Welcome to the Tweet Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl! And you are tuned in to Tweet Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Guess what? Tomorrow is a National Personal Chef's Day. Let's get started.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that Americans devote an average of 37 minutes a day preparing, serving and cleaning up after their meals. Take that number and bump it up to 44 minutes a day for families with kids. Now, that means that a total of more than 267 hours a year is spent in the kitchen by Americans.
Now I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about this. And I'm like, you know what? I don't know who the U.S. Department of Agriculture got their numbers from.
But I beg to differ. I think that we spend more time than that in the kitchen simply because the fact that they're saying this is an average. So on average 37 minutes, that means there are some people that are spending more time in the kitchen doing that stuff. I'm raising my hand on that one.
That would be me. And then there are some people that are spending less time in the kitchen. Well, I'm thinking you either don't have a kitchen or everything you fix in your kitchen goes into your microwave if you're spending less than 37 minutes doing all of those things, prepping, serving and cleaning up, right? So I'm thinking that that number for both of them should be a lot bigger.
But then what does that mean? That means that we spend even more time in the kitchen than the 267 hours that they're estimating that Americans currently spend in the kitchen. Now, personally, I'm not a fan of that side of the culinary table. I am gladly willing to take a seat and taste your wares.
However, I'm not that big on cooking. Now I do it because I can and that I have a family. And honestly, when I said I think about it and the fact that we're talking about national personal chef day, at some point in life, I didn't feel like an application for it, but I ended up being a personal chef. Yes, I'm my daughter's personal chef.
I cater to her meals morning, afternoon and evening, sometimes even for dessert. And it's funny because I kind of roll my eyes at it, but my mom did the same thing for me. Her mom probably did the same thing for her and so on and so on. So it's a thing.
This is what we do. My husband can cook. It's just that time doesn't allow for him to cook on a regular basis. Therefore I have taken that torch and decided to run with it.
So yes, I am the family's personal chef. I determine what type of meal plan we have. And honestly, we are actually on a meal plan. We have a calendar on the refrigerator and we have planned out our monthly meals.
And that just makes it easier for me to go shopping, to make sure that the pantry is stocked with everything that we need. Now, I'm not even going to lie though, there are times that it gets away from me and I go to fix a meal and I'm like, well wait a minute, where's this, where's that? And I realize that I never bought it, but I'm a work in progress. It's getting better.
But all that to say that, you know, it's one thing to be doing it yourself, but I wonder, how many of you guys out there have ever considered actually hiring a personal chef for many households hiring a personal chef to gain some of that kitchen time back for yourself may seem way far out of your reach, but it might not be as expensive as you think. What you have to do is break it down and take those factors that influence the cost into consideration. Well, what are some of those factors? I'm glad you asked.
I'm going to talk about some of them with you. So we've got the cost of living. Well, cost of living is going to determine the price for the ingredients that go into the meals, as well as the fact that your chef actually has to live. So you're going to have to keep the cost of living in your area in mind when you look at what they're charging and be like, oh, okay, I get it, I get it.
But now if this is somebody that's newly graduating from Culinary School, they can't charge as much as maybe like Chef Ramsey might, if he were going to be somebody's personal chef. So those are some of the things that you'll have to keep in mind. So the number of servings that the chef is going to be preparing. If it's just you and you just need somebody to help you out here and there, then you can probably afford that because it'll be probably like going out to eat.
Whereas if you're the Octomom or the Doogers, John and Kate plus eight, then you know what? It's going to cost you a pretty penny because that's a whole lot of mouths to be. That's a lot. You're here.
So that is going to make a big difference on how much that you're going to have to pay. But keep in mind, you don't have to have that personal chef there morning, noon and night. You can say just dinners or come through at breakfast time, but I want you to prepare our lunch so we can take it with us to work. Those types of things.
Easy day, right? Now, specialty menus. If you have a lot of dietary restrictions that you or your family members have, then that is going to have an effect on the amount that you're going to have to pay because then the chef is going to have to put some extra thought and planning into these meals. You know, you can't just go freestyling and throw in cheese into something where you have somebody maybe in your family that can't do dairy.
