That meal kit subscription that cost me $800 before I caught on

I signed up for one of those meal kit services back in February thinking I'd save on groceries. Three months later I checked my bank statements and realized I had spent over $800 on these little boxes. The thing is, half the ingredients would go bad before I got to them since I live alone and work weird hours. On the other side of this, my cousin swears by her meal kit plan because she cooks for a family of four and never wastes anything. So is this a budgeting win or a budgeting trap depending on your situation? I'm curious if anyone else has run the numbers and found these boxes to be a money drain or a legit saver for their household.

3 comments

3 Comments

river_adams2510h ago

Yeah the "sad bachelor" portion thing hit hard lol. I work 12 hour days sometimes and tried a box service last year. What actually worked for me was splitting the box with a neighbor who also lives alone. We'd each take half the ingredients and both ended up spending way less than grocery delivery for those weeks. Definitely not a win as a single person on your own though.

lily8911h ago

I used to think meal kits were just overpriced convenience for people who can't cook, but then I sat down and actually did the math for my own situation. I tried a box for a month as a single person and it was a total money drain, mostly because the portions were too big and I'd throw away half the fresh stuff. But then my sister tried the same service with her family of five and she's actually saving compared to her old grocery trips. The real deal is these boxes only work if you have the right household size and can actually use everything before it goes bad. For someone living alone with weird hours, it's definitely a trap. But for families who cook regularly? I can totally see how it could be a legit win.

foster.dylan10h ago

Right? It's like meal kits are secretly a gambling scheme but instead of card counting you're betting on your family's vegetable consumption rate. Single people basically just sign up to throw money at a company while watching lettuce turn to goo in the fridge. But hey, if you've got a herd of kids that can polish off a giant bag of carrots in two days, suddenly it's a financial masterstroke. Sounds like the real trap is being a solo adult with no one to share your overpriced basil with. Maybe they should offer a "sad bachelor" portion size that's just a single sad chicken thigh and three green beans.