How to Save on Food Costs by Cooking at Home: A Complete Guide to Choosing Time-Saving Cooking Appliances 2026
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Cooking at home does not "fail to last" because of willpower
If you want to lower your food bills, cook at home. That is not wrong. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications household survey also shows the long-running trend that cooking from raw ingredients tends to cost less per meal than eating out or buying prepared food (deli dishes and boxed lunches). Even so, surprisingly few people manage to keep saving money by cooking at home. The reason is simple:a conversation about saving money quietly turns into a pep talk about "trying harder at cooking".
When you break down the moments where people actually stumble, they almost always come down to these three.(1) The menu starts from zero right after you get home from work— all your mental energy is gone by the time you decide "what to make."(2) You can't use up the ingredients you bought and they spoil— vegetables you bulk-bought because they were cheap melt away at the back of the fridge.(3) You try to cook a full set every weekday night and burn out— counting the dishes, one meal takes an hour. None of these three has anything to do with "cooking skill." Even if your skills improve, as long as you are still thinking from scratch after you get home, you will break down at the same spot again.
That is why this guide does not talk about "tips for making food taste good."A design that reduces the decisions you make after getting home, andhow to choose the tools and services that support itare the whole focus. We first lay out a map of the conclusions, then get concrete in this order: "a system so you don't have to think up menus," "appliances that cut down on hands-on cooking," "storage that lets you use everything up," "an escape route for tired days," and "making your spending visible." Each appliance has its own detailed buying guide with a link, so just dig deeper into the shelves you need.
The big picture — don't aim for 100% home cooking
The shortest route to saving is not to push your home-cooking rate to 100%, but tohave a system that does not fall apart even when you switch among home cooking, store-bought prepared food, and meal kits depending on the situation. Prep in bulk on the weekend and just reheat on weekdays. On days when your brain has stopped, switch to deli food or a kit without hesitation. This "home cooking with an escape route" ends up lowering your total food bill more. Perfectionism is the most expensive thing.
Here are the options lined up by cost and effort, showing which one works in which situation. Once you see that "cooking everything yourself" is not the only right answer, the guilt about cutting corners on days you can't manage disappears, and as a result you keep going.
| Method | Cost per meal | Cooking effort | When it works well |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch-prepped home cooking | ◎ Close to the lowest | △ Concentrated on prep day | People who can't spare time on weekdays. Set aside 1 to 2 hours on the weekend |
| Same-day home cooking | ◎ | × Effort every day | People who don't mind cooking, or days with time to spare |
| Prepared food (deli dishes, boxed lunches) | ○ | ◎ Almost none | Late-return days, or when you only want to add one dish |
| Meal kits | ○〜△ | ○ Prep already done | People who don't want to plan menus or tend to have leftover ingredients |
| Eating out | △ Higher | ◎ None | An occasional break or a social event. Set a monthly number of times and manage it |
The key point is to treat "batch-prepped home cooking" and "same-day home cooking" as two different things. Most people who quit do so because they try to do a cost-efficient ◎ style of cooking in an "every day, cook it that day" mode. If you shift the effort to prep day, the weekday hurdle drops to about the level of buying prepared food.
Turn "not thinking up menus" into a system
The core of home cooking that lasts is not recipes or ingredients, but creating"a state where you have nothing to decide after getting home". Here are concrete ways to cut the number of decisions, in order of effectiveness.
Bulk shop to eliminate the "should I go shopping" decision
The more often you shop, the more "impulse extras" and "time spent wondering what to buy" pile up each trip. Fix the number of trips at once or twice a week, set a quantity for staple ingredients, and put them in the basket mechanically. If you buy heavy drinks, rice, and daily necessities online in bulk and focus on fresh food in stores, you cut both travel time and impulse buying. For how to handle shipping fees and stock, seeBulk-Buying Tips for Groceries and Daily Necessities, which goes into detail.
