The price gap per meal
A home-cooked meal usually costs a fraction of the same meal from a restaurant or delivery app, where service fees, delivery fees and tips add up quickly on top of menu prices that are often marked up for delivery. A $22 delivered meal versus $5 cooked at home is a $17 difference, so switching three meals a week saves over $2,600 a year.
Cooking does take time, so it helps to be realistic. Batch cooking on a weekend, a few simple go-to recipes and a stocked freezer make home meals almost as quick as ordering.
What the savings could become
Switching three delivered meals a week to home cooking, at $22 versus $5 a meal, saves about $51 a week or $2,650 a year. Put that money into an index fund each month instead and, at an average 7% return, it grows to about $38,250 in ten years. Few small changes have such a large long-run effect, because food is something everyone buys every day.
The easiest way to make the switch stick is to plan a few simple meals each week and cook in batches, so a home meal is as convenient as ordering. Keeping one or two takeout nights you genuinely enjoy makes the plan far more likely to last. The cost of a habit calculator works for any repeated expense.
Common questions
How much do I save by cooking three more meals a week?
At $22 a meal out and $5 at home, about $2,650 a year, or around $38,000 over ten years if invested at 7%.
How much cheaper is cooking at home?
Often three to five times cheaper per meal than restaurants or delivery.
How do I estimate the cost of a home meal?
Divide a recipe's ingredient cost by the number of servings, or divide your grocery bill by the meals it produces.
This calculator gives estimates for planning. Real returns, rates and prices change, so treat the result as a guide rather than a promise. Read how we build and check our calculators.