After a long day of work, there’s nothing like opening an app and ordering dinner from your couch. That comforting feeling of not having to decide what to cook — or do the dishes afterward — is hard to beat.
When I lived with my partner, who doesn’t know how to cook, I was juggling work and grad school. I didn’t want to think about dinner — I just wanted something quick and easy. So we ordered out 2-3 times a week, which came out to about $150/month on takeout.
During the pandemic, we started ordering takeout almost every day — about 5-6 times a week. Suddenly, we were spending $350/month just on delivery, and most of it wasn’t the healthiest: hamburgers and fries, fried chicken, or pasta. I’m lactose intolerant, which made it even more frustrating, as everything seemed to have milk or cheese. Even when I tried to avoid dairy, I couldn’t be sure if a dish was truly safe. Sometimes I’d feel sick after eating, and still I kept ordering because of the convenience.
On top of that, we were also spending $300-400 at the supermarket — mostly on meat and vegetables that I was too tired to cook, so they ended up in the freezer or the trash.
Until a job offer forced a reset — and a fresh start
Everything changed when I got a new job and had to relocate from Porto, Portugal, to Memphis, Tennessee, in December 2023, living apart from my partner for a year. While Porto may seem affordable from the outside, grocery prices can be surprisingly high for locals. When I moved to Memphis, I didn’t feel a huge difference in grocery costs, but the shift in my lifestyle made all the difference.
With my partner staying behind in Portugal for work, I was suddenly on my own, and motivated to spend less and waste less. I turned to the person who first taught me how to cook: my grandma. All the way from Portugal, we talked several times a week over WhatsApp calls, and she shared everything she knew about meal planning, how to cook meat and fish properly, tips for grocery shopping, and recipe ideas. Her guidance became my foundation for building new habits in the kitchen.
Since I was moving into a new house, I also decided to organize my kitchen in a way that made sense, and I invested in the basics — good pots and pans, a blender, an air fryer, and airtight containers for leftovers. My first few shopping trips were expensive: I spent around $654 in one month stocking up on pantry staples like spices, flour, rice, canned goods, and oils.
I also changed how I shopped. I started planning my meals ahead of time and shopping with intention. On Saturdays, I’d plan my route across Whole Foods, Kroger, and the local farmers market, buying fresh produce, fish, and whatever else was on my list. I followed Instagram recipe accounts for inspiration. I bought a meal-planning cookbook, and batch-cooked on weekends so weekday dinners would be less chaotic and faster.
Eating better saved me money, and I also felt better
Once I committed to cooking, I started to feel better, physically and mentally. I wasn’t getting sick after dinner anymore. I even started sleeping better and lost a bit of weight without really trying.
Six months later, my average monthly grocery bill was down to around $150. Once my partner relocated to Memphis in 2024, it bumped up to around $250 — not only is that less than we used to spend on groceries for the two of us together in Portugal, but it’s also less than we used to spend on takeout alone.
We’re not spending less because food is cheaper here. What changed is how I shop: I go to the store with a list, I plan out meals in advance, and I only buy what I know we’ll eat. Before, I had no structure — I’d go without checking what we already had at home, grabbing what I thought I might use, which led to a lot of food waste.
Now, nothing sits forgotten in the fridge. I make sure we use everything we buy, and leftovers are stored and ready to be used for another meal. That shift alone has made our grocery budget much more efficient.
As for eating out, we’ve turned it into something intentional. We usually go out twice a month for date nights, and spend around $150/month on those dinners — often trying new Asian restaurants or going out for a good steak. We’ve pretty much stopped ordering delivery entirely. Between the rising food prices, delivery fees, and added taxes, it just doesn’t feel worth it anymore.
More importantly, I feel in control. I was eating food that worked for my body, wasting less, and saving anywhere from $250-350 a month. Now, I can’t imagine going back.
