Renovation cost calculator
What takeaway costs
while your kitchen is out.
Set your household size, how many weeks you'll be without a kitchen, and how you plan to eat. Get the honest total for the weeks the kitchen is gone.
Three inputs
Your household, your weeks, your eating style.
Everything updates as you change the inputs. Rates come from ABS household expenditure data adjusted for Melbourne café and takeaway prices.
Eating out
— to —
How it's calculated
Per-person, per-week rates by eating style.
Per-person weekly rates
Low-to-high range for a Melbourne adult replacing every meal at the cost tier shown. Children count as one person but at a lower realistic spend, so households with kids typically land near the lower end of the range.
- Mostly takeaway & cafés $275 – $425 / wk
- Mixed strategy $165 – $275 / wk
- Microwave & barbecue $90 – $155 / wk
What's not in either figure
Neither number counts the time cost — nightly takeaway runs, extra grocery trips, missed home-cooked meals, the impact on kids' routines. Neither counts the mess of trying to cook with no benchtop. Both are floors, not ceilings.
- Excluded Time & effort
- Excluded Routine disruption
- Excluded Renovation running long
Rate sources: ABS Household Expenditure Survey averages — abs.gov.au — adjusted for meals-replaced-out and Melbourne 2026 café/takeaway pricing.
Common questions
What the number covers, and what it doesn't.
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What counts as "eating out"?
Anything you buy prepared — cafés, takeaway, delivery, pub meals, prepared supermarket meals reheated in a microwave. The calculator assumes you're replacing every meal you'd normally cook, because with no kitchen you are.
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What if I have a microwave and a barbecue?
Choose the "microwave and barbecue" style. That style assumes weekly shopping runs, breakfast at home (cereal, toast in a toaster, coffee), lunch made from what fits in a bar fridge, and a mix of barbecue dinners and one or two takeaway meals a week. It requires a workable bench somewhere — laundry, garage or spare room — and someone in the house who will actually keep to it.
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Doesn't takeaway feel cheaper because it's spread out?
That's the argument for the calculator. A $30 dinner four nights a week feels manageable; $840 a month feels like a lot. The math is the same. Grouping the weeks makes the total honest, and it's the honest total that compares to a kitchen hire.
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What about a young family with no takeaway habit?
Set household size and pick 'microwave and barbecue' — you'll get the lowest realistic figure. Even at that end, six weeks of buying prepared food and lunch supplies with no proper cooking usually clears $2,000 for a family of four. Add the impact on schedule (nobody cooking, more grocery trips) and the working-kitchen argument gets stronger, not weaker.
Lock in the kitchen weeks.
Popular weeks book six to eight weeks ahead. Send dates and address and you'll have a firm quote the same day.