Hello everybody it's Sam from Financial Samurai and in this episode I want to talk about why you shouldn't bother cooking your own food to save money. And wow I got a lot of interesting feedback after I published my post because Google on its Android operating system, so the mobile phone system, picked up the post and started blasting it out to like 50,000 readers for some reason.

I don't know why but it did. And so I got a lot of non-regular listeners and readers commenting some nasty things on the website and I thought this was fun. It was interesting and I enjoy this type of criticism and different points of view. I'll save the quotes, the nasty quotes, for some other time or for those of you who want to read it in the comment section.

But the basic feedback is spending $500 per person a month is ridiculous. And here are some fun quotes. Who pays $2,100 a month for food? That's so ridiculous maybe they're buying all the avocado toast. This is for a family of four. How much are they spending a month on food?

Oh just as much as some families entire income. Cool. $70 a day for food for four people? Four question marks. They're spending $500 a week on food? I spend $60 a week for one person. Another quote. I'm literally upset if I spend more than 10 bucks a day on food.

Spending around 30 is a legit luxury. And it just goes on and on and on and it's actually quite entertaining. But the greatest irony is that over 70% of Americans are considered overweight today. Meanwhile 40% of Americans are considered obese. Yet today 82% of the meals Americans eat are prepared at home according to research from NPD Group Incorporated.

It's a strategy research group. So like yo, if 70% of Americans are overweight and will likely die earlier than they should as a result, perhaps these food budget complaints don't have much merit. Add on the fact that the typical American has less than a hundred thousand saved for retirement and maybe we definitely shouldn't care what other people think when it comes to how much we spend on food.

So I just wanted to share why maybe you should reconsider the way you prepare food, eat food, spend time making food and so forth if you so happen to be one of the 70% of people who are not too healthy and if you so happen to not have too much in your retirement savings account.

I really don't want to judge or care how you eat or how you save and invest. We all have the freedom to do whatever the hell we want. I'm just providing a different perspective and I think if we can offer different perspectives we tend to learn more and improve our lives.

So I'm gonna argue why cooking your own food more than 50% of the time to save money is a suboptimal financial decision. Look this is Financial Samurai. We're here to try to build our wealth and ultimately our happiness and our lifestyles. So keep in mind these goals before I continue.

So one, your time is valuable. It doesn't make much sense to come home from a long day's work and spend an hour cooking a rubber chicken dinner. Yuck! You should be using this time to unwind, play with your kids, develop a better relationship with your spouse or work on your side hustle.

Calculate how much you make an hour. Now multiply that hourly rate by how long it takes you to cook a meal. This may be the true cost of your meal. Two, your marriage is valuable. We know the percentages right? 50% of marriages end in divorce in America and it's probably because one person neglects the other person, takes the other person for granted.

You know unless you make cooking together a fun activity, spending time cooking while your partner is doing something else like sitting on the sofa watching TV may be harmful to your relationship. In fact the person slaving over the stove might start resenting the partner who is doing something else more relaxing.

So don't underestimate the level of resentment the person doing most of the household activities may have for the one who isn't. Resentment is definitely one of the key reasons for divorce. Three, your toddlers grow up quickly. It is true you turn around and whoa they're an adult. Let's say you come back from work at 6 p.m.

after leaving the house at 7 a.m. Your young children leave for school at let's say 745 a.m. because your partner drives and then they go to bed at 830 p.m. After not seeing your little one all day do you really want to then spend more time away from them by cooking once you get home?

Of course not. A loving parent would muster up his or her remaining energy to spend time with their children. Besides you're not going to willingly invite toddlers into the kitchen while cooking over a hot stove due to the risk of injury. Four, you're not a professional cook. Sorry to say I don't care how well you think you cook and how awesome your spaghetti meatballs are.

It's probably okay and your family and partner are like "it's pretty good, better not say anything negative or else that's really really gonna piss off mom or dad whoever's cooking." The reason why you go to see a doctor when something is wrong is that the doctor has had years of specialized training.

You may be able to self-diagnose by googling but it's probably better to see someone who treats big boils all day long. Not only are you losing an hour of your time preparing a meal but your meal probably look it probably won't taste as good. I know so many people say I cook the best food ever but it's probably not as good as a professional cook who does it for a living.

Five, you're too generous with the ingredients. If most people eat at home to save money and also believe that cooking at home is healthier, there has to be a problem with the way we cook given most Americans are overweight. Home cooks are likely adding too many unhealthy ingredients to their food preparations or they're just cooking way too much and then they don't know how to portion control.

So there has to be something going on here and it's one of these reasons folks. You can't deny at least with food delivery and restaurants they portion out their meals so you don't eat too much. After all they've got profit margins to protect. You've seen those funny restaurant pictures where it looks like you know you're gonna starve to death after you eat that that little scallop but it cost $25 but it's for the presentation and the show and the wow.

Restaurants and food delivery companies have profit margins so they're not gonna give you all the food you can eat. Six, you might injure yourself. This is a really big one. Think about all the times you sliced a finger, felt your eyes burning, chopping onions, or splattered boiling water on your hand when you dumped ravioli into the pot too enthusiastically.

