explorefriendly

I really like this framing as it's tangible in a way I've considered overall expenses but haven't particularly applied to eating and cooking. I think it also gets at why I'm even concerned about controlling the expense beyond the feeling factor, as I can recognize although my after-tax hourly earnings is several times higher per hour currently than the potential savings, my income from year to year is variable, and so cutting this expense down now in addition to increasing my investments increases the likelihood that in the future I can continue to avoid cooking and cleaning without paying a premium against my time for doing so (eg. 1.2 hr of work to avoid an hour of cooking/cleaning I still might do but would be a much harder calculus for me)

I'm neither paid hourly nor salaried, but I'm kind of like a craftsman so there's a direct relationship between the value of the violins I carve and how much money I make. I'm a decent cook and can do so on occasion like you mention but generally prefer my craft to the craft of cooking and as the former compensates at a much higher rate than the savings of the latter the problem presented stands. I can just keep doing what I'm doing but exploring other options and seeing what people like you have to say to try to gain potential insight into a potentially better state.

Using Chipotle as a reference point as that is one of the least expensive places I order from and just had last week: On DoorDash my last order for one meal was $26. $19 for a bowl and side of guac, $1 service fee, $2 tax, and $4 tip. I could save a little traveling instead of ordering delivery, but that doesn't make sense due to the additional time that would take. So that would come out to $52 /day or $1560 /month which would be better than the almost twice that that I currently spend, but most food is more expensive than Chipotle, and I should have maybe also mentioned in my post that health is very important to me so eating a lot of fast food wouldn't be acceptable unless the quality was relatively decent like Chipotle. Maybe I just need to seek out more places like Chipotle that are on the cheaper side while still being healthy and rotate through them, as while that's still a fair bit to spend a month it would be a huge improvement.