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?

I don’t think it’s true that eating out/ grabbing something ready made is actually cheaper. The prices for all of that have gone up too.

However, I have noticed that my standard of catering is rubbish compared to my parents who are retired and have time! Not rushing in from work to feed teen and tween before their hobbies/ continuing homework etc

We’re very stir fries and simple curries here, soups when the fussier dc isn’t here, whereas my parents seem to eat an array of amazing meals every day!

I don't fry meat on a high heat with it, more lightly seared, and I also use it in salads, etc. If I was to make fish in batter, for example, then I would use vegetable oil. But the main oil that I use is EV oil, that I am used to.

For me, eating out is still a luxury compared to cooking at home.

I would spend €15 on a piece of meat for a Sunday roast. If we were to Go to a carvery for Sunday lunch, we would definitely spend €60. Same with other dishes - pasta, curry, fish and chips. All cost considerably more to eat out.

With homecooking v ready meals, I don't think there's a huge price difference either. A tray of ready make chicken curry without rice is €6. I could probably make my homemade chicken curry for the same price, and we get more out of it.
Same for pasta.

@meadowfinch you’re probably right (and that sounds delicious and a great idea!). I wish I had learned a bit more about seasonality, economical cuts of meat, etc growing up. I do try to be more aware of these things now but have so little mental energy leftover for cooking and planning meals after kids, job etc….
But I do think that while day to day cooking is still always more economical if you batch cook, use tins, freeze portions etc… doing something a bit ‘fancy’ at home or having people over can get extortionately expensive now between the cost of meat/ fish/ butter/ other things, if you buy everything from scratch - to the point where it starts to feel quite uneconomical and you might as well go out !

The problem is the executive function to go to the charity shop to buy the book, organise yourself to do all the shopping needed when you have a million things running through your brain.

I cook but I cook less healthy and sensibly when I have a lot of problems going on.

I agree that food at supermarkets is more expensive but definitely not more expensive than buying something ready to eat. When you buy food at supermarket you get better quality and more quantity. Most basic veg such as carrot, tomatoes, courgette are not than expensive. Pasta you can find in Tesco for 40p. Also usually you have leftovers to make more meals out of it.

Sure, but that's just willpower. That's a different issue from the cost of ingredients vs. ready made.

I think the cost if everything has massively increased but it’s still cheaper overall to cook at home rather than ready meals. I just go down a step in terms of quality there days or choose a cheaper option - don’t buy extra lean mince, blended oil rather than 100% olive, pork instead of beef, bulk dishes with cheap veg like carrots etc. also make sure I eat up all the leftovers.

Pizza made at home is cheaper and nicer.

I make a massive vat of soup for the week with veg, beans/lentils and have that with a fried egg, cheese or leftover meat on it for lunch.

You’re comparing apples and pears so no wonder you’re confused.
ready-made (using the cheapest ingredients possible) and bulked out with onion
vs
hone-cooking using expensive olive oil and quality ingredients

theres no way ready-made is cheaper unless it has at least 2 reduced stickers on it.

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

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. If you buy the same products but of lesser quality, leaving vital ingredients out or strech it simply with water, then of course you end up with something less nutritional.
Been there, done that.... and then I discovered veggy / vegan food and pulses! Game changers! Cheap, nutritious and very filling. Of course you have to learn to cook it but that should not be an issue to the average home cook. And DC will adapt if nothing else is on offer.
As a family we manage to eat veggie/ vegan 5-6 days/ week. I have enough money over from our shopping budget to buy some lovely top quality meat for our Sunday meal... and because I use better quality ingredients, I actually buy less food for similar money and everyone is full and satisfied for longer.

I think too you have to factor in what quality do they mean when people say just grab something ready made - now I’m very partial to a good ready meal but at the level of M&S, cook , Charlie bighams etc and to be honest the ones for 1 always feel a bit meagre unless I bang a salad with them it cook some broccoli etc - multiply up by 3 or 4 and it isn’t cheap . I mean yes you can buy £2 ready meals in sone places - but they aren’t good or very ample either

I found home cooking from scratch a LOT cheaper, but we don't eat meat and we don't eat a traditional British diet.

