Restaurant vs Home Cooking: What the Data Actually Shows
Food at Home
$6,224
/year per household
Food Away from Home
$3,945
/year per household
Where the Money Goes
The average American household splits its food budget roughly 61/39 between groceries and eating out, according to the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey (2024). But this household-level picture hides a bigger trend.
At the national level, food-away-from-home spending now accounts for 58.9% of total US food spending when you include all commercial and institutional food service. Americans are spending more on restaurants, delivery, and takeout than on groceries for the first time in history, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.
Restaurant Prices Are Rising Twice as Fast
The gap between grocery and restaurant prices keeps widening. According to the BLS Consumer Price Index (2025 in Review), restaurant prices rose 4.1% in 2025 while grocery prices rose 2.4%. That means eating out got roughly twice as expensive, year over year, as cooking at home.
The pattern held in 2024 too: food-away-from-home prices were up 3.6% versus 1.8% for food-at-home.
| Year | Grocery Prices | Restaurant Prices |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | +1.8% | +3.6% |
| 2025 | +2.4% | +4.1% |
Where Your Food Dollar Actually Goes
One of the starkest differences between home cooking and eating out is how much of your money actually pays for the food itself.
According to the USDA Food Dollar Series (2023), the marketing share is 75.7 cents per food-at-home dollar and 94.6 cents per food-away-from-home dollar. That means only about 5.4 cents of every dollar you spend at a restaurant goes to the farmer who produced the food. At the grocery store, that share is about 24.3 cents.
The rest covers labor, rent, transportation, packaging, marketing, and profit margins. When you cook at home, you are cutting out most of those middlemen.
Grocery Store
24.3¢
per dollar goes to the farmer
Restaurant
5.4¢
per dollar goes to the farmer
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Home vs Restaurant
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Cost Comparison FAQ
Common questions about restaurant versus home cooking costs.
On a per-meal basis, yes. BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey data (2024) shows the average household spends $6,224/year on food at home versus $3,945 on food away from home, but households eat far more meals at home. The per-meal cost of a restaurant meal is significantly higher than a home-cooked one. USDA data shows a home-cooked meal costs roughly $2.74 to $6.29 per person.
According to the BLS Consumer Price Index (2025 in Review), food-away-from-home prices rose 4.1% in 2025 compared to 2.4% for food-at-home. Restaurant prices have consistently risen roughly twice as fast as grocery prices in recent years.
At the household level, about 39% of food spending goes to eating out ($3,945 out of $10,169 total). Nationally however, food-away-from-home accounts for 58.9% of total US food spending when you include all commercial and institutional food service.
According to the USDA Economic Research Service Food Dollar Series, only about 5.4 cents of every dollar spent at a restaurant goes to the farmer who produced the food. For grocery store purchases, about 24.3 cents per dollar goes to the farmer. The rest covers labor, rent, transportation, marketing, and profit margins.
Preplo removes the biggest barrier to home cooking: finding and organizing recipes. Instead of scrolling through long recipe blogs or pausing cooking videos to scribble notes, you paste a video link and get a complete recipe with ingredients, costs, and step-by-step instructions. Cooking streaks help you build a consistent home-cooking habit.
Cooking at home takes more preparation time than ordering food, but tools like Preplo significantly reduce the planning overhead. Recipe extraction from videos takes seconds, shopping lists are auto-generated, and guided cook mode walks you through each step. The cooking itself is where the time goes, but meal prepping in batches can offset this across the week.