If you enjoy it, that's something that has value. The point of earning money is to buy things you enjoy with it. There's nothing wrong with forgoing income to acquire something you enjoy rather than spending income on something you enjoy.

Even from a theoretical microeconomics viewpoint, that's an entirely rational decision. Homo economicus maximizes utility, not money.

Well you don't have to coldly optimise for personal finance, you can accept that you hate that, don't want to do it, while still recognising it's net financial advantage: the difference is just the price (opportunity cost) you pay for not living in an optional but undesirable manner.

You actually can justify cooking your own meals if you are preparing them in bulk.

If you cook several meals in one session, the average time per meal is much lower, and becomes faster than spending time to scroll through an app placing an order for a meal every time you want to eat.

I like the idea of bulk cooking in theory but I’ve found that in a small apartment kitchen the sweet spot for everything from pots to storage containers is 2-4 portions. Going over that gets awkward in juggling storage containers, excessive cleaning time pretty quickly.

Probably need a bigger apartment. Small studio-like apartments are mostly a place for people to lay their head down to rest before going back out into a city to live the rest of their daily life. Not really a place where one could hunker down for extended periods of time.

Its a 1br, but I couldn’t agree more. Getting out soon.