That $200 meal kit subscription I thought would save me money? Yeah right.

I signed up for a meal kit service back in January thinking it would stop me from eating out so much and buying food that goes bad. After two months I realized I was spending $50 a week on these boxes and still hitting the drive thru because the recipes took too long. I canceled it last week and went back to my old way of meal prepping on Sundays with a $40 grocery run. Has anyone else found a smarter way to make meal planning actually work without wasting cash?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancycooper1mo ago

You said "recipes took too long" - how long were they actually taking? I'm curious because I've looked at those kits and the prep times on the box always seemed fake. Were you reading the recipe wrong or were they legitimately dragging on for 45 minutes plus?

uma_taylor471mo ago

Wait, were their packs actually saying like 20-30 mins? Because none of the ones I tried ever came close to that. I tracked a few of them with a timer on my phone and the quickest one was still like 42 minutes from start to putting it on the table. One recipe that said "25 minutes" ended up taking me almost an hour because it had me chopping a bunch of stuff and cooking things in separate pans that couldn't go at the same time. The prep times on the box are totally fake, they never factor in all the little steps like washing herbs or actually reading the directions. I'm not even a slow cook either, I've been making dinners for years, so it's not like I was messing up the instructions.

ray_campbell461mo ago

@uma_taylor47 you're right that the box times are optimistic, but in my experience if you actually prep everything first before you start cooking they usually land closer to what's advertised. The trick is those steps you mentioned, reading directions and washing stuff always adds time they don't count.