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You’ve just come back from work. You’ve spent the last 1 hour commuting back and are tired. Being a working professional with 2 kids, it is hard to take the time out and think of making healthy meals. You barely have a minute to yourself and on top of that you have to worry about making not just a healthy meal for the kids - but they also have to look good and taste delicious - or you worry that they might not want to eat. You had good intentions of creating a meal plan and even made a shopping list during your lunch break for dinner that evening. Then your boss calls you into an emergency lunch meeting. So what do you do? You’re forced to order from a food delivery service yet again. At the back of your mind you worry how fresh those ingredients were. You tell yourself it’s going to be different tomorrow.

You’ve thought of getting help, maybe hiring a personal chef but everyone says they are too expensive and you can’t afford them. That is definitely not an option. Or can it be?

Hmmmm, maybe, I am not so sure….

How valuable is your time? Maintaining a full-time job and a family with two kids is hard work and stressful. Do you really have the time to manage the meal prepping and preparation of food each day? Most likely not. Let’s also not forget about the cleaning of the dishes after cooking. Suddenly your “plate” is full.

A personal chef frees up your time. So you can spend it doing activities that you like best - whether it’s spending time with your family, or using it to go to the gym or perhaps simply to sit back and relax and enjoy a glass of wine after a long day.

Hiring a personal chef enables you to do more with your time. A personal chef preps, cooks, plates, cleans and if there are leftovers they pack it in your containers. We understand the “What’s for dinner” question you face each day. We work with individuals, families, busy professionals and seniors who are stressed whether they should use their time to cook or do the activity they have been meaning to for some time now.

People often spend over $200 on groceries ($800 a month or more) and often find the fresh groceries they had once bought, spoiled and rotting away in the corner of their fridge.

Okay, you have my attention. So what are the benefits of hiring a chef?

1. Save Money - Hiring a chef is much more cost effective than going out to eat - where you end up spending money on parking, the time to travel, the time for the food to get ready where you’re still sitting around and waiting. Maybe it’s a date night and you also have to spend money for a babysitter. Toronto is expensive and going out to eat at a good restaurant for a healthy and delicious meal can put quite a dent in your wallet. How about some actual figures?
   
   2 servings of shrimp scampi at a restaurant: $60
   Babysitter rate per hour $18 x 3/hr: $54
   2 glasses of wine: $20
   20% tip on $80: $16
   Parking per hour $4.50 x 2/hr: $9
   Total for 2 people: $159
   
   A Personal Chef on the other hand could feed a family of 4 in the comfort of their home for half that price. The cost really adds up when you put off hiring a personal chef!
   
   On average, the cost of a personal chef prepared dinner is $15 to $20 per portion, multiplied by a family of 4 totals to about $80. How about them apples?
   
2. Save Time - Making meals really is a four step process - Prepping, cooking, plating and cleaning. And that is time consuming - it easily takes 1.5 - 2 hours each day for most people. Chefs help make fresh, healthy and delicious meals quickly. They take the stress out of the entire process so you get more time for yourself and your family.
   
3. Convenience - A hard decision at the end really is answering “what do you cook”? What is healthy, delicious and not boring? With a personal chef, you don’t have to worry about planning and cooking. The pace of our lives keeps on getting faster with each passing day. Hiring a personal chef is not just conducive but makes us more productive.
   
4. Host a dinner party by hiring a chef - It can be exhausting and tiring to host a dinner party. You barely get time to spend time with your guests because you’re running around the kitchen and trying to not burn the food. It can be downright intimidating. When you hire a personal chef, you can execute a dinner like a dream. Forget about slogging it out in the kitchen and have a grand time with your friends and family. Can it be more exquisite and brilliant? It is quite the show having a chef come and cook for you.
   
5. Learn new techniques - Pick up a new technique or two and learn the secrets of the trade that a chef employs.
   
6. Special gift - We all notice when the people close to us are busy and stressed. Surprise your friends and family by gifting them the service of a personal chef.

But what about meal prep packages?

Meal prep packages can definitely be an option for you. The down side to these packages is that they still require you to cook for close to 30 minutes or more, and you are still left with cleaning up the utensils afterwards. All that services like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and Chefsplate do is provide you ingredients that they have cut up for a premium price. These services require you to cook all the ingredients yourself. Yumba sends you pre-cooked dishes that you have to heat up. But can you tell how fresh really are the ingredients? How many times has the oil been reused that they used to caramelize the onions or cook your food?

Meal packages can feel like a home cooked meal. The main question really boils down to how much time and money are you really saving? They are not low cost options themselves. You could be buying a whole lot more groceries if you went shopping yourself. Is it really worth it to pay a premium for a company to only sell you pre-prepped cut up groceries? A restaurant here would be easier because you don’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning up but it is for sure expensive and time consuming still - given that you’ll still have to drive, park and also wait for your food to get made, and then make the commute back home.

Finally, there is a price to be paid for the environment. The packaging that is required of these meal packages is often excessive.

At Getchefnow, we understand the value of your time. And we want you to do more with it. The way we enable you to do this, is by making it easy and affordable to hire your own personal chef. Here, we understand the challenges that you face when making meals. Our goal is to make home-cooked meals easy and delightful again for you and your family. At Getchefnow, we make it easy and affordable for you to hire a chef. Go ahead and take back your evenings!