As a fitness franchise owner running VP Fitness in Providence, I'm definitely in that busy professional category. Between managing operations, mentoring trainers, and growing the business since launching the franchise in 2023, I probably spend around $400-500 monthly on delivery services like DoorDash and Grubhub. The irony isn't lost on me - I run a gym that emphasizes nutrition guidance, yet I'm ordering takeout multiple times per week. When I'm putting in 12-hour days overseeing everything from marketing to certification programs, that $15-20 delivery fee feels worth it versus losing an hour shopping and cooking. What really opened my eyes was when I tracked it for our clients' nutrition program - I was spending more on delivery than some people spend on their entire gym membership. Now I try to batch meal prep on Sundays and keep our smoothie bar stocked so I can grab something quick between training sessions. The convenience factor is real though. When you're mentoring coaches until 8pm or dealing with franchise operations, having food show up in 30 minutes beats driving somewhere and waiting. I just had to set a monthly limit because it was quietly eating up what should have been profit margins.
As a gastroenterologist running GastroDoxs with three Houston-area locations, I spend about $300-350 monthly on delivery apps - mainly between patient consultations and evening administrative work. The real wake-up call came when I started our Medical Weight Management program and realized I was advising patients on nutrition while my own diet consisted largely of delivered processed foods. What struck me most was seeing patients spend $200+ monthly on delivery while struggling with digestive issues that were directly linked to those same high-sodium, high-fat foods they were ordering. I had one patient whose chronic bloating disappeared within weeks of switching from daily delivery to meal planning - something I wasn't practicing myself. Now I use our MWM principles personally, doing Sunday meal prep with nutrient-dense whole foods that take less time than waiting for delivery. The time I thought I was saving with apps was actually lost to post-meal digestive discomfort and afternoon energy crashes from processed restaurant food. The biggest shift was realizing that as someone treating gut health issues daily, my delivery habits were working against both my health and credibility with patients who look to me for lifestyle guidance.
As an entrepreneur who built my business by carefully reinvesting profits from flipping sneakers and cars, I was stunned when I calculated my food delivery spending - it was hitting $350 monthly. That's equivalent to what I'd reinvest in a property renovation project! Now I treat it like any business expense: I budget specifically for convenience meals and batch orders to minimize fees, redirecting the savings toward my real estate investments.
I rely on DoorDash and Uber Eats several times a week because juggling work and long days leaves little energy for cooking. Living in London, I probably spend £250-£300 a month on delivery, which shocked me the first time I added it up—it's basically the cost of a weekly grocery shop, doubled. The convenience is hard to give up, especially on late work nights, but I do catch myself thinking how much I could save if I swapped even half those orders for meal prep. Right now, it feels like a trade-off between time and money, and time usually wins.
Hi Tommy, I usually prefer not to check how much I spend on home delivery because it always gives me the creeps. But the last time I looked, it was once 500 Euros and another time 700 Euros. Still, it saves so much time, which helps me stay productive. Yes, it did make me think about my expenses, so I tried another strategy: ordering meal sets from HelloFresh. I had tried premade meal deliveries before, but after a week they started tasting like plastic—maybe I didn't heat them properly—so I went back to traditional home delivery. With HelloFresh, though, it made a difference. I pick meals with up to 20 minutes of cooking time, all ingredients are included, and I usually cook when I need a break, so it's efficient too. Of course, when I'm too lazy, I order pizza, Chinese, or work from a restaurant or cafe. Personally, I think it's good to combine different ways of getting food. Cooking from supermarket-bought groceries is the least efficient and still more expensive than ordering HelloFresh. — Robbert Bink from the Netherlands (Zoetermeer) Founder and main recovery expert at CryptoRecovers, a crypto recovery company based in the Netherlands PS Everything here was written by me—I just like using ChatGPT to proofread the grammar.
I'll admit, the time I save with food delivery is often worth the splurge as someone juggling property sales and two kids at home, but seeing $250-$300 leave my account each month made me pause. It's easy to let convenience take over, so I now set a monthly limit and turn to meal-prep some weeks--otherwise, a pizza here and takeout there adds up faster than I expected. It was eye-opening to realize that a few impulse orders can easily match what I pay for a month of property marketing software.
As a real estate entrepreneur juggling property renovations and family life with two young boys, I spend roughly $280 monthly on food delivery - and honestly, it shocked me when I first tallied it up. When I'm knee-deep in a home renovation project or showing properties all day, those delivery fees feel justified for the time savings, but seeing that annual total made me realize I could fund an entire kitchen renovation with what I spend on convenience. I've started viewing it as a legitimate business expense since it frees up time to focus on deals, but I now batch my orders and use pickup more often to cut those delivery fees in half.
