I’ve noticed sometimes that there’s some half-baked videos or blogs or whatever that purport this or that frugal trick, but if you look at the time or math, it’s not actually frugal for you.
What are some examples of that you’ve come across? The things that “aren’t worth it”?
For me it’s couponing. (Although I haven’t heard people talk about it recently–has it fallen out of “style”, or have businesses caught up to the loopholes folks used to exploit?)
I feel this way about cooking. I hate cooking. It takes a lot of time. And lots of cleanup time. And time spent planning and shopping. Plus the tools, ingredients, and power/gas/water used all cost money. With all that in mind, a $9 bowl of chipotle is significantly cheaper by my estimation than cooking an equivalent myself.
I’m with you on cooking something like one meal. If I’m going to get out a bunch of stuff in the kitchen and put in that much effort, then I had better be eating for at least a few days off of what I make. Casseroles, stews, big pots of pasta, and holy hell was I excited when I learned how much curry I could make in one big crock pot and then put that on rice for like two weeks’ worth of meals.
I just cook stuff that basically cooks itself. Crockpots, pasta, certain veggies and meats on the oven. After doing them many times I already know the timings for everything so I just put alarms to remind me of turning the fire off/flipping them in the oven once and that’s it. Doing something else in between. Technically speaking you spend only a couple minutes actively cooking for each meal that way. Just don’t forget to set the alarms or it’s burnt (and move the particular meat from the freezer to the fridge the night before)
Then you need to learn how to cook properly, or get more experience. By the time you have driven to and from chipotle, and factor in that time, the cost of gas, the wear and tear on your car. Cooking is significantly cheaper. We only cook from scratch at home, and it rarely takes more than 15 mins to whip up a good meal that tastes better than most things you can buy, even sit down restaurants. When I cook, I clean as I go normally, so clean up aftewards is fast. If you clean up immediately after, clean up is fast. Time spent eating doesn’t count. 20 minutes, McDonalds drive thru takes 20 mins.
Honestly, to me, that would be incredibly fast prep or your meals are pretty simple. Even easy meals I’ve made a million times take me half an hour. Most take one hour to cook and I still feel like I’m rushing around.