Is cooking at home cheaper or more expensive than buying already cooked meals?

There is rice at home is a common saying to curb wasteful spending that comes from ordering out, but is it true?

In this article, we will attempt to break down the pros and cons of cooking or ordering out in Nigeria.

Cooking at home

Should you cook at home? [Healthline] Pulse Nigeria

To cook at home, you need some fundamentals without which your cooking is impossible.

Cooking gas, seasoning cubes, spices, onions, pepper and tomato paste, groundnut oil, and palm oil. These basics are all between ₦3,000 - ₦10,000 (depending on the gas you use and family size). Once you buy them, they can last you about a month.

After which you have to buy rice, spaghetti, garri, beans, semo and yams. You can spend anything from ₦20,000 - ₦100,000 on them depending on the size of the family.

Then there are proteins like meat, fish, eggs or chicken. You can buy these once a week and they would cost you between ₦500 (for fish and some eggs) and ₦5,000 (for chickens).

Now let’s break it down, you can spend if you cook for just yourself is ₦20,000 (the lowest) or about ₦130,000 (the highest) -if you are a big family and you want to eat well.

Buying food from ‘mama put’

Buying food from roadside vendors [Guardiannigeria] Pulse Nigeria

If you buy food from roadside vendors, a plate of rice can be either ₦100 or ₦200, one meat is ₦100 or ₦50, eggs are ₦100, fishes are ₦100 or ₦200 and plantains are 3 for ₦50.

If you buy three spoons of rice and one meat, that is ₦700 (without a pack). If you eat two times a day, that’s ₦1,400. In a month that’s ₦42,000. The price is multiplied exponentially if there are two, three or four members of the family.

Solid food can be cheaper, you can spend between ₦200 - ₦500 on solid food from roadside vendors.

If you are ordering food from places like Chicken Republic and The Place, you will spend ₦1,500 - ₦2,000 on average. If you order food twice a day, in a month, that’s ₦90,000 or ₦120,000.

Ordering using apps [Reviewusa] Pulse Nigeria

Gourmet restaurants charge about ₦10,000 to ₦15,000 per meal.

Concluding thoughts

Nigerians have an average salary of ₦30,000 and spend more than half of their income on food because of rising food prices.

What we can see is, cooking for yourself can be slightly lower than ordering out or buying food from roadside vendors, but if you stay alone, buying food from roadside vendors might be cheaper and less stressful for you.

However, if you have a family, it’s expensive to always buy food from roadside vendors or fast food restaurants. However, buying from fast food chains and restaurants is the most expensive route.