Skip to content
IfSketchChange the question. See what happens.

Everyday

What if I cooked at home more?

What spending difference appears if some takeaway meals are swapped for home-cooked ones?

Takeaway and delivery have a clear ticket price. Cooking at home has a fuzzier one: ingredients, energy, time, and the fact that leftovers change the next day’s cost. This experiment ignores the kitchen clock and the nutrition arguments. It compares the estimated spending difference if you switch a number of meals each week from a takeaway price to a home-cooked price, then lets that weekly gap run for a number of years. Office for National Statistics family-spending bulletins show restaurants, takeaways and food-at-home as separate lines; they do not tell you which is better. Use prices from your own orders and your own shop. The result is a cash comparison of two routines, not a lifestyle ranking.

Change this

Results update as you move the controls.

12£
4£
3meals
5years

Your result

£6,240

estimated spending difference over 5 years

£8.00 per swapped meal.

Per week
£24.00

3 meals × £8.00.

Per year
£1,248
Meals switched
780

Across 5 years.

Takeaway vs home
£12.00 / £4.00

What does that mean?

Switching 3 meals a week from £12.00 takeaway to £4.00 home-cooked is an estimated lower spend of £1,248 a year, or £6,240 over 5 years. Compare the estimated difference in spending. It is not a ranking of the better routine, and cooking time is unpriced.

At a glance

  • Takeaway path£9,360
  • Home-cooked path£3,120

Timeline

  1. This week

    £24.00

    3 swapped meals.

  2. One year

    £1,248

    Fifty-two weeks at the same prices.

  3. 5 years

    £6,240

    Simple total, no inflation.

Compare scenarios

Frequency does most of the work

A £8 gap on one meal is pocket change. Three meals a week for five years is a different shape. ONS family spending treats restaurants and hotels as a household line that moves with prices and with how often people go out. The slider is the honest input: how many meals would actually switch, not how many you intend to switch in January.

Home cost is not zero

Ingredients, cooking fuel and the cheese you already bought all count. Energy Saving Trust kitchen guidance is about using appliances efficiently, not about proving home cooking is cheap. If you batch-cook, the home figure can be lower than a single-portion shop; if you buy convenience ingredients, it can sit closer to the takeaway.

What is not on the page

Time at the hob, delivery fees already baked into the takeaway price, and the social role of a Friday night order are omitted. Health claims are omitted on purpose. If you want the stricter “stop buying takeaways” version, that is a neighbouring money experiment with a different framing.

How we calculated this

Gap per swapped meal = takeaway cost − home cost. Weekly difference = gap × meals switched. Annual difference = weekly × 52. Period total = annual × years. Negative gaps (home dearer than takeaway) are shown as extra spend. No inflation, no energy-tariff model, no nutrition score. This experiment provides estimates for educational purposes and is not financial advice. Actual results vary depending on rates, fees, taxes, inflation and individual circumstances.

Go further

A curated rabbit hole from this question. Each link is a real experiment, not a random suggestion.

  1. 01 · MoneyWhat If I Stopped Buying Takeaways?
  2. 02 · MoneyWhat If I Saved My Coffee Money?
  3. 03 · MoneyWhat If I Cut My Spending by 10%?
  4. 04 · MoneyWhat If I Saved £5 Every Day?

You might also like

MoneyTry this

What If I Saved £5 Every Day?

Turn a small daily amount into a running total over the years, with optional illustrated interest.

Explore

EverydayFeatured

What if I walked instead of drove?

Compare walking a repeated local journey with driving it, using your distance, weekly rhythm and a simplified cost per kilometre.

Explore

Still curious?