Meal Prep/Occasional Chef

[Anonymous]

Tell me about this life. We are a 2-parent working outside of the home with 3 children household. Between work, school activities, and more we find ourselves ordering takeout more often than I would like or eating the quick meal at home that is not the healthiest.

After reviewing our grocery and takeout bills for the past 6 months, I am beginning to wonder if we might break even or possibly pay a little more for meal prep and occasional chef in place of constant takeout and ordering food.

Has anyone been there, done that and made the switch. Please share pros and cons, costs, and other changes to be aware of.

For your information, our grocery bill is ~$1200/month and takeout is roughly $800/month so we are spending about $2000/month on average to feed our household.

Thank you for any insights here.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who had a chef who come to their house once a week and prepared a weeks worth of meals. I don't remember the costs but I had googled it and it seemed economical. The chef did all the shopping/cooking and left the meals in their fridge. It helped them eat healthier and eat out less.

[Anonymous]

Curious about this but I think you could get better bang for your buck by buying prepared meals. Just go to Wegmans and buy the family tray items. They have so many that you just have to heat for 30 minutes.

Or add in no prep meals like open a bag of salad and a rotisserie chicken, or make sandwiches with soup.

I feel like the chef idea is for people who want to appear fancy. If eating healthy and quick is your goal there are better options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious about this but I think you could get better bang for your buck by buying prepared meals. Just go to Wegmans and buy the family tray items. They have so many that you just have to heat for 30 minutes.

Or add in no prep meals like open a bag of salad and a rotisserie chicken, or make sandwiches with soup.

I feel like the chef idea is for people who want to appear fancy. If eating healthy and quick is your goal there are better options.

Sorry. Prepared meals from grocery stores are unhealthy. I can’t believe you are suggesting something like this.
Eating it once in a while is ok, but making it your daily meal is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious about this but I think you could get better bang for your buck by buying prepared meals. Just go to Wegmans and buy the family tray items. They have so many that you just have to heat for 30 minutes.

Or add in no prep meals like open a bag of salad and a rotisserie chicken, or make sandwiches with soup.

I feel like the chef idea is for people who want to appear fancy. If eating healthy and quick is your goal there are better options.

Sorry. Prepared meals from grocery stores are unhealthy. I can’t believe you are suggesting something like this.
Eating it once in a while is ok, but making it your daily meal is bad.

+1

[Anonymous]

Why are prepared meals bad? Not the frozen stuff but the fresh stuff like salads meatloaf etc? Does it matter if it’s the ready meals from Whole Foods?

[Anonymous]

I am interested in this service, too! Working parents, three kids, high income. Please chime in if you've done this.

[Anonymous]

I would love to try this but everyone (but me) in my family hates veggies. https://vegetableandbutcher.com/

[Anonymous]

We get vegetable and butcher weekly and it is AWESOME! Only issue is being forced to eat something you're not exactly in the mood for because you don't want to waste one of the meals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are prepared meals bad? Not the frozen stuff but the fresh stuff like salads meatloaf etc? Does it matter if it’s the ready meals from Whole Foods?

Because its full of preservatives, too much salt, added sugar, MSG, etc. Wegman's and Trader Joe's aint making prepared meals from scratch.

[Anonymous]

I used to love this service but they don't have as many meals that I like. Too many stews.

Anonymous wrote:We get vegetable and butcher weekly and it is AWESOME! Only issue is being forced to eat something you're not exactly in the mood for because you don't want to waste one of the meals.

[Anonymous]

I have hired "chefs" for home made Indian food ( I am Indian) and honestly it is a hit or a miss. You may or may not like the food that they prepare. Often healthy foods is "not tasty", so despite having cooked food at home, my family wanted to eat out a different cuisine (not super healthy, but still okay).

I now do a lot of meal prep over the weekends, such as chopping vegetables. So on weekdays, just use my instapot and saute veggies, add protein and rice for a one pot meal. I also mix and match. Make curry at home and then get indian bread "roti" store bought. Also cook large batches of 2-3 curries, so it lasts 2-3 days.

There may be ways to make it work without the chef. I was paying our chef outside of DC $25 an hour. She cooked nothing fancy, was a Stay at home mom and cooked for some part time extra income while her kids were away at school

[Anonymous]

If I didn't have kids I'd get Vegetable and Butcher 3 times a week and eat out/have cinnamon toast crunch the rest of the time. Health goals!

[Anonymous]

No. Buy pre-cooked meals from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods like the rest of us. Save more money for your kids' college instead of spending it on a private chef. For the love of God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Buy pre-cooked meals from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods like the rest of us. Save more money for your kids' college instead of spending it on a private chef. For the love of God.

Some of us are already fully funding our children's educations and have additional discretionary funds. I'm always running around - getting the kids ready, getting to work, running home to get the kids to their activities. I feel guilty that we don't usually have a healthy, well balanced dinner. A private chef I think would make a world of difference in our lives. I dream of walking in the door after work at 5:15 to a chef just finishing up cleaning my kitchen before presenting me and my family with something hot, delicious and healthy. So we can all spend a few minutes nourishing our bodies and connecting with each other before we dash off to whatever's in store for that night. Sigh. We make seven figures, so we could conceivably afford this, I guess...I just haven't had the time to really look into it. Again, I'd like to hear from those who actually do it.