Why do we have kitchens?

Is it really cheaper to cook then order out for life?

I have a home in San Francisco. It was appraised at $1,102 per square foot. The kitchen is around 120 square feet of that. That means my kitchen costs me $132,240 to purchase in raw square footage. Add in around $18,000 in appliances and we are looking at $150,000 for a kitchen. That doesn’t include the ingredients to cook!

Now let’s take a meal delivery service. Meal delivery in SF comes in a range of $5-$10 per meal. I think $7 per meal is pretty often findable, but I’m a pain in the ass and eat Vegan-ish, so I’m going to base my analysis on Thistle, plant based meals. I’m lazy, so lets use these guys’ budget for Thistle:

5-Day Thistle delivery, 3 meals, 2 juices and 1 snack for each day. was $275 for the week.

Yearly cost for Thistle $275 x 52 = $14,300

Now that we have our magic number.

How much does it cost to eat meal delivery 365 days per year = $14,300.

How many years of high end meal delivery does it cost to equal a kitchen?

$150,000 / $14,300 = 10.5 years!

It takes 10.5 years of meal delivery to pay for a 120 square foot kitchen.

Imagine if you are someone that can’t imagine living with a 10 year old kitchen and does a remodel every 10-15 years?

My grocery bill eating organic high quality food that I cook 30 days out of 30 per month is around $150 per week also known as $7,800 per year. About half the price of Thistle; I cook similar items as Thistle.

Over 10 years that’s $78,000 per year in groceries that we need to add to the price of our kitchen

$150,000 + $78,000 = 228,000.

Suddenly the payoff for meal delivery versus home cooked has increased to 16 years. $228,000 / $14,300. Well that means I need to add another 6 years of groceries into this budget, $46,800. Well now that’s a 20 year payoff for the kitchen and groceries to give me the honor of interrupting my day and thrashing mentally versus, succumbing to meal delivery service until the day I move to a place where kitchens don’t cost more than meal delivery service.

Why do we have kitchens?