The €20 tap: why your “cheap” dinner is the most expensive one

6.02 pm, end of the working day. You're tired, the fridge looks empty, and your phone buzzes: “🎉 €2.50 delivery fee saved — order now!”

Three taps later, dinner is on its way. What you've saved: nothing. What you've spent — on average — is €20.30. For a single evening.

The honest calculation

Item	Per order
Meal (average)	€15.00
Delivery	€3.50
Tip/service fee (approx. 10%)	€1.80
Total	€20.30

Order four times a week and you'll spend around €346 a month on it. You'll find the complete 30-day calculation with all the assumptions here: Food delivery vs. cooking at home.

And yes: ordering in is convenient. We'll freely admit that.

No shopping. No washing-up. No kitchen full of pots and pans. Anyone who tries to argue that away has never stood at the cooker at 6 pm, exhausted.

But here's the point hardly anyone talks about:

The most expensive part of cooking was never the cooking. It's the decision.

The question “What shall I cook today?” comes back every single day. It doesn't cost you 20 minutes at the cooker — it costs the energy you no longer have at 6 pm. And that is exactly the moment the delivery app wins. Not because its food is any better. But because it takes the decision off your hands.

Where the money quietly goes

We all spend money without noticing — not on big purchases, but with small taps:

• ☕ Takeaway coffee, €4.50 a day → €135 a month
• 🎵 Music subscription, around €12 a month — honestly used? Three times a week, at the gym.
• 📺 The “ad-free” surcharge on streaming services — we pay extra because we're too impatient to sit through one minute of adverts.
• 🚬 A packet a day (around €9) → around €270 a month
• 🛵 Ordering in four times a week → €346 a month

None of these amounts hurts in the moment. That's their trick.

The moment when AI actually makes sense

We're not saying you need an “AI for cooking”. We're saying: you need an answer to the 6 pm question. And that is exactly what KI-Kochhilfe delivers:

1. Tell it what you've got — “tomatoes, rice, peppers” is enough.
2. Or ask for something specific — a dish, even a cake: “marble cake, no nuts” — on the Premium plan a whole weekly menu, too.
3. One minute later: a finished recipe with a photo and step-by-step instructions, with a shopping list too if you subscribe. With automatic allergen detection on every plan — from Standard for the whole family as well (family profiles) — and in over 30 languages.

The decision that drives you to the delivery app every evening? Done before the oven is warm.

The final calculation

KI-Kochhilfe costs from €5.99 a month — VAT included, cancellable monthly on the monthly plan.

For comparison: that's less than a single delivery. Not one a week. One. In the whole month.

And if there are times when you cook less — holidays, stressful weeks, whatever it may be: with the pause function you put your subscription on ice for 1, 2 or 3 months — at no extra cost. After that it carries on automatically, or earlier if you want it to.

And the washing-up? Okay — we won't take that off your hands. Not yet. 🙂

Try it out before you decide anything: two recipes are free, with no sign-up at all.

👉 Generate 2 free recipes now