It’s easy to get pulled into fads and gimmicks surrounding popular self-development, but sometimes, the most potent methods can be the most mundane. Cooking is a skill, art, and science integral to human life and society. Every culture has food as a defining aspect and culinary traditions are intertwined with geography, history, and sociology. Here, I will show how cooking can also be a powerful tool for self-development, impacting your wallet, waistline, and much more!
A comprehensive self-development regimen includes attention to one’s physical health, and cooking at home can go a long way. When we cook our meals, we have more control over what we eat at every stage of the process.
Studies show that cooking at home more often is associated with better health and diet outcomes. When we prepare our food at home, we have more input from the grocery store to the dinner table. Not only do we have increased control over the quality of our ingredients and the macronutrients we consume, but being more involved causes us to be more conscious of our diets.
While the pre-packaged or restaurant foods we eat may taste delicious, they tend to be higher in fat and salt. When we cook our food at home, we can make even tastier and more complex dishes that are healthier than readymade alternatives. Our level of control and intimate knowledge of our tastes can give us the best of both worlds when cooking at home.
One of the great things about cooking is that it involves several skill sets that come together in the final product; some of those skills are great for our minds.
Learning a new recipe is like embarking on a new adventure through unfamiliar territory. At first, we may want to follow the guideposts closely, but we can forge new routes once we get more comfortable. There will always be a new dish, combination, or technique to try, which means cooking can provide endless mental stimulation.
Cooking is a multi-faceted craft that challenges both our artistic and scientific abilities. Making a good meal requires vision, creativity, technique, and many experiments before we get it right. Turning a good dish into a great dish requires diligent practice and focused fine-tuning. This liberal use of our faculties can leave us feeling challenged and accomplished.
In addition, cooking provides a clear and immediate source of gratification because we are rewarded with delicious food, which can be a great motivation source. The feeling of self-sufficiency in producing our own meals and the positive mental benefits of having a healthy diet can be a boon to our minds.
“The practice of cooking not only eases the mind, but also relaxes your body.”
Cooking at home can also have a positive impact on our financial goals. Buying healthy and delicious ingredients doesn’t have to break the bank. Many frozen fruits and vegetables are nutritionally just as good as fresh and maybe superior in some cases. Eating at most restaurants is expensive, as you have to pay for the ingredients, overhead costs, and wages. Fast food is often cheaper than sit-down restaurants but at the expense of quality and nutrition (and it still doesn’t beat the economics of budget-smart grocery shopping long-term).
As a comprehensive financial planner working primarily with young professionals, food is often the most common area for budget optimization. Even though I am working with successful, intelligent professionals who have developed disciplined spending habits, the prevalence of outside food remains significant.
The thing is, many don’t know exactly how much they are spending on convenience because $20 here and there doesn’t feel like a lot. That is until these $20 outings add up to $500 at the end of the month and $6,000 over a year—which is pretty conservative among the budgets I’ve looked at. As you can see, even for disciplined, high-earning professionals, committing to cooking may help them further optimize their spending and support their financial goals.
Judging that food is one of the big three expenses (alongside housing and transportation), excessive spending on outside food is similar to buying a luxury car or renting a lavish apartment. These things may be great purchases if you can afford them and they benefit your life. However, many realize that they cannot or do not want to afford the luxury of a fancy car or apartment and smartly choose a less expensive option.
It may be less evident that dining out and delivery are equally luxurious because ordering food is a low-commitment activity. We eat several times daily, and it’s easy to excuse spending $20 here and there. The thing is, one meal turns into two, and two turns into a habit. When we combine these small but frequent expenses, we may end up paying the cost of a car note for this luxury!
We have to review our budgets from a wide angle and ask ourselves if we are getting the full value of our money spent on dining. On the other hand, cars and housing are more considerable, longer-term, and less frequent commitments. We tend to scrutinize these decisions heavily before pulling the trigger, leading to relatively less overspending in those areas. That is my theory as to why intelligent young professionals often overspend on food while budgeting affordably in other categories.
The Benefits of Cooking will Indirectly Improve Many Areas of Your Life
A lot of popular self-development is output-focused. Diet is one of the significant inputs that will affect all of our outputs. Eating pre-packaged and restaurant foods high in fat, sugar, and salt will slow us down. We tend to feel more lethargic and less focused after eating these meals. This and the physical effects of an unhealthy diet can hurt our confidence.
On the other hand, the delicious and nutritious dishes we make at home will boost our energy, give us a feeling of momentum, and synergize with our exercise goals. The power of a good diet will assist us in our work, mood, sleep, and everything else. The accomplishment and self-sufficiency, along with the benefits of cooking at home, can boost our confidence, positively affecting further areas of our lives.
Food is our fuel, and like machines, how well we run is highly correlated with the quality of our fuel. Cooking at home can be crucial in building and maintaining a healthy diet. Once we eat home-cooked food, we crave less junk food, and low-quality food becomes physically repulsive.
To illustrate the phenomenon of becoming accustomed to a high-quality diet, I regularly cooked through most of college, and one weekend, I decided to eat nothing but Hot Pockets, pork rinds, and Chef Boyardee. I broke out into pinprick acne all over my face and torso almost immediately; this outbreak went away nearly as fast once I stopped eating these ultra-processed foods. After being used to fresh and high-quality ingredients for so long, my body rejected these low-quality foods.
Another indirect benefit of cooking is its effect on our social lives. Taking cooking classes can expose us to new people and experiences. Food can form a solid basis for social gatherings with colleagues, friends, or romantic interests. Food is an intimate part of the human experience and is universally appreciated. Knowing how to cook can be an excellent tool for our social lives, and the skill won’t become obsolete soon.
Make the time. Seriously, it’s worth it. I would go as far as to say that rearranging your life in the short term is a small price for an activity with many compelling short and long-term benefits. Start with a few meals per week and work from there. Many dishes can be quick and simple to make while still tasting great and packing good nutrients — here is a list to get you started.
If the time crunch is especially severe, meal kit services can help. For instance, I used Hello Fresh for a short time to try out their services at a discount and win a free Caraway pan. While their full-priced services are not a fit for me, I constantly noticed how great they could be for a beginner cook who wants to learn the basics of fast, tasty meals and/or is light on time.
Conclusion
In a world that keeps getting more expensive, being conscious about your food will pay dividends. There are significant financial benefits to buying groceries and preparing them at home. The long-term health benefits and the value of learning a timeless skill are potentially even more worthwhile than the savings. Any way you look at it, those who cook more are winning.
On top of all the benefits I’ve mentioned so far, pairing intelligent budgeting with the proper credit card strategy will reward you doubly for building the right habits. For example, one of my favorite credit cards, the American Express Blue Cash Preferred offers 6% cashback for my grocery purchases. This is a huge multiplier on such a common category! You can read more about building a credit card strategy here.
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If you enjoyed reading about how cooking, a simple activity, can fit into a comprehensive financial plan, you’d be pleased to know that a world of actions, habits, and tricks can boost your wallet and your life. Schedule an introduction below to learn more!
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