I live in a place were I could easily order / go out for every meal as well. If I cook ~2-3 times a week for myself and box up the leftovers, I get high quality meals for $2-5/meal vs $10-30/meal. This can save ~$8k per person per year just cooking 10 meals a week.
This may not be worth it for some, but I've found the time savings of ordering in/carryout is marginal or actually worse than cooking and reheating leftovers. Waste and grocery trips generally sort themselves out in a couple weeks as you figure out a schedule. This obviously scales with number of people so for a family of 2-4 you'd save $16-32k/yr for little extra effort.
These sort of home economics seem to have really fallen out of favor in my sphere, even in 2+ person households where $40k+ in maintenance/service/food costs can be saved (factor in childcare/education and I image the number can get to $100k+). I don't understand why people leave so much money on the table. There aren't many ways you can make $16k/year for a ---
> That way I don't have to throw out groceries that inevitably go bad because as a single person it's hard to shop just what I need, everything is in large multi packs. Even a loaf of bread will go bad before I'm able to eat it all.
You have to cook larger batches and eat the leftovers. I've had bad luck with bread too tbh. I might just start making my own smaller loafs, because the quality is also just bad.
EDIT: it’s also worth pointing out that savings values are post tax