Ouch! Some injuries take weeks to heal and if you said hey I'll give you a hundred bucks if I chop your finger I'll say no thank you. So on the same lines, seven, you need your hands to play and earn. If you slice your index finger you probably won't be able to effectively swing a racket or a bat for at least a couple of weeks and that would really stink for me because I love playing tennis and softball three times a week.

It's my joy, it's my physical outlet, it makes me happy. If you accidentally pound your thumb while you're pounding your meat, any type of work that requires typing will probably be at risk and guess what all desk jobs require typing. Even if you injure yourself only once out of every let's say 20 times you cook, that's 5%, it's not worth the risk.

Besides being out of commission for a while, injuries hurt. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Eight, food delivery apps are in abundance. Hey guess what we live in the internet age since 2009 there have been a plethora of new food delivery apps to use. They are battling each other like crazy and they have tremendous amount of venture capital funding.

I think DoorDash just raised another like billion dollars or something and they're now worth 13 billion. There's like Grubhub, E24 which was bought and sold, there's Uber Eats, it's just non-stop. These apps have effectively infiltrated your city's best restaurants and now offer every type of food you can think of.

You don't have to get an artery-clogging artisan double cheeseburger, you can get you know celery with some lettuce and some tomatoes at your doorstep in 45 minutes. You can order as healthy as you want so don't use food delivery as an excuse and say that it's just unhealthy, it's just not true.

It's only unhealthy if you choose unhealthy foods to order to bring to your house. So to not take advantage of technology would be a shame. It's just like not taking advantage of technology by not starting your own website in the internet day and age. I mean why not brand yourself online, showcase your talents and get rich off yourself?

Why let Facebook and Twitter get rich off you? No, get rich off yourself. Okay, nine, going out to eat spices things up. Yes it does. Food is one of the main best ways to bring people together. Not only can you take your partner out for a romantic date, but you can also invite your family and friends out to bond and if you pay for the meal the other side will greatly appreciate it and may potentially provide a much greater reward in the future.

I love going out to eat with friends. It's just fun, it's a new adventure, it makes me happy, it's good social gathering and I think you'll enjoy it too. Alright number ten, no need for a cleanup. Not only do you not have to spend time preparing your food by ordering delivery or going out to eat, but you also don't have to spend time cleaning up after yourself either.

Less cleanup means less money spent on sponges, more room for trash and a longer life for your furniture and utensils. Eleven, no need to spend as much time grocery shopping. I don't know if anybody likes grocery shopping. I think that's why there's like grocery shoppers who do it for you.

It's all about coming up with a list and getting in and out as quickly as possible. I like to spend like 10 minutes and that's it. Grocery shopping is like doing a chore because you've got to drive to the grocery store, look for the items, wait in line at cash register and then drive home.

Every time I go I always text my wife, "Hey do you need anything?" hoping she'll say, "Nope I don't need anything." But she always says, "Oh I've got a great list. It's like 10 things." I'm like, "No and I don't know where to get that organic bread. Are you kidding me?

Why does everything have to be organic? Organic blueberries, raspberries, come on." But I got to do it as a good husband should. Oh and hopefully you don't get any annoying door dings in the parking lot or a ticket either. I've got door dings left and right and man, that's just part of life.

Okay number 12. You're not out there winning business. If you are in a marketing or sales role then it should be your mission to go out to eat with as many clients and prospective clients as possible. Your firm should pay for all your meals and entertainment outings and if you want to save money order extra and bring leftovers home.

I did this constantly when I was working in finance and I made it a mission to take out a client at least once a week and I knew that I'd also get a free meal and I'd bring some back. It was awesome. Everybody won. Even if you have to pay for the food yourself with a dining rewards card.

You should actively take interesting people out each week who can boost your network. And the final reason why you shouldn't spend so much time cooking at home is that you fall into a scarcity mindset. One of the most important ways to get wealthy is by adopting the abundance mindset.

You want to go build your wealth by making more money not by saving more money. Look we should all save but there's only so much you can save right? You should be out there trying to figure out how to get a promotion, doing more for your boss, working on a side business, figuring out how to invest better and so forth.

It's much easier to get wealthy making more money folks. You can only save so much and it's just that's it. 50%, 60%, 70% okay put that on autopilot. You got to really focus on investing and making other engines of income. As you get older your number one goal should be to win back as much time as possible to do things that bring you the most happiness.

If that thing is cooking then cook all day if you want but I think for most people they have other things that bring them more happiness. If you want to cook at home do so during the holidays. The holidays are the best. No homemade meal feels better than during Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Now those are special times where cooking at home is absolutely encouraged. Cook for love, cook for company, cook for joy but don't bother cooking for the main purpose of saving money. Cultivate an abundance mindset to build your fortune. Thanks so much everyone. I hope I didn't piss everyone off and I'd love to hear your thoughts, nice thoughts, reasonable thoughts in the comment section of my post.

Thanks so much.