Use a fixed rotation of staples to eliminate the "thinking up the menu" decision
Stop thinking up the menu from zero every time, andassigning a type of dish to each day of the weekworks best. If you fix only the slots — Monday rice bowls, Tuesday stir-fries, Wednesday reheated batch-prepped dishes, and so on — hesitation almost disappears. Just swapping ingredients prevents boredom. Fixing five or six patterns that work with your own fridge is more realistic than a recipe book.
Create just one prep day
The biggest investment for making weekdays easier is aprep dayon the weekend or similar. Make two or three main dishes ahead here, and portion them out intothe freezerandstorage containers, and on weekdays all you do is "reheat plus add one dish." If you go as far as pre-seasoned freezing (seasoning meat and freezing it), you only need to thaw and cook it to get a main dish. This "concentrating the effort into prep day" makes home cooking as light as buying prepared food.
Prep does not have to mean "cooking everything completely." Just increase these "half-finished" items — chop vegetables and freeze them, portion out meat and freeze it with seasoning, cook extra rice and freeze it — and weekday cooking becomes a different thing. If you stockpile too many finished dishes you get tired of them, so roughly half half-finished and half finished dishes is an easy ratio to keep going.
How to choose cooking appliances that increase the "leave it alone" time
Cooking appliances support the system. However, buying on impulse and letting it sit unused is the worst kind of waste.Work backward from "which step is the real hassle in my daily eating routine"and choose the one that will actually help. Here they are organized by role.
The foundation for your staple food — the rice cooker
The premise of batch-prepped home cooking is "always having rice." If you cook extra and freeze it in single servings, you no longer need to think about the staple at all. Capacity and heating method (microcomputer / IH / pressure IH) change both texture and cost, so useHow to Choose a Rice Cookerto find the one that suits your life. Amodel with cooking functionsthat can also handle simmering and waterless cooking can cover main dishes with one unit and saves space.
Make main dishes hands-off — the electric pressure cooker
The hardest part of "home cooking that doesn't last" is the main dish. What can automate it isthe electric pressure cooker. Put in the ingredients and press the switch, and curry, nikujaga (meat and potato stew), braised pork belly, and soup are done without watching the heat. If you make two dishes here on prep day and portion them out, your weekday main dishes are taken care of at once. The big plus is that it doesn't occupy the stove, so you can do other tasks next to it.
Saving time on prep and reheating — the microwave and the food processor
Microwaves and microwave ovensare the key to saving time by reheating batch-prepped food, blanching vegetables, and microwave cooking. They effectively run the weekly routine. If chopping and mixing are painful for you,a food processorhelps. When you can finish mincing an onion in a few seconds, "dishes you avoided because of the effort," like hamburger steaks and gyoza, come into your regular lineup.
Add one when you have room — the low-temperature cooker and the toaster oven
Something to consider once the basics are running isa low-temperature cooker. It makes chicken breast and roast beef moist while you leave it alone, and can turn cheap cuts into a "feast." For breakfast or one more dish, there isthe toaster oven. A type that can also handle gratin and baked dishes widens your cooking range.
Don't buy all appliances at once. Build the foundation with a "rice cooker plus microwave," and if the main-dish hassle remains, add an electric pressure cooker — thisorderis the way to avoid failure. Choosing one appliance you use every day, rather than buying one that sleeps in a cupboard, pays off for both your food bill and your storage space.
Cooking appliances have pitfalls on "delivery day" and at "the end of the first year"
People who buy time-saving cooking appliances split into those who use them heavily right away and those who leave the delivered box unopened for weeks. The former find problems early, but the latter may notice a defect after the period for reporting an initial defect has passed. Automatic cooking pots such as electric pressure cookers and Hot Cook are also a category with many parts, where "I opened it and something was missing or not included" happens easily. The practical approach is to match the timing of opening the box to a period when returns or exchanges are still possible.
