
How Much Money Do You Save by Cooking at Home? - zvanness
https://priceonomics.com/how-much-money-do-you-save-by-cooking-at-home/
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Eric_WVGG
I assumed that a website like “priceonomics” would factor time spent on
shopping and prep. I’m a reasonably good cook, but “eating in” means losing
about 90 minutes to shopping, prep, and cleanup, that could otherwise be spent
on work, side projects, or reading (mix recreational and vocational).

I suppose it varies based on career and lifestyle, but I believe that most of
the readers of this site, at least, feel more of a crunch on time than cash.

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makecheck
Food preparation and shopping, like a lot of skills, becomes a bit more
efficient the more you do them. Eventually you become better at using your
time.

And, you can cook more at once. Nothing says you have to start from scratch
every day of the week; in my case I often cook Sunday nights and make 2 or 3
dishes. If you read through recipes a bit, you can find ways to reuse the same
preheated oven, etc.

And, home cooked meals tend to be healthier. This is a form of time saving;
while pretty hard to prove unfortunately, I strongly suspect that “losing
about 90 minutes” now and having a healthier life will buy years down the
road.

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ebikelaw
In which the cost of labor is apparently excluded.

Also excluded: food wasted at home.

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znpy
I honestly waste a lot more food when I ordered take out or eat at a
restaurant.

While I once used to eat everything that's on my plate because it's a pity to
waste food, I've then learnt to just stop eating when I'm full.

On one hand this alone made me lose some weight, on the other hand I can't
always save excess food for the next meal (example: restaurant or delivered
things like french fries and things like that).

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mmt
> I can't always save excess food for the next meal (example: restaurant or
> delivered things like french fries and things like that).

This doesn't quite make sense to me. Although there are certainly items that
don't keep particularly long, say, more than a day, I have trouble coming up
with a common restaurant food that can't be saved at _all_ , with proper
refrigeration.

Fully cooked potatos, such as french fries, I've never had trouble with, and
they even reheat well and easily in a convection toaster oven.

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db48x
I've never been able to do anything with day-old rice.

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mmt
What happens to it after 24 hours in your refrigerator that makes it inedible?
What temperature is your refrigerator? (Yes, I know few fridges have actual
thermometers, but it's remarkably important both for food safety and, in many
cases, palatability)

My go-to suspicion would be drying out, but I've never had a problem with
that, even in an incompletely sealed takeout container kept refrigerated for a
couple days. With the most-moisture-permeable container, I just sprinkle some
extra water onto the rice when reheating in the microwave, and that makes up
for it.

