Meal Kit vs Grocery Cost Comparator

Is the meal kit actually cheaper than just buying the groceries? Most comparisons get it wrong twice: they forget the delivery fees, and they divide by the servings on the box instead of the servings your household actually ate. This comparator does the honest version — box price and fees as separate entries, a waste line for servings never cooked, and the same meals rebuilt ingredient by ingredient as grocery twins.

The sample week tells the truth in both directions. Across 3 kit meals the kit wins exactly once — the miso-glazed salmon, where buying the miso, mirin and sesame oil as full jars costs more than the box — and loses twice. One beef-chilli serving is logged as never cooked and counted in the true cost. The verdict prints plainly: the kit costs MORE, by $5.47 a serving on average — $284.44 a month and a $3,413.28 annual run-rate at the sample pace of 3 meals a week.

HOW IT WORKS
– ‘Meal Kit Log’: one row per box — date, service in your own words, meal, servings ordered, box price, delivery/fees (separate, because they are billed separately), servings cooked. The sheet adds the total cost, the cost per ordered serving, the servings not cooked, and the TRUE cost per cooked serving.
– ‘Grocery Twin & Verdict’ Part 1: rebuild the same meals from groceries — ingredient, qty, price, all typed by you — and the sheet totals each twin and its cost per serving.
– The verdict block matches the twins to the kit log meal by meal, prints the difference per serving and which way was cheaper, then the average difference, a monthly difference at YOUR pace (meals/week × servings, set on Start Here) and the annualised run-rate — explicit arithmetic throughout, no hidden assumptions.

WHAT’S INSIDE
– Meal Kit Log with fees and waste accounted, honestly (sample week: $148.97 of kit spend, 11 of 12 servings eaten, $13.54 true average cost per serving)
– Grocery twin builder with per-meal totals (sample twins: $30.80, $47.35 and $22.20 for the identical meals)
– A printed verdict — on the sample the kit costs more, and the sheet says so
– Monthly and annual run-rates driven by your own pace settings
– Plus the standard Expense Log, zero-based Monthly Budget, Dashboard and Monthly Summary tabs

Change any price and the verdict moves. Change your pace and the run-rates move. Nothing is locked into the sample’s answer — the sample is just honest.

How it works: the seven tabs are Start Here (your settings + step-by-step), the two feature tabs, Expense Log, Monthly Budget (zero-based), Dashboard and Monthly Summary. Yellow cells are the only places you type — every yellow value is your own entry. Formula cells are locked (password: sheetdaily, disclosed on the Start Here tab) and every formula is error-wrapped, so an untouched sheet reads blank instead of showing error codes. Instant download, ready for Excel and Google Sheets.

A note on the sample data: every price and date in this workbook is example data, typed in by hand to show you how the sheet behaves. Replace it with your own.