I wish it wasn't cheaper as I hate cooking

Don’t know where you got this idea from. When prices rise everything rises, so takeaways/convenience food rises too. It costs me £4.20 to make a good-quality spaghetti Bol for 4 people. I use a good pan that I’ve had for about 10 years. How can that be more expensive than getting, say, 4 individual ready-made spaghettis for about £5 a pop?

Except for salads, I only use British rapeseed oil that comes (since I try to avoid plastic as far as possible) in a glass bottle.

I grow a lot of vegetables and then preserve them to eat in different ways throughout winter. I make a lot of use of the apples in my garden and village - usually I cook them into a purée and freeze it for later. Or I make apple frangipane tart which doesn’t use that much ingredient-wise. Bread-making is important, too, there’s so much you can make with one bag of bread flour.

Re olive oil etc - this is an example of not comparing like with like. You can bet your bottom dollar that ready meals aren’t using much ‘decent olive oil’. An expensive meal out might, but one priced even vaguely equivalent to homemade won’t.

I think home cooking can be as cheap or expensive as you like really.I mean Spag Bol as an example, can be £5,00 plus a pound 5% fat. Sainsbury s have 25% fat £3.33 a pound .Nan used to cook in a pan and let the fat rise.Cool it and break it off when solid .I have used oats to pad out a dear batch of mince, (.Can use a lot less and make it up with oats and a small amount of water) . I doubt many people would find either eating out or ready meals cheaper!

Oh yes i buy 20% fat mince as it is cheaper. It means I don't need to use any additional cooking oil. I skim the fat off once it is cooked.

Home cooking doesn’t need to be expensive and it is so much better for you. I find a lot of recipes are really unhelpful as they require expensive and overly complicated ingredients. If you are an experienced cook then you will be better at using what you have to create a meal, rather than buying expensive ingredients that will only be used a couple of times. I’m getting better at this. I also really like Mary Berry because her recipes tend to require every day ingredients rather than a whole lot of expensive ones. There is also a lot of research now about how much better a home cooked meal without additives and artificial ingredients is for your body. That is well worth it in my view- you’ll save on fad diets and health problems later in your life!

I think it can be cheaper to buy ready meals.
Last night we had Thai curry

Rice - 30p
Coconut milk - £1
Thai curry paste - £1.15 (1/2 jar)
Pepper - 65p
2 onions - 20p
Green beans - 65p (1/2 pack)
Broccoli - 80p (1/2 pack)
Cauliflower - £1.20
pak Choi - £1.50
baby corn - £1
Frozen ginger & garlic block - 10p
Seasme oil - 20p max
50g cashew nuts - 85p

Overall under £10 in ingredients and that’s made enough for 4 of us and my husband also took a portion of leftover curry for lunch today. I don’t know what it cost to cook but certainly less than £2.

Alternatively we could have got 4 Indian ready meals for under £10 on an offer from Sainsbury’s (& I’m sure cheaper options are also available) and the cost to cook would be a bit less. On the whole though it likely works out cheaper overall to cook from scratch for us as if we got the ready meals OH would have needed something else for lunch and we would have got smaller portions with same or higher calories so likely would have ended up snacking too.

Cooking from scratch is cheaper in the long run . Once you have all the cupboard staples.

A fully stocked spice cupboard is key.

The smallest pack of mince has got much bigger is over £5 in my local Tesco ...so even if I only used half of it, id still have spend more than £5 to make it, even if I had ingredients left over

I think we all need to approach this differently as a culture. Cancer rates are rising, obesity is a major problem and while we all live longer, we have a lot of health problems as a nation. We can’t afford our NHS. Our poor health is also making the country poor. There should be more of a focus on individual responsibility for health and cooking fresh meals is a huge part of this. We really are what we eat. Feeding our bodies with ready meals is making the nation sick, poor and unhappy, that should be enough of a reason to prioritise freshly cooked meals.

Well that is the thing - a lot of this is not comparing like with like. I am sure I can eat cheaper by having a special from the local dirty fried chicken place or a pot noodle every night - but that isn't going to do me much good in the long term.

What people are generally saying is it is possible to cook healthy meals at a reasonable price from scratch.