BootsnAll Travel Community

In planning for my upcoming RTW trip, I've been scouring the web to find ways to save. I've been thinking lately that, given the time it takes to food shop and prepare meals at home, perhaps it is in fact cheaper to dine out.

Today I stumbled upon GetRichSlowly.org's blog which discusses this very topic.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/10/13/is-eating-...aper-than-eating-in/

Interesting read. What do you all think?

Nonsense.

Cooking from scratch is always going to be cheaper.
I'm a hearty eater. My grocery budget is $30 a week total.

Sometimes, I buy a burrito for a few bucks or hamburgers for a few bucks, but no way is eating out cheaper.

Hmmm... it really depends on what you're eating. I mean, you could spend a fortune cooking at home, or you could buy a case of ramen (if one considers that food...) and eat for under 50 cents a day. you wouldn't be too healthy, but... yeah, that's just gross.

but there are definitely some things i can eat out cheaper than i can make at home, especially things with lots of speciality ingredients. things that you'd have to buy a whole can or whole bunch of, but only use a little bit.

but in general, it's cheaper for me to cook at home. i just hate to pay people to do things that i can do myself. that's why i keep messing up my taxes, but i'm too stubborn to pay somebody to do them...

That article pretty much concludes eating-in is much cheaper, in terms of cost and time.

a quote from the article linked above:

"As an experiment, Rob Cockerham spent all of February 2004 “eating in”, consuming only food from grocery stores. He calculated that he spent $11.55 per day on food and drink. (If you subtract alcohol, he spent $8.65 per day.) He spent 48 minutes per day preparing food.

During March 2004, Cockerham ate all of his meals in restaurants. He spent an average of $20.08 per day. (He also left just over $1 per day in tips.) But it didn’t just cost more money to eat out:

The big surprise, for me, was how long it took to eat out. It was easy, when I was eating in, to whip up many meals in less than 8 minutes, but it was almost impossible to get my food that fast when eating out."

I wholeheartedly agree, too, that eating-in is the way to go to save money and eat healthily. Beyond price, you have to consider the quality of the food. To eat as healthy out as in costs much more. And if you eat out and in for the same price, you are getting much lower quality and less healthy food when eating out in this case.

Yes, eating-in can cost you more -- If eating-in consists of complex meals with specialty ingredients that take hours to prepare, that's not efficient in terms of time or money. but there are myriad ways to cook very healthy, quickly, and cheaply at home. It just takes a little research and creativity. Plenty of good cookbooks cover this topic.

Another idea is to make food in batches. As winter rolls around, one great idea is to make a crockpot full of soup, stew, or similar every few days. Basically you are making four or more dinners in one go. Eat some the day you make it, refrigerate or freeze the rest for dinners later in the week.

Happy cooking!

Looking at my visa online statement, month to date I've charged $86 eating out, including coffee, and $55 on groceries. Probably put down another $30 in cash. Guess I'm just a gourmet..

My advice is just make more money ("oh wow that easy huh genaro? gee thanks"). What I mean by that is you can only save so much crunching your food budget, and it's not fun and doesn't amount to much, but with making money the sky's the limit.

I agree eating in is almost always cheaper than dining out, from a purely financial standpoint. But one thing many folks don't consider is the value of their time.

If, on the way home from work, my girlfriend and I grab fajitas for two from [fill in your favorite TexMex place here] for $10-$15 from the take-out window, we might spend 15-20 minutes eating and cleaning up at home. Total cost: $15 + 20 mins. of your time.

Conversely, shopping for all the necessary fajita ingredients at the grocery store, preparing them and cooking them at home, spending the same 15-20 minutes eating and cleaning up could take you an hour or more total. Total cost: $5 (assumed approximate cost of all ingredients) + 1 or more hours of your time.

I'm not arguing the point either way. I'm just thinking out loud. It's easy to forget that time is worth something and that there are certainly meals that one can easily find cheaper at a take-out joint.

I guess it depends on how much $$$ one makes. But I'm always thinking: with this time that I spend making iced coffee/tuna sandwich/etc. at home, I could've bought it prepared somewhere else and been at work earning $$$. It might only be a few minutes for each meal, but it adds up at the end of the week.

you make excellent points orangelad. Yes, if you have job making $30/hr, then you would be better off spending 20 mins eating, and the other 40 working. This 40 mins of work would earn you $20 -- this is more than the additional cost of eating out, ($15 meal out - $5 meal in = $10 extra cost to eat out) so you realize a net gain of $10 for this hour of your life.

Of course this is purely a financial example. It ignores the other subtleties of life. What if someone really enjoys cooking and finds non-financial value in the act of cooking? What if you don't spend that 40 minutes saved working and instead spend it lazing in front of the TV? in that case you've "lost" the $10 it cost you to eat out, unless you find more value in watching TV that working 40 minutes to net that $10. And what if you hate your job, but work that 40 minutes and net that extra $10, but are less 'happier' than you would have been cooking for that hour, even though it would have meant a financial 'loss' of $10?

this in an interesting topic. in case you couldn't tell yet, I do have a degree in Econ.