Between running my business and keeping up with four kids, food delivery has become almost a survival tool--but when I finally added it up, I was dropping close to $300 a month. That number gave me pause because it's basically a second car payment. Now I set a firm weekly budget and prioritize delivery on the days I'm slammed with back-to-back meetings or kids' activities, treating it as a strategic time-saver rather than an everyday habit.
I am the founder of The Happy Food Company, a rapidly growing gift hamper company. Often, I find myself juggling early mornings, late nights, and a constant stream of customer orders. I consume food delivery services, such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, at least 8-10 times per month (mostly for quick lunches on production days, or for late dinners after a packaging run). I spend around $250-300 on delivery food on average every month - and when I added it up, I was surprised to realize that I was spending as much as my monthly grocery budget. I get it - there's value in convenience: no meal prep, no mess, and more time to focus on knocking out order fulfillment. But sitting down to add it all up definitely made me think again. It has given me the opportunity to re-evaluate how I use delivery. In the future, I will reserve delivery for true "time-crunch" days, and plan easy, ready-to-heat meals for all of the other days. I still appreciate the time savings, however, I have been intentional about my delivery (which keeps my spend from creeping too high).
I DoorDash once or twice a week for my cheat meals. But I don't really spend that much. Why? Because I use the PayPal debit card for groceries. I get 5% cash back. So the extra cost of using the service is covered by the cash back I get from buying groceries. Not the entire cost, but the difference between visiting the place or using the app is covered. It's a win-win for me. I work from home and prefer not to keep unhealthy food in the house.
As a real estate entrepreneur, I noticed I was spending around $275-$325 per month on food delivery, which is basically the cost of staging a property for showings. At first, I brushed it off as a convenience, but once I saw the total, it made me rethink how often I lean on it. Now I reserve delivery for nights when I'm stuck late negotiating deals or traveling between properties, and that small shift has cut my monthly spend nearly in half.
My business is built on helping clients avoid costly blunders, so I was floored when I realized I was spending over $300 a month on food delivery--my own little financial horror story. That amount could easily cover a home warranty I'd gift a client at closing. Now, I treat it like any bad deal; I cut my losses by aggressively using pickup options and only ordering on days with back-to-back closings.
I track every expense in my real estate business, and was shocked to discover I spend about $400 monthly on food delivery while bouncing between property showings and renovation sites. That's equivalent to what I'd put toward a small marketing campaign! While the convenience factor is huge when I'm meeting contractors or rushing between appointments, I've started treating these orders like any other business expense - implementing a 'delivery budget' and limiting orders to days when I'm truly slammed with back-to-back property visits.
As someone who's flipped 700+ homes in Vegas, I'm used to crunching numbers, but I was genuinely surprised when I calculated my food delivery spending at around $320 monthly--that's literally what I budget for property photography and marketing materials for a flip. Between site visits, contractor meetings, and late-night deal analysis with my wife Kacie, delivery has become essential, but seeing that annual total made me apply the same discipline I use in real estate: I now track it like any other operational expense and limit orders to days when I'm genuinely maximizing revenue-generating activities.
