Cooking at home vs eating out: yearly cost calculator
Compare the yearly cost of cooking at home with eating out, using USDA-style home meal costs and the restaurant price you actually pay.
Calculator using prices you enter. The default home cost is a round figure from the USDA food-plan range. How we research · How links work
The short answer
Five restaurant meals a week at $16 each cost about $4,160 a year. The same meals at a $5 home cost cost about $1,300, a saving of about $2,860.
Your meals
Yearly saving if you cook
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USDA-style home costs (planning figures)
| Plan level | Rough per meal (one adult) |
|---|---|
| Thrifty to Low-Cost | About $3 to $4.50 |
| Moderate | About $4.50 to $5.50 |
| Liberal | About $5.50 to $7 |
These are planning bands from USDA food-plan monthly costs. Restaurant prices vary by city, so enter what you usually pay.
Make it stick
Swap the meals you care least about first (weekday lunches, for example). Keep the restaurant meals that are social, not the ones that are only habit.
Common questions
How much cheaper is cooking at home?
USDA food plans put a nutritious home meal for one adult roughly in the mid single dollars. At $5 home vs $16 out, five meals a week saves about $2860 a year.
Where do the home meal figures come from?
USDA publishes monthly Cost of Food reports for Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost and Liberal food plans. Dividing a weekly plan by about 21 meals gives a rough per-meal range of about $3 to $7 for one adult, depending on the plan.
Does this include my time?
No. If cooking takes an hour you would rather not spend, raise the home cost or lower the number of meals you cook.
