How "What's for Dinner?" Costs You $2,300 a Year

The daily dinner decision costs the average American household approximately $2,300 per year through impulse takeout, wasted groceries, and duplicate purchases.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey, the average American household spends nearly $4,000 a year on food away from home. But here's the thing - most of that spending isn't planned. It happens at 5pm when you're tired, the fridge looks empty (even though it's not), and ordering DoorDash is easier than figuring out what to cook.

Decision fatigue adds up fast

According to Food Genius data cited by NPR, up to 80% of Americans don't know what's for dinner by 4pm. That daily food decision fatigue leads to an estimated $2,300 in unnecessary food spending per year when you add up:

• Impulse takeout orders
• Groceries that go bad before you use them
• Duplicate purchases because you forgot what you already had

Live alone? The numbers are even worse. Single-person households pay 20% more per capita for groceries because everything is packaged for families.

This is also why most people hate meal planning. The system designed to fix the problem creates its own kind of stress.

According to a 2025 EPA report, the average American family of four wastes nearly $2,900 worth of food every year. The biggest culprit isn't buying too much - it's not having a plan for what you bought.

The forgotten-produce cycle

You grab vegetables with good intentions on Sunday, but by Wednesday you've forgotten they're there. By Friday, the spinach is wilted and the tomatoes are soft.

The problem isn't willpower. It's that your brain can't track 30+ ingredients and their expiration dates while also figuring out what meals they could make. That's a logistics problem, not a cooking problem. And the cost isn't spread evenly. Some food categories are far more expensive to waste than others.

According to an Acosta survey cited by Grocery Dive, 85% of consumers don't know what they're having for dinner until just hours before mealtime. At that point, you're already hungry, tired from work, and facing an empty mental tank. The path of least resistance is ordering delivery.

The real cost of "just this once"

According to Statista's analysis of U.S. food delivery spending, the average delivery order costs around $34 for food alone, but with delivery fees, service charges, and tip, the total typically reaches $45 or more. If this happens even twice a week, that's $4,700+ a year. Most people don't realize how much these orders add up because the spending is spread across dozens of small transactions.

Meal planning breaks the cycle by removing the 5pm decision entirely. When you already know what's for dinner - and you know you have the ingredients - there's no temptation to order out.

The key: plan around what you already have

Traditional meal planning apps give you recipes and then generate a shopping list. That means buying more food on top of what's already in your kitchen.

MealThinker flips this: it looks at what's in your pantry, finds what's expiring soon, and builds meals around ingredients you already own. The shopping list only fills gaps. Need tonight's answer right now? Try our free What Should I Eat Tonight? tool. See how all the features work together.

If meal planning eliminates just two takeout orders per week ($90/week based on Statista delivery data) and reduces grocery waste by half ($1,450/year based on EPA estimates), the savings add up to $6,100+ a year.

The conservative estimate

Even conservatively - cutting one takeout order per week and reducing waste by a third - you're looking at $3,300+ in annual savings.

At $15/month, MealThinker costs $180/year. That's a 18x return on investment even in the most conservative scenario. Here's the full breakdown of whether AI meal planning apps are worth the cost.