I love cooking but sometimes I get lazy or did not plan
my meal prep so I default to take-outs or unhealthy McDonald’s $5 meals. HF is so fun and most recipes have been a hit for me (except those with Romesco, sorry!). But I really cannot bring myself to buy it in full price; it’s $90+ for 4 meals for 2. I usually spend that amount on grocery! I may cut down to 3 meals to keep cost lower, idk.
by SnooPears357
17 Comments
Edit: I am buying for one person for the most part and I keep the second portion for lunch the next day. My boyfriend has tried one recipe with me and he devoured the swicy poke bowl!
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You don’t stretch your dollars with He,Lo Fresh. It is far more costly than going to the grocery store. Get an app like Mealime if you want an alternate. It will print our your exact grocery list for the recipes you chose, and give easy step by step cooking instructions.its brilliant.
Try to buy cheaper ingredients and remake your favs at home using substitutes where possible. I sometimes take one of their recipes and put it through some ai prompts to see how I can simplify or cheapen them.
You don’t have to do it every week. It worked well for me when I was living by myself because I did 3 meals a week for two people, which was 6 meals, basically dinner every night if I could stretch at least one meal to three servings. You can also alternate weeks with Everyplate. Same company but cheaper.
At some point though, you have the recipe cards and you can just reuse them. I recommend doing a grocery pick up order (some stores don’t charge extra for this) and ordering ingredients online. It’s easier than trying to find everything in store sometimes.
It’s not hard to stretch actually. If you have a meal for two with chicken, buy two additional pieces of chicken to bulk up the protein. Often they sell add ons at the end after you choose your meals. You can also try EveryPlate (and do the same thing) which is the same company but less expensive. They don’t bag it separately so you need to spend a few extra minutes finding the ingredients, and they have fewer options but the recipes are just as good. I actually alternate between both. If I don’t like the EveryPlate options then I order Hello Fresh. This averages to less than buying Hello Fresh every time over the course of a month.
Join 2 other meal services like chefs plate, Goodfood, whatever you have regionally. Use their promo code.
Cancel hello fresh
Cancel the meal service when the promo offer is done. (Usually 1 month or three weeks)
By that time hello fresh will give you a discount to reactivate. Use it.
The cycle continues.
I bulk up the meals to get more portions out of them, mostly by adding veggies and only order when I have a 50% off code. Otherwise I cancel and wait until they send me the next code. Also I don’t do it every week, but with the discount it’s worth it to try out new things. Hope this helps!
You dont, you are paying a huge premium for getting the over packaged contents delivered to your door.
Make note of the recipes you love, copy them into a recipe app like Plan to Eat, and quit HelloFresh and replicate the recipes.
I don’t know… every time I try to make my own meals I spend $50 at the grocery for one planned dinner and then leftover ingredients are left to rot and for me to throw out later…. So this is a cheaper version for my lifestyle
Find the recipe cards and see if you can make them without the orders.
We didn’t so we had to quit. I found it more affordable to buy groceries in bulk and cook meals with 4+ servings for two people than to use HF. HF is more convenient and fun to cook based on the printed recipe cards but it was too much in the end.
Discounts discounts discounts. Abuse the discounts. You never have to pay full price. Use other email addresses if you can too. And if anybody here is offended or has a problem with what I’m saying, well, this advice isn’t for you then. Eat the rich.
Huh that’s crazy. In the uk I get 3 meals for 2 adults for about £35-40. Food is a major indulgence for us so I easily spend more when I plan meals myself. I imagine more sensible frugal people don’t spend the way I do at the supermarket lol
I cancel my account. Get a 50% discount code after about a month and then join again and order 10x 2 meals. I am single so I freeze 1 portion every day.
Price is around 3.50 euro a meal and that is most time cheaper then getting the same ingredients at the grocery.
The rest of the month I cook from old recipes etc.
Save money? No way. This 💩 is way more expensive than going out on your own.