Dedicated: Can Meal Kits Actually Save You Money?
Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by PSECU, a Pennsylvania-based credit union.
Many busy food lovers have started using meal kits in recent years. Companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh deliver ingredients right to subscribers’ doorsteps. Supposedly, these services benefit consumers by cutting down on shopping time, reducing food waste and making cooking easier for home chefs.
Plenty of people enjoy cooking using meal kits and find that they make healthy eating easier. But, can meal kits actually save their customers money when compared to do-it-yourself meal planning? Let’s try to answer this question by considering how meal kits work and how they don’t.
Meal Kits Provide Exact Portions
The basic concept of a meal kit service is that cooking with pre-portioned ingredients saves you time and money. Most meal kit delivery services provide the exact amounts of each component necessary to make their recipes.
While meal kits do save customers time by doing measuring and prep-work, they don’t always save them money. When you cook using a meal kit, you’ll end up with exactly the number of servings ordered — no less and no more — which means no leftovers. And, because ingredients come perfectly proportioned, you won’t have ingredients left, either.
Comparing this to home cooking reveals a striking difference. When buying ingredients from the grocery store, you usually need to buy larger amounts. This means home cooks can use ingredients across recipes to make their dollar go further. For example, they may use leftover chicken in a soup, extra tomatoes in a sauce and so on.
A frugal meal planner can save money by buying in bulk and finding multiple uses for the same ingredient. Meal kit services don’t allow for this.
Some Meals Are Made Cheaper at Home
Depending on the meal kit you order, you may also find that certain meals run overpriced. There are currently 150 meal kit services in operation in the United States, so policies differ. But what many of them have in common is a tendency to charge more than the ingredients are worth.
Though meal kits provide convenience and creative recipes, many dishes cost more from a meal kit service than they would if you made it from scratch. This is especially true for simple meals that rely on ingredients like pasta, cheese or flour because they sell in stores for much less than the flat rate of a meal kit.
Keep in mind, however, that some complicated recipes may actually be cheaper from a meal kit company, especially if they require a large number of specialty ingredients. When buying a meal kit, try ordering special or complex meals that could provide more value.
Meal Kit Value Depends on Lifestyle
For most people, a meal kit won’t be less expensive than normal grocery shopping and home cooking. However, people who eat out at restaurants frequently may see savings by ordering meals and cooking at home.
One survey found that meal kit users spend only about one-third of their food budget on groceries, even before becoming subscribers. Instead, they opt to eat out more often than the average person. Meal kits could save these consumers money when compared to eating out. But meal kits will still cost more than cooking from scratch.
So, the value of a meal kit ultimately depends on your lifestyle. When deciding whether to sign up for a meal kit service, consumers should consider how they usually spend their food budget, as well as which matters to them most — saving time or saving money.