I'm confused, this is the antimustacian wall of shame right?? This is a place where we all get together and chuckle at other people's non-frugal life choices because we get the side eye IRL when we mention thrift store shopping and packing our lunches, and biking to work, and not buying coffee?? If I'm in the wrong place let me know! /s
I guess it is my own fault, when I wrote "I don't get it" on my original post, I do get it. Like most non mustachian things, it is easier. And there are times and places where easier is 100% OK! (Ie 3 kids at home, trying to get back into a cooking routine). But we can't sit here and pretend that spending $8.50-$11/meal is a "mustachian" win.
And yes, meal planning and grocery shopping for 3 simple meals like what they are getting would take me 1hr (and my coworker, we live in the same area).
Prepping the food takes about the same amount of time (you still have to cut up everything yourself), so 1hr per week saves me ~$50 comparative to the meal boxes. I'll take that rate of return any week!
Thank you. I was losing my mind reading others approve of meal boxes. Biggest bullshit right now.
Yeah, even I think this is bad. Might as well eat out or take out and then at least there's no clean up. Nnot that heading to the restaurant is mustachian, but if we're talking time and money and all that, the meal boxes still lose compared to other unmustachian options.
I know some people who do the meal kit boxes, and others who do the "snack" boxes, where you get a box of treats every month.
Most of them have decent incomes and no kids, so lots of disposable income and time. They also vacation a lot and eat out a lot.
I can see the point that others have made though, about variety and waste. I've been working on my grocery budget for over a decade now, so I've got it mostly nailed down. How to shop, how to not waste food, etc. I've moved on a bit to reducing plastic - so now my grocery bill is higher than it could be, because often times I opt for the plastic-less, but more expensive option.
I have to say though - I've got a FT job and 2 elementary aged kids. So, we're busy. My job has changed recently to now I end up working late several days a week. Before, I'd only work late 1 or 2x. So, it's not that the husband can't cook, but he cooks differently. As in: find a cookbook, choose a recipe, shop for the ingredients, and cook it. This is not conducive to mid-week cooking at all. I just wing it and throw things together with what we have. And: I do the grocery shopping.
My method to surviving right now is to cook 2 big meals on the weekend, enough for 3 nights each. So Sat meal gets eaten on Mon and Wed. Sunday's meal gets eaten on Tues and Thurs. We make a new veg each night. Friday is frozen pizza. I eat salad for lunch every day and we make something for hubby to eat, either sandwiches or burritos or whatever.
I'm getting bored. I have a regular rotation of spaghetti and meatballs, mac and cheese, beans and rice, chili, curried lentils, lentil soup, fried rice, chicken enchilada, chicken soup. The kids are way over it - they hate eating the same things 3x a week, but I tell them they can eat something else when they start cooking. Back when I got home earlier, I was a bit more inventive - and I didn't necessarily have to cook something in bulk. I could cook enough for one dinner and maybe a lunch.
I also run out of veg by Weds. We get a large box of fruit and veg delivered by a service that shops at the farmer's market (so no waste - boxes get reused and the baby greens come in a compostable bag. Everything else in there is loose.)