Ordering takeout or home-delivery meals can swiftly burn a hole in your wallet. While it’s alright on occasion, regularly relying on food delivery services can accumulate costs. The challenge is to find manageable methods to curb this reliance on food delivery.
Recollections of childhood often include the occasional home-delivered pizza on weekends. It was a rarity, a special treat. Today, with platforms like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats, any cuisine can be delivered to your doorstep. These services constitute a burgeoning $34 billion industry. However, weighing the convenience against the cost is crucial.
For most, the investment is unreasonable considering their financial objectives. The charges associated with food delivery services often result in doublings of the cost of meals. If your aim is enjoying appetizing meals without escalating expenses, here are some tips to manage your dependence on food delivery.
First, consider drafting a meal plan. This helps systematize your daily cuisine and saves on expenditures associated with restaurants. Establishing a habit of eating more homemade meals is attainable. All it requires is some groundwork and plotting. Food delivery apps often lure consumers due to their convenience. But by outlining and preparing meals beforehand, you can bypass the financial cost of deliveries.
My own technique involves charting our meals for each fortnight on a refrigerator-mounted whiteboard. We have a strategy for lunches and usually consume similar breakfasts daily. Meal planning facilitates culinary variety and ahead-of-time preparation, thus eliminating the need for food deliveries.
Secondly, try taking turns cooking. If you find cooking tedious, you can reduce the frequency of your kitchen duty by cooking meals in bigger portions for leftovers and sharing the task with other family members.
Next, keep ‘quick-fix meals’ at hand. Life’s unpredictability often makes food deliveries appear to be the perfect solution. An alternative is to keep a stock of quick-to-cook meals, such as frozen pizzas from the groceries or meals pre-cooked in bulk.
Consider purging all food delivery apps from your devices as an additional measure. This return to pre-food delivery times can also involve packing lunches and resisting the temptation of delivery services.
That said, you don’t need to completely forsake dining out or takeout. Allocating planned days for dining out or ordering takeout can let you enjoy your favorite meals without the ongoing costs.
Moreover, defining financial objectives other than indulging in food deliveries can help maintain focus. When viewed in light of other financial goals, the costs of these apps become less justifiable. For example, paying off debt, traveling, or investing in home improvements might bring more happiness than regular food deliveries.
