Compare the cost of takeout against cooking at home.
The takeaway comparison is only honest if the order total includes everything — delivery fee, service charge and tip routinely add 25 to 35 percent to the menu price, and quoting the food subtotal understates the real cost substantially. On the home side, ingredients dominate and cooking energy is a rounding error at well under a unit of currency per meal. Expressing both per person removes the distortion of comparing a family order against a single portion. The annual figure is where this becomes meaningful: a modest per-meal gap multiplied by several takeaways a month is one of the largest single line items in most household food budgets.
Per person costs
Takeaway per person = order total / people; home per person = (ingredients + energy) / people
Annual saving
Annual = (order total - home total) x takeaways per month x 12
Everything that leaves your account: menu prices, delivery fee, service charge, small-order surcharge and tip. On app-based orders these add 25 to 35 percent over the menu subtotal, and menu prices themselves are often marked up above the restaurant's own dine-in prices.
That is your judgement, and it is the real trade-off. A 40-minute cook against a 30-minute delivery wait is a smaller time difference than people assume. This calculator shows the cash gap plainly and leaves you to decide what your time is worth against it.