Question regarding vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce: is it worth it to learn how to check them to save money, or just buy the prechecked? My main concern is whether the savings is valuable enough vs. my own time

Ask your LOR if you can buy unchecked if you're blending it in a soup anyway.

You need to calculate how much your time is worth?

My LOR is against it

I'm not sure it's even possible to check broccoli or cauliflower.

Any idea how long it actually takes to check a head of lettuce or a broccoli?

It’s definitely possible according to some shitas, many guys in my kollel check it themselves occasionally

It doesn't take that much time to check them. Star K teaches. I think it boils down to time and patience to do it. It's much easier to buy store bought

My brother in law checks vegetables for the star k and he told me if you don't know how to check you won't really know what to look for. It's basically how comfortable/confident you feel that you can recognize bugs

We used to check broccoli and cauliflower like it says in sefarim, and found bugs every time, so now we buy frozen with a hechsher. Also ask your rov about checking the best you can and then blending, that's how the OK puts blackberries in smoothies.

Re is it kosher? Ask your LOR. Re is it valuable enough - I can only comment on lettuce. It's totally doable. But are you eating enough of these vegetables that checking them makes it worth it? I know it might save me maybe tens of dollars a month, which isn't significant in the long run.

Some people find value in the loving care of checking vegetables for their family, I know I do. - very individual differences in the value of time.