We all know that spending money eating out is usually much more expensive than eating at home. But just how much more expensive is it? Forbes recently conducted a massive study to find out just how much you're spending - and could be saving - on your weekly meals.
For the study, Forbes broke down the pricing based on 86 popular dinner recipes, comparing them based on ordering the dish at a restaurant versus using a meal prep box service versus cooking them from scratch. On average, the study found it was 5 times more expensive to order out than to cook at home. Also, if you're using a shortcut like a meal prep box, it was still three times as expensive as cooking from scratch.
The main restaurants that were used to compare the pricing were Applebee's, Cheesecake Factory, Chevy's, Chili's, Lyfe Kitchen, Maggiano's, and P.F. Chang's, and then adding a $5 delivery fee from a popular delivery app. So which meals will you save the most on when cooking at home? Proteins. Restaurants charge a lot of money for meals that have beef, pork, and chicken. When you factor in a delivery cost, your price per meal can easily exceed $20 per person. For example, Beef Wellington or Pork Tenderloin can cost up to $36 per serving, per person. On average, when cooking those dishes at home, they only cost $4.50 per serving - a savings of about $17.
The only exception to this is meal kits which give you several spices! Complicated dishes like curry chicken offer you better portions than buying an entire spice rack for one dish. Eating meat through a meal kit is about half as expensive as ordering it from a restaurant, but still much more expensive than making it yourself. So make the time! Save your money and enjoy the brilliance of home cooking.
