[vibrolax]

My wife and I agree that eating well is one of the most affordable luxuries. Eating in ordinary restaurants and ordering takeout becomes less attractive once you hit a threshold of kitchen competence. Our experience is home prepared meals costs 1/3 as much as purchased meals, and rarely results in a disappointing experience.

[MikeTheRocker]

That's interesting because I find home cooking to be very expensive, if you value your time. Cooking for one, the marginal difference between the price of groceries vs eating out is easily outweighed by the time cost of shopping, food preparation and cleanup. Of course if you enjoy cooking it's a different story.

[extragood]

When I was saving for the down payment of my condo, one of the biggest changes I made was making my own lunch, rather than eating out every day.

There are going to be regional differences of course, but here in SF, a modest lunch costs at least $20. My average was around $25, or about $6500/year.

I adopted "meal prep Sundays" where I make all of my lunches for the week ahead, and the average cost is consistently around $5, making my annual weekday lunch cost about $1300. +$5200/year post tax to be used on other things.

Applying the same general idea to dinner unlocks further savings.

The funny thing is - I don't know that I'm even sacrificing time with this approach either. It takes me maybe 1.5 hours on Sunday for the lunch prep thing, but I'm saving a bunch of time by not physically going to restaurants, ordering, taking deliveries, etc. The variety is lacking with this approach, but the tradeoff is well worth it in my book.

[alphager]

The enjoyment is key for it to make sense. If it's a chore like laundry or vacuuming, it makes sense to outsource it.