Eating out every day getting too expensive, how do you all cut food costs?

Supermarket rotisserie chicken plus microwave rice plus a packet of pre-washed veg is my lazy-but-cheap combo, fast, filling, and it's basically no real cooking, which is the whole appeal for someone who finds cooking a hassle. One roast chicken stretches over two or three meals if you're single. And the biggest silent leak nobody counts, drinks, plain water instead of the daily kopi, teh or bubble tea, because those add up to well over a hundred a month on their own without you noticing. Fix the drinks habit and the lazy chicken-and-rice dinners and you've cut a big slice off the bill while still eating like a normal person, not surviving on Maggi.

Batch cook on Sunday, portion into containers, and just microwave on weekdays, it sounds like tok kong effort but it's genuinely only about two hours for the whole week and it saves me a real chunk of money. I'm single and lazy too, so I keep it stupidly simple, one big pot of something, curry, stew, or a stir-fry with rice, split into five containers. Even if you only replace your dinners this way and still eat out for lunch, you've cut a third of your food spend right there without touching instant noodles. The mental trick is deciding you cook once, not seven times, because the daily 'ugh cook again' feeling is what pushes everyone back to the cai png queue.

Choose your cai png stall wisely, because the price difference between a CBD stall and a heartland one for the exact same three items is honestly crazy, sometimes a couple of dollars a plate, which over a month is a lot. The same 'two veg one meat' near the office towers can cost noticeably more than in a neighbourhood coffeeshop. Also watch the meat specifically, that one meat dish is usually what jumps your plate price, especially if it's a 'premium' item like fish or a big piece of chicken. My budget combo is two veg and one egg, filling, cheap, and the egg still gives you protein. Small choices at the stall counter add up faster than people realise.

Cai png is a trap because 'three veg one meat' quietly became 5-6 bucks. What actually cut my spend without misery: 1) cook rice in bulk (rice cooker, 3-4 portions) and only cook 1 fresh dish, batch-cooking is the cheat code for solo living, 2) go for economical stalls near industrial/heartland areas, not CBD, 3) two-veg-one-meat + eat more at home dinner, 4) buy a whole cooked chicken from the supermarket, stretches over 2-3 meals, 5) drink water not the 2-buck drink every time (adds up to 60/month). I went from ~600 to ~380/month just by cooking rice + one dish at home for dinners. You don't need to become a chef, just stop paying the eating-out premium three times a day.