> cooking to save money when you're a software engineer is almost certainly a poor use of your time.

I spend most of my productive time thinking. That happens while cooking, walking, reading a book, taking a shower, sleeping, etc.

I would even go so far as to say there is an inverse relationship between hours spent 'working' and productivity.

Spend more time poorly. It's great for your career.

I'm sure, although there's no way to prove it, that it's a wrong approach to life. Working every minute for higher and higher salary and forgetting about small things that make person happy. What's the purpose of such life? To have the biggest number of $$$/bitcoins/stocks/whatever? We live only once, why people try so hard to waste this life in pursuit of arbitrary numbers, some stupid metrics (more productive, more rich, have bigger houses, bigger car, etc)?..

All I'm saying is economics is a poor reason to cook.

You should absolutely cook if it makes you happier or healthier but not (purely) as a strategy to become richer when it's making you less happy.

> All I'm saying is economics is a poor reason to cook.

I agree with what you're saying, but think your reasoning misses the forest for the trees a little :)

A rump roast, bag of veggies, and can of tomatoes in a slow cooker can make dinner for 4-7, is warm when you get home, and is way cheaper than takeout while also taking less time than takeout. With a family the scale makes the investment yield a better ROI at every step, while the marginal costs of eating our could be untenable.

In pure financial terms for a single high earning individual then, yes, you will almost always be better off to get your food sourced and focus on working more hours. That math changes when you're talking about multiple people, though, and start factoring in the opportunity cost of "eating out". Being at home coding, studying, or work-emailing in your productive home environment while a casserole cooks will yield better productivity than driving around getting food or being disrupted in a restaurant/coffee shop environment.

There are also externalities to consider: eating out leads to poor food habits which leads to poor health which leads to poor productivity and reduced working lifespan. Specifically, how many overweight IT people are dying from heart attacks before retirement age, and how would an analysis of total productivity reflect that massive lost productivity from losing 40+ hour a week over many years?

Equally as relevant: much of the "time loss" in the kitchen is just blatant incompetence with cooking. By pretending that food prep is an optional life skill thousands of productive work hours will be lost that could otherwise be dedicated to making your employer more money or building up your own business, while also fixing capital that could otherwise be gaining value in interest bearing bonds or assets.

"Home Economics" is all about saving capital through intelligent resource management. On the whole economics is an amazing reason to cook. Young, single, software types in urban centers with no special dietary needs or long-term health requirements slightly withstanding ;)