What to do on the day you open it
- Lay out all the accessoriesFor an electric pressure cooker, that means the inner pot, lid, gasket, steam vent cap, weight, measuring cup, steaming rack, and power cord. Check them one by one against the accessory list in the instruction manual. Gaskets and steam vent caps are small, and accidents of throwing them out mixed in with the cushioning material really do happen. Do not throw away the cardboard and foam until you have finished checking.
- Run it once with water onlyMany automatic cooking pots have a pressurizing test run with water described in the manual. If you get steam leaks, strange noises, or error messages here, you can contact the seller about an initial defect that very day. If you do it after cooking with food in it, it is hard to separate a malfunction from a usage problem.
- For a rice cooker, cook the first cup of riceThe most common initial defects in rice cookers are scratches in the inner pot coating and a wobbly lid hinge. When you open it, check the bottom and sides of the inner pot in bright light, then cook once, and you can also notice uneven heating or odors while keeping warm.
- Write down the model number and serial numberTake photos of the label on the bottom or back of the unit. When you contact support, they may ask even for the suffix of the model number (such as a color code at the end), and looking for it after you've thrown away the box is a hassle.
The period for accepting initial-defect reports is often short, "from a few days to about 2 weeks after arrival," and after that it switches to the manufacturer's warranty (repair handling). The contact point and deadline differ depending on whether you want a replacement or a repair is fine. Once it arrives, it is reassuring to first check on the purchase history page how long the initial-defect period lasts.
What matters more than what is written on the warranty card
The manufacturer's warranty for cooking appliances is generally 1 year on the main unit, but what gets disputed is not the main unit, butconsumables and dirt. The rubber gasket on an electric pressure cooker, the inner pot coating on a rice cooker, the blades of a food processor, and the gaskets around the cutter of a blender are in many cases treated as "consumables" and excluded from the warranty. In other words, when the gasket hardens and starts leaking steam, that is not a malfunction but something solved by buying a replacement part. Checking before you buy whether the manufacturer keeps selling replacement gaskets and inner pots individually makes a huge difference in how things stand after a few years of use. For a model whose parts are not available, a single gasket can make the whole unit unusable.
Another thing that easily voids the warranty isproblems caused by food. Color transfer to the inner pot after cooking curry or tomato dishes, or oil sticking to the steam vent, are basically considered within the scope of the user's own care. That can't be helped in itself, but you should definitely read on the product page which parts are labeled "dishwasher safe." Some models have different conditions for each part — for example, the inner pot is dishwasher safe but the lid unit must not be washed in water — and putting everything in and damaging the circuit board takes it out of warranty coverage.
The reason people want to return it is "nowhere to put it" more than "it broke"
In this field, return inquiries tend to come from installation problems rather than breakdowns. Both electric pressure cookers and automatic cooking pots release steam upward during use. If you put one under a wall cabinet or under the shelf of a microwave rack, the wood can warp or get condensation. Product pages often list only the dimensions of the main unit, so please findthe height with the lid openandhow much space is needed above itfrom the manual's PDF or the installation requirements. Returns for the reason of "it was bigger than I expected" are almost never accepted once the item has been opened.
When you buy online, return conditions are set separately by each seller. Even for the same product, the conditions differ among a manufacturer's direct store, an electronics retailer's online shop, and a store inside a shopping mall. When you buy several units at once for home cooking, you especially tend to lose track of which store you bought from, so just keeping the order confirmation emails in one folder makes later contact much easier.
Both cooking appliances and ingredients have "times when they tend to get cheaper"
Saving through home cooking has two layers: the initial investment in appliances and the daily cost of ingredients. The way to think about timing is completely different for each.
The model-change cycle of rice cookers and electric pressure cookers
For rice cookers, it has become standard for many manufacturers to release new models from late summer through autumn, because they want to sell in line with the new-rice season. So the time when the previous model tends to move is the transition period between the announcement of the new model and the point when it has fully reached store shelves. If the difference between old and new is only about one extra rice-cooking mode, it is not unusual for last year's model to be the better deal. Conversely, in midwinter and early spring, last year's stock has already sold out, and it is easy to end up with only the new model to choose from.