Hi Tommy - thanks for the opportunity to contribute. My name is Ben, and I'm an entrepreneur/startup founder of CashbackHQ. I'm based in NYC. Bootstrapping a startup solo, my time is quite hectic, and food delivery becomes a budget item whether I intend it to or not. I spend an average of $250-300 a month on DoorDash and Uber Eats between late work shifts and not wanting to leave my computer desk. When I sat down and tallied up my spending, I was horrified--my spending was well above all my utilities combined (Wifi, cell phone, electricity, gas, etc). That realization gave me pause. The advantage here is that I am an obsessive online discounts/promos optimizer, and have been able to cushion the impact by piling up cashback deals. As an example, I will place my orders via a cashback portal that will earn me 5-7 percent back on DoorDash and combine that with a credit card that will earn me dining rewards. It does not cancel out the price, but it cuts down enough that I no longer feel as guilty about clicking the order button the third time in a week. For me, ultimately the tradeoff is time. There are weeks when not cooking and saving 2-3 hours helps me ship a new feature or milestone.. However, when you sum it up, it is, by all means, one of the most insidious budget "black holes" in my life--even when I am optimizing for promotions, cashback, etc. Always glad to talk more. Thanks for considering my take. I hope one day I can share CashbackHQ with Nerdwallet, but I'll wait on that ;)
More than happy to chat about this more if needed. I actually just deleted the apps a weeks again, after I found out that I spent over $540 in July on UberEats. What was worse is that I was trying to cut down and thought it had been a quiet month. So I was checking to see how well I had done! Yeeeesh. I know for a fact it was multiple thousands per year. Happy to say I'm now 4 weeks in without any deliveries. I work from home for myself so i never really thought much of it. I don't really spend too much outside of expenses and bills. I can probably go back a few years and let you know how much it was per year also. Daniel Daines-Hutt Mount Maunganui, New Zealand Head of Content at Zero To Mastery I also run my own blog at ampmycontent.com
I run LAXcar, so in addition to coordinating airport transfers, corporate events, and being on the road all the time, food delivery has been a lifesaver for me. During hectic weeks, I use DoorDash or Uber Eats three to four times, particularly when I am working late or have back-to-back meetings. I added it up recently, and I think I'm spending about $350-$400 a month on delivery fees, tips, and the markup included. It's easy, but when I saw the total, I did stop and think because it is essentially a car payment. Still, in the midst of a busy week, the saved time often feels worth it, particularly if skipping groceries or cooking lets me focus on running the business. I've begun making an effort to reserve delivery for the absolutely insane days and batch pickup orders for when I can, but for any entrepreneurs and busy professionals like myself, the trade-off between cost and time isn't always the easiest to handle. For additional insights, feel free to reach out at arsen.m@laxcar.com.
Food delivery services have become my stealthy budget buster. As I fell into my code for long stretches of time, I had initially justified the spend of about $400-500 per month as a productivity expense. The hours saved on food preparation meant that I could spend more time on development and strategy work. The truth of this reality hit when I went through my expenses for last quarter. Those "quick" $25 orders occurred 4-5 times per week. Late-nights of debugging led to auto triggering DoorDash orders. Building features for AlgoCademy's algorithm meant that I had to have focused work-time and cooking became cognitive load I could not afford. What surprised me the most was not the amount, but the propensity I was building. The stress I experienced during coding would trigger spikes in delivery. During our platform's major updates, our monthly delivery cost became nearly $700. The convenience I was willing to pay, became a tax I did not know I was accumulating. Now, on Sundays, I meal prep the next 4-5 days worth of meals. I try to simulate sprint planning. If I am preparing meals where I am batching similar foods together, it feels like organizing a code repository. I was able to reduce my dependency on delivery services down by roughly 60% while still preparing meals over the same productive blocks of time coding. The life of an entrepreneur is built on embracing a lifestyle like this and the temptation of the convenience that these services provide and how appealing those services are. Once again, however, I did not realize that I was essentially paying rent twice a month to be able to convenience myself. That money now contributes towards our development tools budget.
Food delivery was my silent killer of the budget when I had to close deals in a few weeks. I was spending cash of 340 dollars each month between DoorDash dinners when going through loan documents and Uber Eats lunches on back-to-back phone calls with clients. This hit me when my accountant was preparing taxes, and he recorded the cost of miscellaneous dining. That amount of 4,080 annually would have provided 2 more marketing campaigns or paid off conference attendance fees. At this point, delivery occupies a new position of $120 a month as a discretionary expense. I do meal prep on Sundays and only order in case of real emergencies, such as a last-minute loan adjustment when I have to work in the evening. I am used to keeping track of micro-expenses, and in some way, food apps did not support this practice, because I got used to it in AutoAnything e-commerce. The irony? I advise clients daily on blind spots in their real estate investments and turn a blind eye to my own financial blind spots. That luxurious convenience was costing me almost 15 percent of my monthly entertainment allowance.
Food delivery saved me at the moment when TrackSpikes worked out the first years. Working 80-hour shifts and spending at least 400-500 a month on DoorDash and Uber Eats without even realizing it. And the math struck me when I looked at my credit card bill. This $500 per month would be a $6,000 a year - they could either hire someone to work part-time or spend the money on improved marketing equipment. A meal that costs 12 dollars is easily transformed into a 20 dollar meal with delivery charges and tips. There is the convenience tax but time is money when you are creating a business. I now prepare meals in large quantities on Sundays and have simple meals in stock. I still apply the delivery strategy when launching a new product or during peak seasons, but paying attention to my spending allowed me to invest in developing the business. The wake-up call was worth it.