Are Takeaways More Expensive than Making Your Own Food? | London Daily News (2024)

FAQs

Is fast-food cheaper than making your own food? ›

For those who want a quick and easy answer: It's generally cheaper to cook food at home than eat out. The reason so many people can get stuck on the question is the human psychology variable. People don't always spend wisely, and it isn't as if prices are always the same at a supermarket or a fast food restaurant.

cooking at home. Let's break it down further. If we consider that the average cost of a meal from a local restaurant/food chain is around $15 and an individual eats out every day, the monthly expenditure would be approximately $450.

Financial advisors have long promoted home-cooked meals as a cost-saving alternative to restaurant food. A 2018 study found that, on average, you'd spend almost five times as much money ordering a delivery meal compared to cooking that same meal at home.

Fast-food prices have shot up since the start of the pandemic. Analysts say fast-food prices feel particularly painful because they're rising faster than grocery prices. As well as commodity costs, restaurants have faced soaring wages.

In the 12 months through March, not adjusting for seasonal swings, prices at fast food and fast casual restaurants went up 5%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In that period full-service menu prices went up 3.2%, and grocery prices ticked up 1.2%.

If you're someone who defaults to ordering takeout, and especially delivery, more often than you think you should -- it's me, hi -- you might be feeling the impact of all that food on your bank account. Making meals at home is typically a more financially sound option over dining out or getting delivery.

Eating out can often include high-calorie, processed, and fatty fast food or restaurant meals. Excessive consumption of such nutrients can cause chronic diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes. However, eating out by making healthy food choices can have a positive effect on a healthy diet.

Facts & Findings. Americans save around $12 by opting to cook and eat at home, with the average home meal costing $4.23 versus over $16 per meal at an inexpensive restaurant.

Since 2020 the cost of dining out has skyrocketed across the US, and even as other forms of inflation have eased, menu prices keep climbing. In 2023 restaurant inflation outpaced groceries, which meant that even as Americans were spending more dining out, data suggested they were going out less.

Of course, these estimates will vary depending on the specific ingredients you use and the size of your servings, but the point is that homemade meals are generally cheaper than takeaways. There are a few reasons why takeaways tend to be more expensive than homemade meals.

Is homemade food better than takeout? ›

It's proven to be healthier

When you put fresh ingredients together yourself, or get them shipped straight to your door with a service like Plated, you have total control over what is going in your food. That can make a world of difference to your overall health.

If you are comparing the costs of a single meal, takeout may be cheaper, excluding fast food options. “If you are buying high-quality ingredients for your meals, it can be cheaper to get takeout than to pay for the same quality groceries,” said Zach Larsen, co-founder of Pineapplemoney.com.

Once viewed as a quick, affordable meal, fast food is increasingly seen as a luxury by many Americans due to rising menu prices, according to a new LendingTree survey.

Fast food is typically much more expensive than home cooked from scratch and people have very confused ideas about this.

Probably not,” said Ricky Volpe, an ag economist and associate professor at Cal Poly. “The best we can hope for is that food price inflation is going to continue to slow down,” he said.

Facts & Findings. Americans save around $12 by opting to cook and eat at home, with the average home meal costing $4.23 versus over $16 per meal at an inexpensive restaurant. Annually, it costs over $13,000 more to eat out than it costs to prepare the same amount of food at home.

One piece of British research in 2023, the Broken Plate report by The Food Foundation released in June, found that healthy food is usually twice as expensive as less healthy food, on a per calorie basis.

They utilize pre-cooked ingredients, standardized recipes, and specialized cooking equipment like deep fryers and conveyor belt ovens. These techniques enable them to serve large quantities of food in a short amount of time, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

It's proven to be healthier

Some studies suggest that people who cook more often, rather than get take-out, have an overall healthier diet. These studies also show that restaurant meals typically contain higher amounts of sodium, saturated fat, total fat, and overall calories than home-cooked meals.