days?

Going out or ready meals are definitely a last resort, DS does a lot of our cooking and definitely prefers to make from scratch, says he then knows what’s in it. DD cooks all her meals from scratch and still manages it on top of full time work

Re: price of food, it has gone up astronomically. But we are vegetarian which helps keep costs down a bit, and means we can afford to buy better quality basics (good chopped tomatoes, nice olive oil, etc) which definitely makes a difference to how things taste!

The heat doesn't destroy the flavour of olive oil if you cook at a low heat @Meadowfinch