Is saving money by eating in really worth it?

By Chloe Cook

One of my biggest guilty pleasures is eating out or ordering in. Getting to eat great meals without the hassle of cooking or cleaning up — count me in! However, this luxury often comes with a hefty price tag not suitable for my feeble student budget, so I decided to make a resolution in the new year to stop wasting so much money on food that I could make at home. I did a trial week of cooking all my meals at home and compared it to a regular week of eating out. Here’s how that went:

While eating in obviously saves a lot of money in the long run, I found that there were a few challenges with doing so. Firstly, there was a serious lack of variety.

I found myself consuming so much lasagna that I never want to hear the word again — perhaps this is an indication that I need to take some cooking classes. Secondly, there was the social aspect of not being able to go to a restaurant with friends. I found myself cancelling plans in order to eat at home or inviting people over and force feeding them lasagna in an attempt to get rid of it. I think that overall, eating out is great — in moderation.

In 2020, I am going to be a lot more conscious of my spending habits and I will definitely not be eating out nearly as much as I did before. However, I won’t set such strict boundaries on going out with friends in the future. I just need to delete the UberEats app off of my phone and hopefully that will snuff out my desire to order in.