Electric pressure cookers and automatic cooking pots do not have as clear a cycle as rice cookers, butdemand rises before and after it gets coldis common to both. That is the season when people want to make simmered dishes. In the seasons when they sell, there is plenty of stock, but pricing also tends to be firm. Conversely, spring to early summer is a time when people don't feel like using a pot, and because sales slow down, it can be a good time to aim for. The desire to start home cooking rises at the start of the year and in the new-life season, but looking only at appliance conditions, that time is not necessarily the best.
While waiting for a good time to buy, you can practice home cooking with the tools you have now. If you build the "pre-seasoned freezing then just heat" routine with a pot and microwave, the appliance can be put to work from the day it arrives. Conversely, if you put home cooking on hold until the appliance comes, you start thinking about menus only after it arrives, and the benefit of hands-off cooking is cut in half.
Don't overlook the seasonal-appliance side
A freezer (a second freezer) is the typical item you start wanting once you get serious about batch prep and pre-seasoned freezing, but it is entirely a seasonal product. In summer, demand for freezers and fridges jumps, stock gets thin, and delivery gets crowded. If you add a freezer for batch prep, autumn through winter, when demand settles, gives you a wider range of capacities and sizes to choose from.
Hot plates and electric pots move toward the end of the year and settle down after New Year. Conversely, somen, cold noodles, and ice-using tools move in early summer. Home-cooking appliances are linked to the "seasonal way of eating," so aiming a little outside the time when you want to make that dish makes it easier to get both selection and conditions.
Read the cycle for ingredients the opposite way from appliances
| Season | What tends to get cheaper | Suitability for bulk buying |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Cabbage, new potatoes, new onions | New-season produce is watery and does not keep well. Favor turnover over bulk buying |
| Early summer to summer | Cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers | A season when the fridge gets crowded. If you buy too much, it spoils first |
| Autumn | Mushrooms, sweet potatoes, new rice | Mushrooms develop more umami when frozen, so they suit bulk buying |
| Winter | Napa cabbage, daikon, green onions, root vegetables in general | They keep well in the cold. Easy to buy whole and use up |
The rule for ingredients is not "buy because it's cheap" but "buy when it's cheap in a form you can use up." Buying a whole napa cabbage in winter works because you can tear it off from the outside and use it over several days; if you buy a box of summer cucumbers with the same mindset, the latter half usually wilts.
To avoid failing with the sale cycle
Buying cooking appliances during big sale periods is reasonable, but there are two cautions specific to this field. One is thatsale-specific model numbersexist. Even if they look like the same series, there are retailer-specific models with trimmed-down functions and online-only model numbers, and the inner pot material and the number of automatic menus may differ. Check right to the end of the model number and confirm that it is truly the same as the model you want to compare.
The other ishow bulk-buying sales fit with home cooking. Shelf-stable items such as seasonings, dried goods, rice, and pasta are worth restocking at sales, but if you buy frozen food or fresh food on impulse, it eats up your freezer capacity first. Free freezer space is the production equipment itself for pre-seasoned freezing and batch prep. Filling the freezer with sale frozen pizza so there is no room for your home-cooking prep is a case of getting priorities backward that really does happen often. Before you buy, try recalling "what and how many I have room to put in," and then add to the cart.
Check in this order before you buy
For time-saving cooking appliances, the conditions written lower down the spec sheet or only in the manual's PDF decide day-to-day usability more than the numbers at the top of the spec sheet (capacity, power consumption, number of automatic menus). It is efficient to check in order, starting with the items that cause the most damage if they turn out wrong.
