Meal Kit Subscriptions: Are They Worth It?

Disclaimer—I am not being paid by any meal kit subscription service; I’m simply providing my honest review based on personal experience. 

Okay… So I’ve been debating with myself for months over whether or not to write this post.  Doesn’t it seem like a silly question for suburban homesteaders?  If you’re trying to break into suburban homesteading, meal kit subscriptions seem like a step backward.  More than a step, actually—a giant leap backwards.

But here’s the thing: I’ve been in the middle of the daily chaos, the 9-5 grind (8-4, actually, since I was a teacher) and the exhaustion that results.  Some suburban homesteaders can grow everything their family will eat for the year—and if that’s you, great!  But I’m not there yet.  And in the middle of busy schedules and emotional exhaustion, I found myself lacking the time or energy to cook nutritious meals for my family.  And so, we ate out… a lot.

And as anyone who eats out a lot can tell you—it gets expensive fast.

Even when I’d try to meal plan, it became all too easy to say, “Nah, I’ll make that tomorrow and order takeout tonight.”  But by the next day, I’d be as tired as the day before.  And before I knew it, my groceries had rotted away in the fridge.  So buying groceries became a wasteful expense on top of the expense of eating out.

When my husband suggested we try a discounted meal kit subscription, it seemed overwhelming at first.  But in the end, it motivated us to cook together (we were paying for the subscription, after all, so we might as well get some use out of it) and discouraged us from eating out.  More than that, it trained us to budget the time and energy for evening meal prep.

With all of that in mind, here’s the budget-busting question: Are meal kit subscriptions (like HelloFresh) worth the cost?

Our Experience

My husband and I tried EveryPlate, which is marketed as a cheaper alternative to HelloFresh, though it’s actually a HelloFresh subsidiary.  We got a great holiday deal on it, which meant that each meal cost only a few dollars.  Even after the deal expired, the subscription was still cheaper than eating out.

However, as we became more accustomed to cooking at home, we began comparing the cost of the subscription to the prices of ingredients at the store.  The subscription didn’t even come close.  We kept it for several months, but in the end, the subscription was just not cost effective, and we ended up dropping it.  In our case, the pros outweighed the cons in the short term, but the cons outweighed the pros in the long term, and we ultimately canceled our subscription.

Pros

Probably the greatest benefit of a meal kit subscription is the amount of time and energy it saves the subscriber.  First of all, you save the time you would have spent at the grocery store picking out the ingredients.  You also (potentially) save money, as fewer trips to the grocery store mean fewer opportunities for impulse buys.  Second of all, you save (at least some) time on meal prepping.  Some of the ingredients—such as fruits, vegetables, and meats—still need to be prepared; but some ingredients—such as spices and condiments—are prepackaged and pre-measured.  This not only saves time and energy, but it takes the guesswork out of the recipes.

The next benefit is that meal kit subscriptions can act as an intermediary.  Using EveryPlate helped me and my husband transition from eating out to cooking at home.  The price of the subscription was miniscule compared to the amount we were spending on convenience dinners and restaurant takeout.  Additionally, the subscription didn’t overwhelm us with learning how to meal prep and buy for those meals.  It helped us see practically how one package of chicken breasts can be stretched into three or four cheap and easy meals. 

As a part of that transition, I learned early on that much of the prep work could be done at my convenience.  For example, I could chop the vegetables for the next few meals, then drizzle them with olive oil and lemon juice, and store them in the fridge.  Then, when I was ready to make dinner, it was a matter of taking my prepped veggies and putting everything together. 

Another benefit offered by many meal kit subscriptions is a short (usually 30-day) trial period, during which time the service is significantly discounted.  This trial period gives customers an opportunity to determine if the service is a good fit for their family’s lifestyle.  Additionally, subscribers get to keep the printed recipe cards (at least, this was the case when my husband and I subscribed), so you can continue making the recipes even after the subscription is canceled.  That said, the cards did not include measurements or proportions for the prepackaged spices included in the kits, so getting those measurements requires either guesswork or Internet sleuthing.

Cons

In spite of these benefits, there are also several drawbacks to subscribing to these services.  One is that menu options are limited each week.  The subscription service may offer a variety of meals to choose from, but customers are still limited to the meals available for that particular week.  Additionally, if customers don’t choose their meals ahead of time, they’re stuck with whatever the company ships to them.

Another drawback is that customers cannot pick their own produce.  One of the perks of visiting the grocery store yourself is that you can choose the fruits and vegetables that are at the appropriate ripeness (or the ripeness to your own taste). 

Finally (and this is the biggie), meal kit subscriptions, while significantly cheaper than restaurant takeout, are still much more expensive than home-cooked meals.  Essentially, subscribers pay not only for the ingredients and recipe, but they pay for the convenience of having it prepackaged and shipped to their homes.  That convenience fee means that each meal is much more expensive than it could have been if subscribers had purchased the ingredients themselves.

Conclusion

So… back to our budget-busting question… for the suburban homesteader, is a meal kit subscription worth the cost?

Personally, I don’t think so—at least not in the long term.  The cons ultimately outweigh the pros, and this is why my family canceled our subscription. 

In the short term, however, a meal kit subscription could help you transition into meal planning and prepping.  For me and my husband, it trained us to budget the time and energy required for evening meal preparation.

But again, if you’re looking to get the most bang for your buck, you’re better off doing your own planning and shopping.

Have you tried a meal kit subscription, like HelloFresh or EveryPlate?  What did you think?  Is there anything you would add to this pros and cons list?  Let me know in the comments!