One thing I can see how cooking at home would be cheaper is if you make a large amount of an item at one time and storing it in the fridge, so all you have to do when comes time for dinner is reheat. So your time spent preparing the food is minimal because it's one item (spaghetti or tuna for sandwiches, for example), and by buying it bulk, it's cheaper per serving. But then, who likes the same thing day after day?

Unless you are normally paid during your eating hours... I can't see how eating out would be cheaper.

Not exactly rocket science to pack a lunch either!

Breakfast: Before clock is punched
Lunch: Depends.
Dinner: After clock is punched

So... unless the hour is being compensated by someone elses money, paying yourself back in free time increases the amount of time "working."

get an ocassional job working for a food oriented biz. so you can go home with the leftovers...

yummy...dip and cheese cubes for lunch...

It's not ALL USD and cents ... the is value in knowing how to cook. Also value in cooking/creating food with someone else (*resists urge to get all mushy here*).
And leftovers...get more than one meal from one meal.
I saved beau ceau (from the French book-oodles) of Euro eating in when I went to Amsterdam.
Its all about the journey.
I'm in Afghanistan right now and eat for FREE.
But do I enjoy it?? (not last night I didn't ecch.) Give me a kitchen and some ground beef and I'll fix you a meal fit for...well whatever.

I once tried to make money by cooking for others--and ended up on the verge of bankruptcy after about 3 months. It is hard to make a bug when you have to price your services competetively (within the 'hood) and run a small-scale business. If you stick to special offers provided by the fast food giants, you may well be able to eat out cheaper than cook your own--but it won't do your health much good in the long term.

Saying that, I found the Deli buffets in NY good value!

I've just costed a curry for four that I'll be cooking shortly. Priced down to the last peppercorn, the cost comes to 12 quid (about 23 US$). That isn't as cheap as some canteen food I've seen (btw: young guys can relatively easily sneak in on campus to eat, at least in Europe), and I'm sourcing meat and spices from cheaper, specialist vendors. It's a mean curry, though

quote:

Originally posted by whalewatcher:
I've just costed a curry for four that I'll be cooking shortly. Priced down to the last peppercorn, the cost comes to 12 quid (about 23 US$). That isn't as cheap as some canteen food I've seen (btw: young guys can relatively easily sneak in on campus to eat, at least in Europe), and I'm sourcing meat and spices from cheaper, specialist vendors. It's a mean curry, though

Mmmmmmm...... curry..........

I certainly agree that there is value and a sense of self-satisfaction in knowing how to cook. I actually enjoy cooking.

My initial question was really just a hypothetical one, mainly because I believe people all too commonly overlook the value of their time. Especially during the run-up to my RTW trip, I'm trying to trim the financial fat, so to speak, whereever I can. But there have been instances where I've stopped to say, "Great - I can save $20/week by doing my own laundry vs. having someone else do it. But wait - it takes me 2 hours to do it all!" What's my time worth? I'll admit that I have the luxury of working unlimited, paid overtime at my job, which not everyone does (although if you don't, you can always find a 2nd job, no?). Because of that, I'm always conscious of the fact that while I'm spending time on chore X, I could instead be at work earning money.

Well..thinking ahead can help too.
I was in a touristy area at lunch time in Holland where a hotdog (a freaking HOTDOG was 2,50 Euro. BUT that morning I got a pack of fruit buscuits fro the grocery store for less than 1 Euro (of course I BLEW it on the 2,50 Choco-mel...oh well).
AND I brought my packaged oat meal with me...so all I needed for breakfast was hot water.
That saved me enough so I could eat out at night.

ABOUT THE TIME FACTOR....if you're planning your itenerary so tight you can't take time out to do laundry or cook...well....you're gonna have lots of down time on a RTW...use it as part of the experience. Personally...I'd plan on one day a week just to sleep in, relax and do nothing. Call it a "mainentance day". And do you laundry then. If you don't...you'll burn out.

Orangelad, your time is valuable, and it is a good thing to connect with your food by preparing it yourself.

As to your time conundrum, make simple and easily prepared food.

Choosing between rice and cooscoos, well rice takes 20 min and cooscoos 5, lasanga and regular pasta, etc....

I believe that that is the answer to your question simply put. Save money by bying your materials low, save money by valuing your time highly. There ya go, making it on both ends.

I just plain like to cook, and prefer my food to most restaurants anyway (too greasy, too salty, portions too large).

I certainly save money on food itself (oatmeal for breakfast is cheap) but more than make up for it with cookbooks, cooking equipment, and cooking classes.

If we go out to eat, we like to go for sushi or Indian (at least until I build that tandoor) - something I can't recreate at home.

i think its cheaper to eat in...but since i cant cook....that makes it a little difficult i get bored eating baked potatoes everyday...i have started only eating out at locations that give me FF miles so that even though im spending more $ on food, i am getting 10 FF miles for each $1 i spead at the restaurant...