David Priest is an award-winning writer and editor responsible for CNET’s home security.When he’s not waving frantically at the motion sensor or grimacing at the video doorbell, he spends time playing board games and video games with his wife and family.
This story is part of Home Tips, CNET’s collection of practical advice to get the most out of your home, inside and out.
It’s not hard to save money at home — you can try simple tricks like unplugging appliances, shortening the shower, and turning off the lights.But the most consistent approach for me came from an unexpected countertop appliance: the rice cooker.
In 2017, I went to graduate school.My entire family—including my wife, my 18-month-old and my newborn—had to scrape by on a meager stipend and everything I could scrape through part-time freelance work.To make it work, we rented a small apartment, got on SNAP, and got busy eating rice.
But before you point out that rice saves me money – not a rice cooker – let me explain.Rice is hard to cook, and even if you have the perfect rice in hand, it’s inconvenient (even worse if you have two kids and a deadline is looming).All you do with a rice cooker is pour in the rice and the necessary water and hit “cook”.This simple process saves us money because it makes cooking cheap meals more manageable during the busy seasons of life.It can do the same for you.
I bought 20 lb bags of short grain rice from Walmart for about $20.Let’s be conservative and assume there are about 40 cups of rice in each bag.Even though the kids are eating more now, two cups are still enough for four members of my family.So the basic ingredients in a meal for four add up to about $1.
From there, you can add whatever you want.Rice is great in part because it’s a blank slate, an empty canvas that you can splash with your favorite cooking colors.When we’re really strapped for cash, we throw in hard-boiled eggs, soy sauce, and when we can swing, spinach.Today we usually get more creative and add leafy greens, kimchi, gochujang (Korean chili paste), pickled onions and whatever meat we have on hand.
Even our most elaborate dishes are consistently under $5 a bowl, and it’s often meat that runs us over $2 or $3 (if you buy organic).
While comparing the prices of home-cooked meals can be difficult (most of the math is enough to make accountants blush), it’s safe to say that few alternatives outperform a basic rice bowl.And it’s definitely cheaper than a meal delivery service.
Our rice cooker is a bit of a luxury.We paid over $100 for a one-button tiger because it cooks a lot of rice at once, its rice is great, and it cooks very quickly (less than 15 minutes for a few cups).It was a bit pricey at the time, but since then, the convenience of the tiger has kept us in the rice-eating game for years.
I work from home most of the time, which means we can cook more family meals.However, neither the pace of life with children nor the financial pressures in the economy have eased.So the rice cooker is still on our countertops, plugged in almost forever, and eating a fresh pot of rice — or a warm pot from a few hours ago.
For more, check out our tips on how to save money at home and how to reduce your electricity bill.
Post time: Jun-20-2022