A Tale of Two Dinners

The three biggest expenses for the majority of Americans are food, housing, and transportation. If you can get your spending under control in those areas then you'll have a much easier time in general. They're what you might call "big wins." I'll talk about the latter two in another post, but I wanted to talk about food a little bit.

One typical piece of advice that people get is to stop eating out and cook your meals at home. I agree with this advice as far as it goes, but what are you supposed to cook? I was at the store the other day buying groceries for a couple of meals, and I was struck by the differences in price. Here are links to the recipes:

Thai Shrimp and Noodles

Potato Leek Soup

Both of these meals will be cooked at home, but the amount I pay per serving is hugely different. Take a look at the approximate¹ ingredient cost for the Thai dish:

1 pound cooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined - $10.00
1/3 cup Italian salad dressing - $0.33
8 ounces uncooked angel hair pasta - $0.50
1/4 cup chicken broth - $0.10
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro - $0.15
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter - $0.13
1 tablespoon honey - $0.17
1 tablespoon soy sauce - $0.17
1 teaspoon minced fresh gingerroot - $0.25
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes - $0.03
1 cup julienned carrots - $0.35
1 cup chopped green onions $0.65
2 tablespoons canola oil - $0.06
1 tablespoon sesame oil - $0.35

Total Ingredient Cost: $13.24
Cost Per Serving: $2.21

I consider this meal to be extremely expensive compared to a normal meal at home, but most of that is the shrimp. Even so, this meal costs about the same amount to make as it would cost my family to eat at Wendy's (if we're eating off the dollar menu). If you made this kind of meal every night, you would spend nearly $400 per month on dinners alone. Adding in the other two meals and snacks and you've got a food budget that is out of control.

Now compare that to the Potato Leek Soup.

2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola or grapeseed oil - $0.06
4-5 medium russet potatoes (1 pound), peeled and roughly chopped - $0.65
3 large leeks (1 pound), cleaned, and thinly sliced - $3.00
6 cups vegetable stock (or light chicken stock) - $4.60 (or basically $0.10 if you use water)Kosher salt, to taste (I consider salt and pepper to be basically free when figuring out recipes since they're so common and usually not measured in specific amounts)
1-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice - $0.07
1/2 cup heavy cream $0.62 or 1/2 cup crème fraiche (I just use 1 cup of heavy cream, but the price would be similar) $0.62
1/3 cup minced parsley or chives - $0.35

Total Ingredient Cost: $9.97

You're starting to save money with this, but as I mentioned above, I would probably use water instead of vegetable stock, and maybe add a little celery or something. With those changes, the price would look more like this:

Total Ingredient Cost: $5.72
Cost Per Serving: $0.95

Look at that. Less than a dollar per serving to feed people a nice dinner. If you eat like this every night, then you would only spend $171 per month on dinners. This dish isn't even the cheapest one you can make. Just by changing your meal planning a bit you can find over $200 per month that you can use to pay off debt, invest, or take a vacation. So while the general advice of "eat at home" is good advice and will generally save you money, even within that framework there are lots of options for optimizing your life and saving you money.

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1 The prices are a mix of what I payed on the receipt and what random prices I could find with a quick internet search. The actual prices you would pay might vary quite a bit. I'm sure a dedicated coupon clipper could get both meals for cheaper, but the relationship between the two would be similar.^↩