Would you pay someone to prepare all your meals?

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The title says it all really. Would you be prepared to pay someone to make your meals for the week?

I have always said, if I ever become a millionaire, I will pay a chef to make me all my meals. I will even forfeit having a cleaner to have someone prep the dinner! It’s a chore I despise.

I am not a millionaire but I have been thinking, is this a viable business option? Would other people pay someone to prepare them their chilli con carne, lasagne, etc?

I know the likes of Gousto and hello fresh exist now but I’m still having to chop and prepare a whole meal and then cook it. Maybe if someone made the lasagna, and all I had to do was shove it in the oven for 20/30 minutes that would free up some time!

There are options out there for this. They prepare the meals send them to you to freeze them and you just microwave them. But yes I would I hate cooking

I have seen these but they seem to come as individual portions so can get very expensive if you need to buy 3-4 portions per meal.

The idea would be that you can buy large portions e.g. a curry pot for 4,6 or 8+ so you can just freeze portions yourself or if you have a large family, you haven’t had to pay £4 a portion per person. Hope that makes sense!

Is there any reason you haven’t already purchased through a business like this? I imagine cost is going to be the main factor for most people!

Try Cook - all the meals I've had from there have been lovely

Look at Cook! It’s outside my weekly budget but I bought some lasanga for hosting recently and it was good.

There's loads that already do this. Cook, Stocked, loads aimed at elderly/infirm people like Wiltshire Farm Foods.

I mean, you can already buy a lasagna and put it in the oven! If someone was going to cook my meals they would have to be better than what I could buy readymade from the supermarket.

Someone who could do the laundry and put it away, that’s what I would pay for!

Or maybe live in a commune where you take turns to cook for everyone.

Cook is excellent, we had a fish pie from them a couple of nights ago that was as good as anything I could make. They seem like a worthwhile company as well. If you get their ceramic dishes you can transfer the frozen food into them and pretend you made it.

I don’t understand why you’d have someone round your house to do it when you could just order delivery from restaurants?

most people use cook IMe, just put it in the oven.

to be honest I didn’t find getting food that hard with a newborn. They like to go out so we ate out a lot

There’s a woman in our village who does this as a business.

I have a few of her lasagnes in the freezer as they are amazing. I only got them when someone who ordered didn’t collect as she has a waiting list for regular deliveries.

DH’s aunty gets all her evening meals from her and they’re amazing.

Lots of services out there, and realistically to make a profit after business costs/paying a salary/transporting it's going to cost more than £4 a portion anyway.

Realistically I find Gousto takes the same amount of time/prep as ordering a meal/storing/defrosting. I do use Cook as a great timesaver if I'm hosting and don't have time to make everything from scratch. Great ingredients and tastes homemade.

I enjoy cooking but I would definitely pay someone to come in and do my laundry, iron it all, match all the socks, fold or hang it all and put it away in the right cupboards and wardrobes.

I manage to clean and dry it but it never makes it back into cupboards and we live out of clean washing baskets and unmatched sock hell

I would love a homemade food take away that you can rock up to, get home cooked portions of chili, lasagne, spag bol, healthy stir fries (rather than from Chinese take aways) etc like there was on a French campsite when I was little. We live rurally, so there may well be this option in towns and cities.
I wish the village pub would do this.

I think this is perhaps why the idea has come to us. If you want a meal out or a takeaway it’s a 30 minute drive away or a dominos and neither option appeals to me on a Monday night when I’m exhausted 😂

Doesn’t work so well when you have older children who need to eat early.

I think this is the idea behind Stocked: stockedfood.com

This is a very valid point! Husband has been a chef for 15 years working for some wonderful restaurants so it wouldn’t be frozen/ microwaveable mush. It would have to be excellent, made with fresh local ingredients that are in season.

The thought of eating a microwaved lasagne from Tesco makes me not want to eat! It looks all one texture and no doubt, bland!

I think what I have in mind is probably slightly more upmarket but would be like eating from a restaurant daily.

Maybe swapping house chores is a better idea because I would prefer to do this all day than cook the 3 meals every day! 😂

I pretty much do via Cook, Charlie Bingham, byruby and MnS etc. I don’t hate cooking, just don’t want to dedicate what time I have on midweek evenings to it.

You might also find there are local home cooks who’ll fill up your freezer for you.

we all eat early. My first was flexible and could eat whenever. My second turned into a gremlin if not fed at 5pm 😂

Yes. God yes. I love all the Facebook private chef videos.

It might be worth a go, start small. I would pay for that service, proper quality, home cooked food when I don’t have time or inclination to cook.

I would. I think about it often.

That would be great! But obviously not an option for the vast majority of people.

The problem with all ready made meals (including the expensive ones like Cook) is that they really are not that great tasting and they are most certainly not healthy.

I've said this a lot.
"When I win the lottery...." a cook / housekeeper is definitely on my list.

It's not just the actual prep, its the thinking about what to have every night, and balancing that around family life.

I have a husband who prepares all my meals for me. But would I pay someone if he didn’t? No. I’d just eat toast or crisps.