How Much Do You Save Cooking at Home?
Pick your state, describe your eating habits, and set how many meals you plan to cook each week. We pull real regional food-cost data to show your cost per home meal, weekly savings, and what it adds up to by year's end.
Your state
Worthulator calibrates your savings to local food costs
What best describes your eating habits?
Select one or more — Worthulator blends your dining baseline
Home-cooked or prepped meals each week
See the impact of one small habit change — no overhaul required
Reading your inputs…
Calculating your meal prep savings
Fast food costs $13 a meal. Delivery averages $31 with fees and tip. Cook the same meal at home for under $6 — and the gap becomes one of the easiest wins in personal finance.
$5.93
national cost per home-cooked meal based on current grocery benchmarks
$31
average delivery app order once platform fees and tip are included
$5,000
typical annual savings cooking 10 meals a week instead of ordering takeout
Why cooking at home is one of the most reliable savings habits
Delivery doesn't just cost more — it costs a lot more
Once platform fees, service charges, and tip are rolled in, the average delivery order runs $31. That's more than five times the cost of the same meal cooked at home. Most people already know delivery is expensive — they just don't confront how expensive until the annual number is sitting in front of them.
The savings stack quietly, then all at once
Ten home-cooked meals a week versus ordering takeout adds up to around $5,000 a year at national prices. Swap delivery for those same meals and you're past $13,000. Neither number requires a dramatic life change — just the same meals you'd eat anyway, made one step earlier in the day.
Your actual cost per meal will surprise you
At national grocery benchmarks, a home-cooked meal works out to just under $6. Build around cheaper staples — eggs, dried lentils, frozen veg, chicken thighs — and you can comfortably get below $4. The USDA thrifty food plan puts a budget-conscious single adult at $320 a month all-in, which works out to about $5.33 per meal across 60 meals.
How the Cooking at Home Savings Calculator Works
Formula
Dining Baseline = State-adjusted cost for your selected eating style(s)
Cost per Home Meal = State grocery benchmark ÷ 60 meals / month
Saving per Meal = Dining Baseline − Cost per Home Meal
Weekly Savings = Saving per Meal × Meals Cooked per Week
Annual Savings = Weekly Savings × 52Select your state and one or more dining habits — delivery, restaurant, fast food, or a mix. Each state has its own food-cost index derived from BLS Regional Price Parities and Numbeo city data, so your dining baseline and home-meal cost both reflect what food actually costs where you live. Nationally, delivery averages $31 a meal, inexpensive restaurants run $22.66, and fast food sits at $13.
Set how many meals you plan to cook each week. Every home-cooked meal replaces an outsourced one and saves you the gap between the two costs. At national averages, that gap is around $9.60 versus takeout, $16.70 versus a sit-down restaurant, and $25 versus delivery. Annual savings is simply that weekly total multiplied by 52.