Cooking for Yourself vs. Hiring Someone to Cook for You
In the market of habits that deliver solid return on your investments, very few can compete with cooking and preparing your own food. If you are shopping for habits to take on this month, you should look no further.
Cooking and preparing your own meals seems to become more of a rarity everyday, hence, the value of being able to cook for yourself goes up everyday (and did we mention how sexy being a good chef is?)
We all think we’re too busy, and with the number of cafes opening everywhere, take-away meal options are becoming increasingly tempting. One of the main issues with reaching for take-aways is that more often than not, the decision of which choice to go with is made just before eating your meal, at the point of maximum hunger. You don’t need a degree to understand that the point of maximum hunger is also the point of minimum discipline. You may look at your week and think: “Well, I haven’t been too bad this week, I’ve had two salads.” That’s not bad, but we reckon you can do even better than that.
What makes the difference between buying lunches in cafes and preparing them for yourself?
A common objection we hear from our clients when we recommend meal prepping in advance for the week is that they don’t end up saving any money from preparing their own meals. Some even mentioned that preparing their own meals will cost them even more than buying out! Well, that’s interesting. On every occasion, when we dove deeper to get the whole story, we’ve found the same few key points: not all variables were measured. To make it simple, let’s break down the costs of what you are actually paying for when you purchase a take-away meal:
The chef’s creative thinking (how did they come up with such a cool idea for this sandwich?)
The chef’s time to source and buy the ingredients
The time the chef took to prepare and cook the meal
The rent of the restaurant/cafe
The salary of the chef and everyone else involved
Prepare Your Own Meals
To make your take-away meals affordable, restaurants must reduce costs somewhere, and often, it can be in the quality of the produce. The advantage they have on us is often in economies of scale, a concept you can easily match by preparing a number of meals at the same time (and a concept that will also save you time). While restaurants now understand that there is a demand for high quality ingredients, very few can claim they source mainly local and organic produce. And if you procure your veggies from your local market, you’ll get a great price for local, and organic food to use for your meals this week.
More importantly, preparing your meals ahead for the week is one of the best guarantees that you will eat food that’s healthy and that will allow you to live well. If it doesn’t taste as good as you wish, use this as an opportunity to learn to become a better chef, and you’ll become sexier in the eyes of your partner everyday.
There are plenty of resources for free online that will help you become a better chef, and if you would like us to guide you and help you with a personalised eating plan, we are here for that as well.