I’ve been wanting to test my theory that food subscription boxes aren’t worth the money and I was right. It might be convenient for some but if you just hear me out, I’ll explain why Hello Fresh, Youfoodz, Marley Spoon and similar food subscription services will have you asking is it really worth it?
Run your kitchen like a restaurant
I’ve been able to manage keeping my grocery budget low while still enjoying a wide variety of meals all of my adult life. It was just something that I learnt from my mother and grandmother and it’s the way they did it. They kept a well stocked pantry which allowed them to cook a wide variety of meals at any time.
All they had to do was keep the pantry stocked and buy seasonal fruit and vegetables. My grandmothers went one step further and grew their own fruit and vegetables and only used those. My maternal grandparents were also dairy farmers before they retired so they had their own meat supply as well.
Imagine if you ran your home kitchen like a restaurant. Not that I’ve ever worked in a restaurant but I would expect that in order for them to provide all the meals on the menu, they have to keep the ingredients stocked so they could cook them at any time.
The restaurant has to source the cheapest and best quality ingredients to ensure their customers keep coming back. The same applies to your home kitchen. You know what you like to eat. You know what your family likes to eat. If you keep a well stocked pantry, not only will you be able to make any of those meals but you will be able to make variations of them.
The results of the comparison
For this exercise, I decided to choose 3 meals from Hello Fresh for my family of 4 as per the selection for the current week. It was a difficult choice because a lot of the meals for this particular week, I know my children wouldn’t eat them. My son? Maybe, but my extremely fussy daughter, no way. It would be a waste of money from the start. But let’s proceed.
I chose the following meals:
- Lebanese Beef Koftas
- Honey-Soy Glazed Chicken & Sesame Fries with Japanese Cucumber Salad
- Cheesy Beef Quesadillas
These, or variations of these meals, are the types of mid week meals I prepare for my family with the basic ingredients I buy all the time with my grocery budget of $150 per fortnight.
The total for the 3 meals for 4 people from Hello Fresh was going to be $124.95 (without any discounts or coupons).
Here is the spreadsheet I created:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.domesblissity.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hello-Fresh-Comparison.pdf” title=”Hello Fresh Comparison”]
I listed all the ingredients that Hello Fresh were going to be sending for the above 3 meals. I compared that to the ingredients I already buy and keep stocked (and currently have on hand) on a regular basis.
I was short just 5 ingredients for a total cost of $13.36 which I could quite easily absorb into my fortnightly budget if I wanted to.
The ingredients I fell short of were:
- fresh parsley (I could start my own fresh herb garden and intend to)
- fresh coriander (as above)
- fried shallots (I often buy these to add a bit of crunch to Asian dishes)
- lime (at $2 per lime I can do without and could use the fridge bottled lime juice if I really wanted to)
- currants (it’s not something I eat often nor do my family – if I did buy them I could use them in baking)
The verdict
The maths just don’t add up for me I’m afraid. If I can keep my pantry stocked for $150 per fortnight, with the ingredients I need to make the meals I know my family will eat AND be able to create variety from those same basic ingredients so we’re not eating the same thing, why would I spend $124.95 for only 3 meals for the week?
How much more is it going to cost me in groceries for those other 4 days of the week PLUS food for breakfasts, morning teas, lunches and afternoon teas? Plus, included in my $150 per fortnight I buy any toiletries, cleaning products and everything else I need.
Convenient? I don’t think it’s anymore convenient than what I’m already doing. If I’m stocking those ingredients listed in the spreadsheet above, you can plainly see that there’s at least 2 variations, the Cheesy Beef Quesadillas and Beef Koftas that use beef mince. I have at least 32 extraordinary recipes using ground meat that I can refer to plus a million more recipes in cookbooks and on the internet.
I found my system (I call it the Shop Smart, Eat Well system), which is what my mother and grandmothers taught me, to be the most time and cost efficient way to keep the grocery budget low and to use my time effectively my not having to menu plan nor think too hard about what to prepare for dinner.
