Everyday
What if I cooked at home more?
Short answer: it’s the gap between your takeaway price and your home-cooked price, times how many meals you’d really swap each week. An £8 gap is small once, but three meals a week for five years adds up. Enter your own prices below.
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.
Written and checked by Aivora Digital · Last updated:
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Your result
£6,240
estimated spending difference over 5 years
£8.00 per swapped meal.
- Per week
- £24.00
- Per year
- £1,248
- Meals switched
- 780
- Takeaway vs home
- £12.00 / £4.00
3 meals × £8.00.
Across 5 years.
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
This week
£24.00
3 swapped meals.
One year
£1,248
Fifty-two weeks at the same prices.
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 key 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 would rather count the full cost of a takeaway habit without a home-cooked replacement, the coffee money experiment has takeaway presets.
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.
Assumptions and limitations
This is a simplified estimate. Actual results depend on factors the model does not include.
This experiment provides estimates for educational purposes and is not financial advice. Actual results vary depending on rates, fees, taxes, inflation and individual circumstances.
- Each switched meal is one takeaway replaced by one home meal at the prices you enter.
- Home cost includes ingredients and a rough energy share if you put them in.
- Time spent cooking is not given a wage.
- Prices are held constant across the years.
- Delivery fees belong in the takeaway price if you pay them.
- No health or environmental scoring is applied.
Sources
- Office for National Statistics — Family spending in the UK
Household expenditure including food at home and restaurants, cafés and hotels — context for how eating-out sits in a budget.
- Energy Saving Trust — kitchen appliances
Cooking energy is real but usually small next to the ingredient-versus-takeaway gap; included as a reminder to put it in home cost if you care.
Go further
Related experiments that pick up where this one leaves off.
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