So let's say everybody in your family can do dairy except you, then that means I've got to portion out a piece of it for this one person and then everybody else can get all the cheesy goodness of whatever on their place. So it just adds to the extras that you're requiring is going to add to the dollar amount that you're going to be paying. And I believe I already mentioned groceries, that whole cost of living type thing that is going to definitely determine how much you're going to have to pay. Okay, so let's crunch some more numbers.
The median price of a personal chef in the United States is about $200 to $300 per week for five meals for a family of four, not including the cost for groceries. So let's factor in groceries being possibly an additional $60 to $200 per week depending on the kind and quality of ingredients and the cost of living in your area. So let's say let's go on the high end and say $300 per week for the chef $200 per week for the groceries. That's a total of $500, right?
Well let's say we only have the chef Monday through Friday. That's five days, $500, that breaks down to $100 per day. But remember this is for a family of four. So let's divide that $100 per day into four because there are four people.
That means that for each day it's $25 per person. When you break it down like that it doesn't seem so crazy because you can actually imagine going to a restaurant and paying more than that per person for a meal. So why not have the same type of luxury inside your home? Now another thing that I was thinking of is rather than having this personal chef for your daily meals, what about if you're having a function where you're inviting people over?
Sure everybody wants to be that one that everybody ooze and aus and rants and raves over how great your food is when you fix it and all that good stuff. But all the time and energy that it takes to cook the food and clean up after yourself and prepare the house for the guests and everything, why not find a personal chef to do the cooking for the particular dinner party? That way on average they say that that would be probably about $40 per person per plate. It could go up to $100 depending on how fancy you're trying to be if you're wanting wine pairings and all that to go with the meal.
But there are some things that you can do yourself, you can go get your own dog on wine, right? So save a few bucks here and there and while I'm on the topic of saving bucks here are a couple of other tips for cutting costs when hiring a personal chef. Consider hiring an amateur. Somebody just came out of school, they're brand new to it or maybe somebody that didn't even go to school but that's something they're wanting to do and trying to build their portfolio.
Excuse me. Then they might be a good person to go with because guess what? You're helping them while they're helping you. Another thing, share your chef with another household.
Say this chef works out of their own kitchen and they deliver the meals. Well, if they deliver meals to the house, why not have them deliver twice as much food? So it'll be for you and your spouse and for the neighbors next door and y'all split that cost or you do every other week. We got y'all this week, you got it next week, type deal.
Share the fees, share the food, share the love. And then also maybe even consider alternatives. There are many meal delivery services out there now and even traditional catering companies that can bring you plates of food. Now granted, it may not be as customizable as a personal chef would be in your own home or working off of your set desired requirements for what your family needs.
But it's a start, right? It's doable, it's affordable and it may just be worth it if you can get some of those hours back out of the kitchen. Well, that was today's episode of Tweet Trends. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe you're even considering hiring a personal chef.
Maybe not tomorrow for the actual day but maybe you'll start your research now and then consider maybe hiring a personal chef if not for your family for a meal or weeks of meals. Maybe you might want to consider hiring one for a friend as a gift. You know, maybe they've recently been in the hospital or maybe they're sick at home. Maybe it's their birthday and you just kind of want to be like, you know what, you deserve a break today.
Sit down and let somebody else take care of all of that for you. Why not? And you can go look online, group on, you can find them sometimes there depending on your area. There's a website called thumbtack.com, check them out.
And just all sorts of places. If you have a culinary school near you, check them out and see if they have any students that maybe need to get some hours in before they can actually graduate. That's a great way to get somebody to come in and cook for you at a discount. Alright, do me a favor, head on over to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and follow me at hethat.
That's at H-E-Y-E-V-E-T-E or just look for the hashtag Tweet Trends and also be sure to share it, like it, and give me some feedback too, you know. So someone wants to know how she's doing, okay? Alright, have a great weekend and I'll see you guys back here again on Tuesday.