I normally shop at Aldi and cook all of my meals at home so my food budget is quite frugal. Recently, my friend sent me some Blue Apron credit to try it out for a week. Overall I saw the appeal of the service for people that might not normally cook or do grocery shopping. Personally, I really enjoyed learning how to incorporate new ingredients that aren't normally available in my supermarket, or that I would otherwise have to spend a fortune on buying in bulk for the one or two times I would need to use it.
For those that aren't familiar with the service, Blue Apron sends you all of the ingredients you need for the meals, which includes the standard ingredients like potatoes, celery, carrots, etc., in addition to some exotic ingredients (normally included in a "knick-knack" bag).
Despite enjoying the service I feel as though it is still too expensive for someone like me that is used to paying ~$3-5/meal when I cook at home. The cost for a normal sized dinner for me (two portions, athlete) is close to $17-$18 for the Blue Apron meal, which is on par with eating out at a cheap restaurant. The reason I am normally willing to pay that much money for a meal is to get a break from cooking altogether, which Blue Apron doesn't really do for me.
Ultimately, I am curious if anyone on /r/Frugal is familiar with a service that combines the best aspects of Blue Apron with a more economical meal plan. What I envision is receiving the "knick-knacks" in the mail along with the associated recipes but then shopping for the other standard ingredients at Aldi or some other supermarket. I think that this would save a lot on the shipping and packaging costs and would bring the price per meal down by enough to make it a worthwhile splurge for me.
tl;dr: I would like a service that ships recipes and their exotic ingredients and instructs me to buy the more standard ingredients at the grocery store.
February 15, 2017 at 12:27PM