1. Where it will sit and where the steam goes
The first thing to look at is not the dimensions of the main unit, butthe height with the lid fully openandthe clearance needed above and behind it. If this is off, the appliance that arrives won't fit in your kitchen and ends up sitting on the table. If you place a model that vents steam upward under a wall cabinet, the bottom panel of the cabinet will discolor and, at worst, warp. With a microwave stand that has a sliding top shelf, measure the height on the assumption that you will pull it out when using it.
2. Outlets and amperage
Both electric pressure cookers and rice cookers use a lot of power while heating. It is not unusual for the breaker to trip in a home when one is used at the same time as a microwave on the same circuit.The power consumption rating (W)together with how the kitchen's circuits are divided, will help you avoid the accident of "the breaker tripping on batch-prep day and everything stopping." Some models prohibit the use of extension strips, so also look at the outlet position and the length of the unit's cord.
3. Not the inner pot capacity, but the "cooking capacity"
The product page of an electric pressure cooker lists two figures: the full-water capacity and the cooking capacity. Pressure cooking needs space at the top, so what you can actually put in is considerably less than the full-water capacity. Misjudge this and you end up with "I wanted to batch-cook for 4 people but it only held 2 meals' worth." Calculate how much curry or stew you want to make at once usingthe cooking capacity.
4. The range of parts you can take apart and wash
Whether home cooking lasts is strongly influenced by the hassle of washing up. What to look at are three points: "does the whole lid come off," "can you remove the gasket yourself," and "can the steam vent be taken apart." On a model where the lid cannot be detached from the main unit, you can only wipe it when soup splashes, and the smell lingers. Conversely, a model with parts so fiddly that you wash 8 pieces every time becomes a hassle and you stop using it. If this is off, the appliance itself is fine but you use it less, and you cannot recoup the investment.
5. How timers and keep-warm actually behave
Even if it says "timer cooking available," the supported menus may be limited. Timers that leave raw meat or fish sitting for a long time are normally disabled for hygiene reasons. If you are buying in the hope of a life where you come home to a finished stew, be sure to checkwhether the menu you want to make is listed in the timer compatibility table. If you buy without checking this, you end up using it the same way as before: "press the switch after getting home."
6. Whether you can buy consumables and replacement parts
Gaskets, inner pots, steam vent caps, and measuring cups. Search before you buy to confirm whether these can be bought individually. Gaskets, depending on how often you use them, are parts that are expected to be replaced every few years. A model where they can't be bought reaches the end of its life right there. The same goes for the inner pot coating — if you can get a replacement, the main unit can be used for a long time.
7. How recipes and the app are linked
Looking only at the number of automatic menus is meaningless.How many dishes the included recipe book contains, and what fraction of them you would actually make in daily life, is the real value. A model that can send recipes via a smartphone app is convenient, but there is no guarantee the app will keep being offered. Judge from the control panel whether you can do the same thing with manual settings (pressure time, temperature) without the app, and you will be able to use it for a long time.
If you plan to use meal kits or delivered groceries alongside it, also check their receiving conditions (whether leaving at the door is allowed, delivery time slots for frozen items) at the same time, which prevents the situation where "the appliance arrived but receiving the ingredients is stuck." A frozen meal kit demands freezer space from the moment it arrives.
Finally, look again from the side of your life
- How many times a week will there realistically be occasions to use that appliance
- Who washes it after use (will it still work on days when you are tired)
- Is it really something you can't do with the pots and microwave you have now
- Will it block your daily movement paths once it is placed
If you can answer these four, that appliance will probably become a habit. If any item leaves you stuck for an answer, it is not too late to first run the same menu pattern with your current tools for 1 to 2 weeks and then decide.
Storage that uses everything up — don't let bulk buying go to waste
Bulk buying and batch prep are powerful, butif you can't use it all up, it only raises your food bill. Throwing away cheaply bought ingredients means losing twice. "Not generating waste" through storage design is a saving that is hard to see but effective.
