Save money and be happier
We all know that ordering delivery or getting takeout from a restaurant is much more pricey than actually cooking for oneself. Forbes estimates ordering delivery for dinner is five times more expensive than cooking at home. Then why do we still do it so often? The convenience is the glaringly obvious answer: there’s no grocery shopping, no dishes, and a very low time commitment. I’m not immune to the pull of ordering takeout — those reasons are what get me on occasion too — but with money and sadness being a constant struggle in many of our everyday lives, I firmly believe cooking for ourselves is one of the keys to more financial stability and happiness.
Remember at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when we were all baking our own bread? We were feeding our sourdough starters, experimenting with different flours, and repeatedly scoping out the bread subreddit. Even if our final loaf wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be in the end, it was a great push to try again until we got it right. And when the bread came out of the oven looking so plump and wholesome, the proud feeling of accomplishment washed over us. Maybe you didn’t experience all of this as I described, but if you did, you probably can relate to how delicious it feels to create with your hands a final product to feed yourself with. If you regularly cook for yourself, I’m sure you’ve felt a similar way too. There’s no doubt about it: when we create something we’re proud of we feel accomplished, productive, and get a healthy boost of confidence. It’s difficult to capture those emotions in our everyday lives as we write research papers or stock shelves at our day jobs. We certainly need to do those mundane things, but I find they don’t provide the same level of satisfaction that cooking and baking for yourself gives.
Like mentioned above, ordering takeout is vastly more expensive than cooking at home. With convenience being a leading factor in ordering takeout, we need ways to make cooking at home convenient without taking up your whole day in meal prep. Buzzfeed published a very helpful list of ways to make cooking at home easier. It mentions creating a menu for the week ahead; this way you will know exactly what to purchase at the grocery store without creating food waste. Another suggestion is to prep your bases in advance, like rice, pasta, beans, and meats so they’re ready to go when you need them. As we continue cooking more at home, the sharper our skills will become, making it an easier option to cook for ourselves than rely on SkipTheDishes for dinner.
If you love takeout (and who doesn’t?!) but want to cook for yourself, a great place to start is Joshua Weissman’s YouTube channel. This chef from Texas has a series called But Better where he selects a takeout favourite — like Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust or Subway’s meatball sub — and re-creates it for home cooks so you can still eat what you love but get the satisfaction of making it yourself and saving tons of money. On top of it, Weissman claims his recipes are better than the takeout originals.
Alison Roman is another chef who’s gained in popularity since the pandemic. Her recipes are friendly for the home cook (she says, “I would never ask you to toast nine different hard-to-locate spices on a Monday after work”) and always comforting. You can learn her recipes through her YouTube or through her former New York Times cooking column.
When we avoid takeout we also hold the power to select every element of the meal we want. By cooking at home, there’s no more picking olives off of your pizza or annoying the restaurant staff when you ask for dressing on the side so your salad doesn’t get soggy during delivery. You can guarantee your soup is made with vegetable broth and not beef or chicken stock, and you can put as much guacamole on your burrito as you want without the extra charge.
It’s also important to acknowledge how the restaurant industry has been struggling since the beginning of the pandemic. Plenty of restaurants all around the province have closed down permanently over the past year. Even though we want to save money and cook for ourselves, there should still be a balance in supporting local businesses. For myself, I’ve cut out major chains the best I can and only order from local restaurants once a week. It’s worked very well so far. This plan gives me creative opportunities throughout most of the week to make food and feel accomplished, then allows a reward while supporting locals once a week.
As we’re coming out of a tough and dark winter, cooking and baking for myself has been a tried and true way to boost my happiness and confidence, while providing me with some financial ease, as I know I’m saving copious amounts of cash doing so.
