PSA: I ran the numbers on meal kit services vs grocery shopping and the gap is way smaller than I thought

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, I feel this so hard! I tried HelloFresh for three months back in 2022 and did my own spreadsheet comparing it to what I'd normally buy at Aldi for similar meals. The price difference was like $4-$6 per meal, not the huge gap I expected. But what really got me was how much food I wasted with the kits - they give you a whole head of celery for one stalk, or a giant bunch of thyme you'll never use up. I started just buying the grocery store rotisserie chicken and frozen veggies for cheap, then using the kits only for the weeks when I knew I'd be too tired to meal plan. It helps to think of it as paying for convenience, not savings, and picking your spots.

miles_robinson2012d ago

You know what, I used to be one of those people who swore meal kits were a total ripoff and couldn't understand why anyone would pay for them. But reading your breakdown with the actual spreadsheet numbers really made me reconsider my stance. That $4-$6 gap per meal is way smaller than I always assumed it would be. And your point about the food waste is dead on, I've seen friends with half-used bags of herbs sitting in their fridges from those kits. It makes sense to treat them like a convenience tool for tough weeks instead of expecting them to be some kind of money-saving hack.

young.thomas12d ago

Has your friend tried keeping a jar in the freezer for those random veggie scraps? My buddy Dave signed up for every meal kit service during lockdown and ended up with a fridge full of half-used herbs and celery ends. He started tossing all the leftover onion ends, carrot peels, and herb stems into a ziplock bag in the freezer. Once the bag was full, he'd boil it all down with some salt to make broth. He said it didn't save him money on the kits themselves but it made him feel way less guilty about the waste. Now he swears by it and says the homemade broth tastes way better than the boxed stuff.