- Secure "prep capacity" with a second freezer: Once you get serious about batch prep and pre-seasoned freezing, the freezer compartment attached to your fridge fills up quickly. Witha second freezer, the storage capacity for sale-priced bulk buys and batch prep goes up a level, and you can reduce food waste. For a prep-centered life, it is an investment that pays off easily.
- Use "microwave- and freezer-safe" as the standard for storage containers: The stars of portioned storage.Storage containersare used by material (glass / plastic) and size, and if you choose ones that can be heated in the microwave as they are, you save the effort of moving food to a plate and the washing-up.
- Keep frozen food on hand as your "substitute player" for home cooking: Without insisting that everything be homemade, keepfrozen foodstocked on the premise of adding it as one dish, and it fills in any shortage of dishes so your home cooking does not collapse.
- Prevent waste with "visible inventory": Freezing is convenient, but things tend to get buried at the back and forgotten. Small habits such as writing the date and using from the front, and noting what is inside, end up being the best waste reduction of all. For safety, thaw using an appropriate method such as thawing in the refrigerator.
Prepare an "escape route" for tired days in advance
What home cooking that lasts absolutely needs isan escape route for days you can't cook. Without one, the moment you skip once you think "that's it, I've failed" and give up on everything. If you prepare in advance, skipping becomes "part of the system."
- Use meal kits as insurance for "zero menu planning"：Meal kitscome with the menu and prep already done, so they save you all the thinking. For people who tend to have leftover ingredients, kits that deliver just the amount needed also help cut waste. Just working in a few dishes a week can get you through the days of menu fatigue. For a comparison of online shopping overall, seeThe Grocery Online Shopping Guide.
- Bring batch-prepped food with you to cut spending on eating out: Eating out for lunch is a surprisingly big expense. Just packing the previous night's batch-prepped food intoa lunch box or soup jarcan cut your lunch costs nearly every day. With a soup jar you can also bring hot soup, which is very satisfying.
- Turn "switching" into a rule: Decide in advance when to use the escape route, such as "on overtime days, buy deli food without hesitation" and "Fridays are OK for eating out," and you can cut corners without guilt. Keeping up by design lasts longer than keeping up by endurance.
Make your food spending "visible" and check the effect
Once the system is in place, finallycheck by the numbers whether it is working. The first step of saving, and also the source of motivation to keep going, is knowing "how much I am spending now."
Just roughly splitting how much you spend each month on home cooking, prepared food, and eating out will show where the waste is. "I eat out more than I thought," "the part I bulk-bought is going in the trash" — once visualized, what to fix becomes concrete. The trick to keeping it up is to set a guideline within the overall balance of your household budget that does not cause stress. The steps starting with sorting fixed and variable costs are summarized in the next guide.
→ How to Start Managing Household Finances (Reviewing Fixed and Variable Costs)
You do not have to keep a household account book perfectly. If you grasp the breakdown of your food spending for just the first month, most of the areas to improve will be visible. After that, it is easier to keep going if you boil it down to broad rules like "eating out up to ○ times a month" and free yourself from detailed records.
If you want to start without strain, go in this order
Changing everything at once leads to giving up. We recommend stacking changes one at a time, starting with the ones that work best.
- First, make your food spending visible for one monthRoughly grasp the breakdown of home cooking, prepared food, and eating out. Find out first where the waste is.
- Set one prep day a weekBatch-prepare two or three main dishes plus half-finished items. Turn weekdays into "reheat plus one dish."
- Start with the foundation appliancesRun on a rice cooker and microwave, and if the main-dish hassle remains, add an electric pressure cooker.
- Secure storage capacityWith storage containers and a second freezer, keep bulk buying and batch prep running without waste.
- Turn the escape route into a ruleBuild meal kits and bringing your own lunch into the system, so that even tired days do not break it.
Don't aim for perfection; shape it into something that lasts. This may look like a detour for saving on food, but it is the shortest path.
Frequently asked questions
What is the big difference between batch-prepped home cooking and cooking each day on the same day?
