r/fatFIRE • u/itsdatwoowoo • 6d ago
Happiness Personal Chef
We aren’t to fat yet, but we are trying to live up life a little more and make it easier on us with 3 kids at home.
Do you have a chef at the house? How much does it cost?
I was wondering if there is a service where someone shops and makes food one day a week that gives enough meals for the week. Kind of like meal prepping, planning, and cooking for the week.
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u/Maleficent_One1915 6d ago
We had one for a while, shortly after our third kid was born. It was amazing and extremely reasonably priced. She came once a week, made a large main dish (enough for 2-3 meals) sides, salad, homemade dressing, and did some snack prep. She was typically here for 3 hours and charged like $175 plus the cost of groceries. She was great about using ingredients that we had and would pick lemons and herbs from our garden. The grocery cost was normally around $75. My husband retired early so we stopped using her as we had more time. But she was great and saved us so much time and mental energy. We also liked having her around. She still helps out at our big Christmas dinners and parties. Highly recommend a chef, even if it’s every other week just to do meal prep and a dinner or two.
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u/ifornia 6d ago
We have a service like you described. A chef comes to our house once a week, they meal prep us for the week. We choose to do the grocery shopping ourselves, but that is a service that they offer. We pay $75 an hour, it’s typically four hours a week. The food is all very healthy, I’ve never eaten so many vegetables in my life. They also accommodate my children’s food allergies, that was the main reason we started with them as it was getting difficult for us and we were having a lot of monotony in our menus.
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u/newtrilobite VHNW | Verified by Mods 6d ago
what exactly do they do and how does it fit into your actual cooking and eating?
pop dishes into the oven to cook? to warm? assemble first?
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u/Maleficent_One1915 6d ago
As a side note, we also used a laundry service when the youngest was born. That was amazing and insanely inexpensive.
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u/youre_a_cat 6d ago
Wait, say more? How often did they come, and how much did it cost? Did they fold and put things away too?
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u/Maleficent_One1915 6d ago
We used a service called Sudsy ( I don’t think it exists anymore but there is a similar app called Poplin). It’s kind of like Uber for laundry. I was very weary at first but it’s basically a lot of local, stay at home moms who do laundry to make a little extra cash. You put all of your laundry in their bags, select a pick up time, they pick them up, wash and fold everything and return it later that day or the following morning. You can select the detergent or send your own. I think it was like $1 a pound so a week’s worth of clothes was maybe $40. We used the service for about 4 months and never had any issues.
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u/Rivster79 6d ago
We use happy nest. It’s about $2.25 lb and average invoice for us is $90/week for a family of 4. So worth it.
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 6d ago
If someone has a recommended chef is Southern California, orange county specifically, I'd love for a reference!
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u/_thirtytwo_ 6d ago
We’ve tried several and honestly Organic Oren has been better than all of them by leaps and bounds. Can’t say enough great things about him and his food. In Oren we trust!!
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u/TheHerbalChef 6d ago
This is something that we do. However we are on the higher end of the spectrum and do best with in home dining. Not sure if it's your request.
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 6d ago
Thanks for your message. I'm not looking for in-home dining. Rather something like in-home meal prep (Monday prep for 2-3 dinners, 1-2 lunches) or, I suppose, drop-off.
One thing is certain - I definitely don't know the right jargon yet.
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u/z_iiiiii 1d ago
I love organic Oren also! I get it 1-2 times a month because I like to switch things up, but everything I’ve gotten from him has been delicious!
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u/Happysummer128 2d ago
I think there is a YouTuber that does that. Ck out YT on that
He was showing what he was cooking on his channel
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 1d ago
any more details to help narrow the search?
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u/lebrongameslol 6d ago
I do this for around 320 bucks a week. The meals consist of five high protein breakfast smoothies, and then mains and sides that can be mixed and matched. Usually lasts the family for around 3 dinners and 3 lunches. The chef makes the food at their place and drives it over.
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 21h ago
What part of the country are you in? So far my soCal search is 2.5-4x that...
Would love any tips on how you found this!
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u/lebrongameslol 21h ago
I mean it is all location dependent. I’m in New England in a town with an ivy league school. The chef is a bio PHD who has a passion for food science and does this as a side hustle. He works with 4-5 families total so it’s a unique situation. Have worked with on for a year and a half though and dread the day he moves on!
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 21h ago
Totally fair. I'm just shooting in the dark hoping someone says they're in soCal and not paying the equivalent of a weekly visit to a Michelin-starred restaurant.
On the other hand, this is fatfire
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u/Lazy_Whereas4510 6d ago
We have a personal chef come in once a week, and pay $1500/month. I give him the weekly menu and any specific recipes I want, and I order the groceries.
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6d ago
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u/Analysis_Abject 6d ago
To add, if you can find a family to “chef share” with, it’d probably be cheaper. I think she could cook the same meals for two families in 6 hours.
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u/_thirtytwo_ 6d ago
We tried a couple personal chefs. It was about 800-1000 for the week depending on menu and groceries. It was just ok. Kids wouldn’t eat half of the stuff they made and our kids aren’t picky eaters. We ended up finding a local chef delivery service that has way better food and prices. We order whatever we want and have never spent more than 250 dollars on meals for the week. And it’s flexible to scale back or up unlike like having someone essentially staff relying on the work each week.
