I spend $6 per meal if I really go all out with meat and semi premium ingredients. I would have to make a lot of money to justify $25 per meal on a regular basis. On an irregular basis, I'll just go to a restaurant.

I do somewhat enjoy cooking though so that may be the big difference. I also am trying to live a more balanced life after 4 years of college all nighters.

But also look at this way, if his hourly rate is $100 an hour, he just earned $200/hour. His 4 meals cost him $100 so he is $100 up. If he made the meals himself, he might have taken longer to make, for a product that wasn't as good and with a lost opportunity cost. Also he couldn't really make the keto dishes himself.

You're conflating hours actually worked with bankable hours per day, typically 8. If he gets paid for the finished product rather than his time at a desk, then and only then does it make sense.

Seeing as he is running his own projects, I would say he isn't limited to 8 bankable hours a day.

That's a good point, but I'm a bit more contrasted about hourly rates. It's typically (at least for me and what I observe) increasingly hard to maintain a high hourly rate while making more hours, since it implies getting less and less selective with available paying tasks (or having an overwhelming demand, but in which case, one should increase her hourly rate anyway).

In my case, it'd be borderline impossible to transform to just transform 2 hours of leisure/free time into paid work at my standard hourly rate ! (but of course, my life isn't organized for this to begin with).

Well hourly rate is one example. The other is lost opportunity cost. If he was working on his own thing, even though he isn't getting paid for it, it might be the ticket that get's his startup off the ground into a better life.

I totally was, thanks for clearing that up.

$25 a meal is a special occasion for me. That said this does seem pretty boss, having your own chef.