Two Reasons Blue Apron Could be Worth the Cost

How would you fit Blue Apron into a frugal budget? Here are two reasons that we love Blue Apron on a budget and why Blue Apron could be worth it for you!

If you’ve seen our food budget, you know that a meal delivery service like Blue Apron wouldn’t fit in our normal grocery budget.

And that’s just fine!

Spoiler: It goes somewhere else in our budget.

We love Blue Apron and it can be worth it sometimes– even for frugal folks like us– for two reasons.

If you aren’t familiar with Blue Apron, I’ll give you a quick overview of the service, then explain my two big reasons it could be worth the cost.

What is Blue Apron

Blue Apron is a meal delivery service subscription that send you the measured, packaged ingredients and recipes for 2-3 meals per week. For each week’s delivery you can choose from 8 or so dinner options, including options for weight watchers or special dietary needs. The meal choices change weekly.

You can easily opt in or out of any week’s delivery. You can also specify what day you want the box to arrive.

What do you get in a Blue Apron meal delivery?

The Blue Apron box includes:

–>Ingredients for three meals each for two people, in the exact proportions you need for the recipe

–>Recipe cards with easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, beautiful pictures, and dietary info

–>Links to cooking tips and videos

If you want to see me unbox our most recent Blue Apron shipment then talk about the cost and reasons it could be worth it, check out the video below.

How much does Blue Apron cost?

We’re a frugal bunch here, so you are probably asking yourself what this lovely service costs. I’m glad you asked!

It’s more than we spend on our normal home-cooked meals, but cheaper than most sit-down restaurants we might go out to. The full price for three meals for two people, is about $10 per person per meal, or $60 per box.

I have a coupon for you to get $60 off of your first 3 boxes, making each box $40 (that includes 3 meals for two people), which works out to more like $6.50 per serving.

We could easily spend $40 on one meal at a restaurant for date night, but with Blue Apron we get THREE meals for that price.

That’s still a lot more than we spend on average at-home meals for two, but for special occassions like that, we don’t put the meals in the grocery budget, we use our fun/entertainment budget. Some people have a separate date night budget and could use that too.

I have been a Blue Apron affiliate partner since we first tried their service several years ago. As such, they sometimes send me free shipments, which was the case this time.

Okay! Let’s talk about the reasons I think Blue Apron could be worth it…

1. Blue Apron makes a perfect date night activity

Mike and I rarely go out on formal dates, but we love doing things together. We can do pretty much anything together (painting a room, canning applesauce, organizing the garage, etc.) and call it a date.

We rarely go out to eat because it is so expensive between the restaurant, the tip, and getting a babysitter, but we really like trying new food and eating good food.

Making a special, fancy meal together is a perfect activity for us after the kids are in bed or while they watch a movie. We love trying new dishes together. I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve liked the new things I’ve tried with Blue Apron.

With Blue Apron we can each get three restaurant quality meals for the cost of one or two meals each at a restaurant.

2. Blue Apron gives us cooking classes at home

I’m not a gourmet chef by any stretch of the imagination. I’m good at making the meals I typically make, but that’s about it. I buy the same ingredients month after month to make the same go-to meals that my family likes.

I don’t like to buy new ingredients because I’m afraid they will get wasted when I don’t know what to do with them.

I easily get stuck in a rut when it comes to cooking dinner for my family. My kids don’t make it very easy to get out of the dinner rut because they are happy with boring!

This is why I love Blue Apron!

They send me all of the ingredients and give me very clear step-by-step instructions on what to do with them. I intentionally choose recipes where I will be using new-to-me ingredients or learning a new cooking technique.

In our most recent Blue Apron delivery I learned a delicious way to cook bok choy and prosciutto, two items I have never purchased before. Mike learned about cooking and cutting steak and lightly cooking veggies.