But this wasn’t the whole story, since this didn’t take into account the value of my time. Or, as economists like to say, the “opportunity cost.” I was spending time prepping food—fifteen, thirty minutes a day, usually early in the morning. I could have spent it doing something else (say, writing my first book more quickly, or writing more papers). This time had real value, and we couldn’t ignore it in the calculation. Once we factored this in, the meal kit seemed like a great deal, and even take-out started to sound appealing. The dollar difference was small, and the cost of my time more than
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