Both are cheap, but how easy they are to keep up differs greatly. With same-day cooking every day, you repeat "think up the menu, shop, cook, wash up" every night after getting home, so it is easy to break down on tired days. With batch-prepped home cooking, on the other hand, you concentrate the effort on prep day and on weekdays only "reheat plus add one dish." The total amount of effort is the same, but the weekday hurdle drops to about the level of buying prepared food, so it lasts longer in the end.
If I buy only one cooking appliance, which should I start with?
For most people, the order least likely to fail is to build a foundation with a rice cooker and microwave first, and add an electric pressure cooker if main-dish effort still remains. If you cook lots of simmered and meat dishes, an electric pressure cooker helps; if prep is painful, a food processor helps. What matters is choosing based on "where I want things to be easier every day." One appliance you use every day pays off for both your food bill and your storage more than one that sleeps in a cupboard.
I buy in bulk, but I end up unable to use it all and it spoils
Bulk buying cuts the number of shopping trips and impulse purchases, but backfires if you can't use it all. The fix is "portion and freeze right after buying." Freeze meat with seasoning and vegetables cut up, and on weekdays you only need to thaw and use them. If your freezer is cramped, a second freezer can help with capacity. Also prevent things from being "forgotten at the back" by writing the date and using from the front, and noting your stock, and waste drops sharply.
What is pre-seasoned freezing? Is it different from ordinary batch prep?
Pre-seasoned freezing is a method of rubbing seasoning into raw meat or fish and then freezing it. Unlike ordinary batch prep, where you stockpile finished dishes, the point is to store it in a "half-finished" state. On weekdays you only thaw and grill or simmer it to get a main dish, with a freshly cooked texture. Stockpiling only finished dishes makes you tired of them, so keeping roughly half half-finished items (pre-seasoned frozen or cut and frozen) and half finished dishes makes weekdays easier and less boring.
What if I'm too busy to even set aside a prep day?
Don't force everything into home cooking; build escape routes into the system. Meal kits come with the menu and prep done, so they save all the thinking. Because only the needed amount arrives, they also produce little food waste. Adding a frozen food or a deli dish is also a perfectly good move. If you decide in advance when to use them, such as "kits on overtime days" and "eating out on Fridays," skipping becomes part of the system rather than a breakdown, and your total food bill goes down.
Does a second freezer really pay for itself?
For a prep-centered life, it is an investment that pays off easily. The storage capacity for sale-priced bulk buys and batch prep goes up a level, and you can reduce the waste of letting ingredients spoil and throwing them out. On the other hand, if you don't usually batch prep or cook small amounts for one person, the freezer compartment of your fridge is often enough. A guideline for deciding is "is the freezer always full, and are there ingredients you give up on because they don't fit." Electricity costs differ by model, so check energy efficiency in each manufacturer's official labeling.
So how much does cooking at home actually lower your food bill?
It varies greatly with household makeup and your previous eating habits, so it can't be stated flatly, but people who ate out or bought prepared food a lot tend to see a bigger drop when they shift to home cooking. However, more than "cooking cheaply" itself, what works is using up ingredients through bulk buying and batch prep and not generating waste. If you can't keep it up and end up with leftover ingredients, it isn't saving. If you want to feel the numbers for yourself, make your food spending visible for just one month and compare before and after to be sure.
Is there any point in buying an electric pressure cooker even if I live alone? I feel like it's a waste if I cook small amounts.
Cooking for one is in some ways where it works best. Small simmered dishes in a regular pot burn easily and need watching, but with pressure cooking you can leave them alone. However, models with too small a cooking capacity are not suited to batch prep, so choose a capacity that lets you prep 2 to 3 meals at once, and plan to freeze the rest, and you'll use it more often. Also check how few parts you have to wash.
* This article is for reference only. Sale dates, point rates and campaign terms can change, so check each store's official page for the latest details.