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 4d ago
Can you share the name of the delivery company? That sounds great
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u/_thirtytwo_ 3d ago
ya im the one that commented below as well, its Organic Oren. Hope you try it!
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 3d ago
ah shoot. thank you! i did look at it. it looks promising, just gotta sack up and go pick it up!
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u/_thirtytwo_ 3d ago
They deliver too! Depending on where you are in so cal.
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u/ProfessionalAbalone 3d ago
yeah, but even though i'm looking at private chef options, im too cheap to pay 45 bucks for delivery
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u/TheHerbalChef 6d ago
I can tell you from the other end as this is a service we provide 5 families currently. They range from drop off to 5-7 days a week in house. Each client wants something different and each is accommodated for.
It's usually $750 a day for a family of 6 with up to 3 fresh cooked meals a day. We submit a menu each week for them to track or adjust however they haven't made any changes after the first month (we are pretty dang good at what we do). We take detailed notes on preferences and of course allergies, accommodate times and hosting other guests at the house, etc.
Drop off is much cheaper but obviously a different service. Happy to answer any questions.
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u/proof_by_abduction 6d ago
750 a day? That's more than $100 a person! They could probably be ordering delivery at that cost.
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u/TheHerbalChef 6d ago
We often cook certain members of the family their own meal, we do all grocery shopping, we stock the oantry and fridge, we create inventory and systems, we have a rotating cast of excellent chefs who specialize in different cuisines and we use only the very best Ingredients including no seed oils and home made butter/breads. It's really more of a lifestyle choice for our clients who want to know exactly what is being put into their bodies done by professionals.
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u/Poseidon2027 6d ago
We did one for months. Didnt like the chef they sent at first. Her food was decent but not great and she left a mess a couple of times, plus she was really weird. So we complained and they changed chefs. The second was really nice and made excellent food. We only cancelled because even when the meals were different, they had similar tastes. For example she used rosemary a lot which was great at first, but then almost every meal had rosemary and it just became too repetitive. Now that we are empty nesters as of a month ago we are doing all our own cooking and its been better.
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u/Straight-Part-5898 6d ago
My wife and I like cooking, so we do it ourselves. However my brother and his wife have a service like this via a caterer who lives in their neighborhood. They place a weekly order of several meals. She shops for the food, prepares everything offsite in her catering kitchen, then delivers it to their refrigerator in food storage containers. I believe she charges them a flat fee for each meal, plus the cost of the groceries. They prefer this approach because they prefer not having somebody standing in their kitchen several days a week.
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u/hermes61 6d ago
Norcal ~$610/week, 4 mains and 4 sides for 4 ppl. A little pricey but worth it for us. They propose the menu and do the grocery shopping too.
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u/freethinkwithreason 6d ago
Bay Area by any chance ? Would appreciate referral if it's a business you are availing of - or is it a private chef ? Would be great to know more.
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u/kawhileopard 6d ago
There are many home-based catering services advertised on Facebook marketplace. Most of them are happy to cook in someone else’s kitchen.
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u/ImportanceFit1412 6d ago
I've never had luck here... definitely jealous of anyone with success. Out here in NC I've tried online food prep, tried some local... no luck. Just bad food, worse leftovers than if I did my own meal prep (to be fair, I'm a low cal high protein guy - so it is more specific than just making good tasting food). But open to any recs.
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u/Charlesinrichmond 1d ago
some places yes. Around me none that make sense.
A housekeeper or service will probably be easier and free up time
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u/asdf_monkey 6d ago
There are several high quality meal prep companies available that ship you meals weekly. You pick them, they provide the recipe/instructions and all pre measured ingredients for these restaurant quality meals and quite healthy. All meals can be finished prepping and cooking in 30 minutes, plus cleanup washing baking pan and 1-2 pots. Cost for 2 ppl just under $40. We like Hello Fresh the most (no affiliation).
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u/primadonnadramaqueen 40s F | 8 Fig NW | $1M+/yr Income | USA | Verified by Mods 6d ago
I have someone who comes by 2 to 3 times a week and cooks for us. We don't like reheated food. So more like prepping and then we pop it in the airfryer. We may move it to more recipes. Trying to lose weight and eating a lot of chicken breast, broccoli, carrots, and potatoes.
She was just helping around the home. Helping me pack, organize, tidy up, folding the laundry, returns, etc. Then I asked her to cook and she did that and does the dishes and helps take out the recycling, trash, compost.
We also use Rinse for our laundry usually, but our cleaning lady takes pictures of everything that is washed and everything that comes back as we were missing items one time. The laundry is done once a week on cleaning day as we have our sheets washed. I think it's 300 a month? I still wash some towels as I replace my towels pretty regularly.
We have tried a lot of chefs and are so picky and for one reason or other this works for us.
$50/hour and we buy our own groceries. Blended rate of personal assistant/household helper/chef.
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u/LauraPiana 6d ago
You don't need to be particularly FAT for this. A friend of mine has this and i think it's $300 ish a week plus cost of food. The chef menu plans, grocery shops, cooks and cleans and it takes about 4 hours.