But someone sagely posted one of those posts that noted you could cook at home for far less than you would spend getting takeout or eating in a restaurant. I said I didn't disagree, but cooking at home had a hidden cost -- the labor of planning, shopping for the ingredients, doing the cooking, and cleaning up afterwards.
It's the most hits I've ever gotten on a comment. Everyone is eager to tell me that the value of the labor spent on those things is zero, because "no one is going to pay you to do that." Also, I'm stupid.
In case you were wondering whether the labor of the homemaker has any value. Nope.
Mind you, I cook at home a lot. I'm not saying we shouldn't cook at home. But the hours I spent planning for and making a meal is labor, and my labor has value.
The real question is why this post made everyone so angry. It seems like a simple truism to me.
I suspect it is because many of them are young and they're thinking about their mothers cooking all those meals to "save money" and realizing maybe it was only saving money because Mom donated her labor. Mom's labor has no value! She's doing it out of love, so it can't have value.
I might be reading too much into it, though.
My actual comment:
I mostly agree with you that it is almost always cheaper to cook at home than get takeout. But you're not factoring in the cost of labor. Someone is cooking that meal, cleaning up after that meal, shopping for the ingredients, and so on. Maybe you can say, well, I'm doing that work, and I'm fine with it; but even your labor counts as labor.
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