Are Meal Kits Like HelloFresh worth the cost?

Prices of groceries have gone up. Are meal kits a cost effective option? We are currently spending on average $1200 a month on groceries. This price also includes toiletries, everyday household items, takeaway and eating out. In 2022 this was $790. In 2023 this increased to $1153. We do most of our shopping at Aldi. On average we eat out once every 1-2 months. When traveling we tend to stay in places where we can make our own meals but do eat out more. We are a meat eating household, we love our berries, mangoes and seafood.

We shop once a week this is shared between us alternating the shopping duties. TheFrugalDoctor and TheHandsomeSurfer take leftovers for lunch. I can’t remember the last time I bought lunch at work. Having four days of no work a week and time on my hand, I got wondering about meal kits. Living in a regional area delivery options were limited. HelloFresh looked to be competitive. Do we get a meal plan for 2, 4 or 6 people? How many meals do we get 3, 4 or 5? It appeared to me that the best value was the 5 meal plan for 4 people. This would be 20 serves. This would mean that our lunches & dinner would be covered for the weekdays.

The cost of the 5 meal plan for 4 people (20 serves) is usually $174.99 with delivery included. The initial sign up offer was $130 off the first 4 boxes. We paid $99.99 for the first box. A discount of $75 was applied. Once I signed up, I could use the “refer a friend” feature. This allowed us to refer ourselves for a new sign-up. As a result, the box cost $94.99. The discount was $80. This was the 2nd box we got a week later. We were able to register a delivery to the same address with a different email. Payment options were different one had PayPal the other had a debit card.

I must say we loved the meals and variety. The meals re-invigorated our meal plan. The first delivery came in the morning on a Thursday. The second one came a week later on a Thursday in the afternoon. The quality of the ingredients were excellent. HelloFresh did however swap some ingredients on two recipes. In one they replaced spinach for Asian greens and tomatoes for red onion in another. Apparently this happens depending on seasonal availability of recipe items. We also had two recipe cards missing in one of the boxes. We were able to print this from the website. The recipes are also accessible on their app. I did put in some feedback on the app. They gave us $8 credit for the inconvenience.

After we received each delivery, I skipped the next 4 weeks in the app. We were not sure if we were going to keep the subscription. Pre-portioned ingredients come in brown bags with a number label on them. The items that need refrigeration are all in an insulated bag with some ice packs. I added the cold items to the brown bag meal kits and placed them in the fridge. So when it came time to cook it was a matter of pulling out the bag. Meal preparation instructions were easy to follow for both of us as we share the cooking duties. We both enjoyed trying different recipes. There were also helpful cooking tips that made both of us feel like we were master-chefs. Portions were generous we had enough for our dinners and lunches.

We decided to cancel the subscription after 2 weeks. We wanted to see if our home grocery bill would be any different. In the month of October we spent a total of $981.72. This is lower than our usual $1200 a month. So we did save on our grocery bill. We liked the convenience and loved the tasty meals. All the meals we chose were enjoyable. So after having canceled the subscription about 2.5 weeks, I received an email with a comeback offer. The offer was 30% off the next 2 boxes and then 20% off the next two. I ignored the first one. This week I got another email, we decided to take it up. So next week we will be receiving 5 meals for 4 people (20 serves) for $125.49. The discount was $49.50.

• Standard cost for 5 meals with 20 serves $174.95 cost per serve = $8.75 cost per meal = $35.99
• Our box 1 cost: 5 meals 20 serves for $99.99 cost per serve = $4.99 cost per meal = $19.99
• Our box 2 cost: 5 meals 20 serves for $94.99 cost per serve =$4.75 cost per meal = $18.99
• Our box 3 will be arriving this weekend 5 meals 20 serves for $125.49 = cost per serve = $6.27 cost per meal = $25.09

If we make use of the remaining current offer I am tempted to increase the number of meals to 6.

• Box 4: 6 meals 24 serves for $148.99 = $6.19 per serve cost per meal $24.77.
• Box 5: 6 meals 24 serves for $168.39 = $7.01 per serve cost per meal $28.07

Currently Hello Fresh are offering us a send a friend a discount and get $60 when they sign up. I am not sure if the $60 can be used on a discounted boxes. At the moment, we can only use earned credits after using up the discounted box offers. I also just realised that our health insurance has an option to purchase Hello Fresh eGift Cards with a 6% discount. I am not sure if these gift cards could be applied to the subscription at any time.

So is HelloFresh worth the price? I would say it is worth the price if you can hack the system. Better value is to be gained if a discount can be applied. TheFrugalDoctor being so frugal does not like paying full price for anything. Will look at hacking the system. It is after all great food and it looks like we can lower our grocery bill too. Could this be lifestyle creep, paying for the convenience of a meal kit? I must say it is nice to handover the cognitive load and shopping. The system is flexible, we can skip deliveries and cancel at any time. We will see if our grocery bill stays lower than our average.