Cooking at home is key to save money and lose weight but what if you can’t cook?  We test three services that deliver the ingredients and recipes to you.

Cooking can seem like some kind of mystical voodoo to the uninitiated but there are services that can get you started.  Matt tested three and reports on the results.

Plated, Blue Apron, and Hello Fresh were the three services he tried.  All are pretty similar.  They send pre-measured ingredients, recipes with step by step photos, including directions on plating the meals, good for any of us who are used to eating everything out of one bowl, and most of the meals are designed to take about thirty minutes to prepare.

What about the cost?  Plated is $10 a month to join and $12 per plate.  Blue Apron is $10 a month and $9.99 per plate.  Hello Fresh is $10.75 per meal.  These services are not cheap.  We recommend them for the following types of people: people who are making good money but don’t have a lot of time to meal plan and shop but don’t want to eat takeout every night.

People who are new to meal planning and cooking and want to get experience.  Or couples who spend lots of money going out to eat on weekends who want to stay in and cook together and still have a fun experience without the hassle of planning and shopping.

The services do have a few good things going for them as far as saving money.  If time is money for you, then these will save you time.  If you are a single person or a couple who end up buying big amounts of ingredients (why does Fresh Direct in NYC not offer smaller portions?) that go to waste before you can cook or eat them, these services cut down on waste as they send exactly the amounts in needs to cook a single meal.

Because these services are fairly new, there are tons of promo codes, discounts and coupons available, just google each name and “discount” and you can find them easily.

Again, these are not meant for everyone but if you fit into any of the above criteria, check them out and let us know what you think.

Show Notes

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