Gen Z is cooking more and shopping less as they struggle to achieve financial success
https://fortune.com/2023/10/13/gen-z-cutting-spending-dining-out-inflation/Open linkView original on lemmy.world787
Comments180https://fortune.com/2023/10/13/gen-z-cutting-spending-dining-out-inflation/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
I can't wait for the "GenZ are killing the restaurant business!" headlines.
To late us millennials already claimed that. Pretty sure we killed restaurants around the same time we killed movie theaters, trade schools, and domestic beer.
Yeah some places have gotten better and can be a pretty good deal. I'll do olive garden and they give you a salad and bread sticks with your entree, do carry out and have 2-3 meals for about $20 depending on what you get. Just have to have the right expectations.
Domestic beer?! If there is one impressive thing millennials have accomplished so far, it's putting a brewery in every neighborhood of every major city in the western world. Locally brewed beer has been having a really good couple of decades.
Domestic is typically classified as beer like Budwiser and Miller. You're describing craft beer which as you said it's doing great... For IPAs
gonna be honest "domestic" beer deserves to die
Hot take, Coors Light is better than the thousands of IPAs that seemingly occupy 95% of the craft beer market. Also, and maybe this is less controversial, I can get 36 cans of Coors Light for the price of 12 IPAs, and my mouth will be happier with each can of the Coors. Honestly, beer is a rental anyway, why drink IPA when there are Belgian ales, pilsners, and cervezas?
Because I like IPAs more? I'll fully admit that the market is way over saturated with the style, but people do still enjoy them.
I actually don't get the criticism of the generic domestic beers like Budweiser, Coors, Miller, etc. They don't taste bad at all, are actually drinkable, and have a higher ABV than anything outside of a hard cider or an IPA. If someone put a craft IPA and a can of Bud Light in front of me and asked me to pick one, I'd take the Bud every time because at least I will enjoy it more than trying to choke down the bitter craft brew.
As an Australian i support this position. In the US market.
It's the only legal way to kill ourselves and it tastes better than smoking.
As long as you like IPAs
While it’s true that IPAs are most common, there are plenty of choices, especially at this time of year when everyone makes a Marzen, then a pumpkin, then a holiday ale. One of the reasons I like my local brewery is the variety of styles they make
In my fridge right now
I know this - my husband is actually a small batch brewer himself - but IPAs very much dominate the market, which is what i was poking fun at
It's because IPAs are stupid fast to make. As a home brewer I can have an IPA done inside two weeks. That Scotch ale? It's probably close to done and has been sitting for 4 months. And don't even get me started on posters and stouts.
I don’t know if Millennials get credit for that. The legislation allowing it was signed by Jimmy Carter before these kids were born, and us X’ers did a lot more to get the industry established
Well we killed chain restaurants.. Mainly because nobody can afford to waste our money on microwave crap when we can make better food at home
Well yeah, but they'll move on from millennials at some point! Soon everything will be gen z's fault!
Gen z killed " millennials killed" articles
What will the lazy boomer authors do now? Won't someone think of them?
The author of this article, specifically, Chloe Berger, is in her twenties. Maybe early thirties. The youngest Baby Boomers are in their late sixties. They aren't, generally speaking, working anymore. Pretty soon you're gonna have to find a new age group to be your boogeyman. I assume it'll be Gen X.
Fair enough, it's just a stupid take then.
Or maybe I call out Zoomers and make them my boogie man. Yeah, that's what I'll do 😁
Or you could hate people for their actions and not for how old they are. Your call.
If you'd only bought fewer iPhones and avocados you could have bought a 5 bedroom house with 3 garages, a pool and a white picket fence and take a holiday abroad twice a year. You just need more discipline, pull yourself up by the bootstraps*!
*I am now going to research what bootstraps are.
Gen Z discovers the joy of home ownership lol
Gen Z discovers the joy of revolution
unlikely
Too soon
FTFY
Fuck, what about millennials? Those guys been fucked even longer.
Edging up to that 4th "once in a lifetime" economic collapse.
We are no longer the main protagonists :(
Captain Phillips meme,
Millennials: "Look at me. I am the boomer now."
I feel like "Boomer" has lost all genuine meaning and really has just become "anyone over 40." Pretty soon Gen X will be the new Boomers and Gen Z and Gen Alpha will pivot to blindly loathing them and blaming them for climate change and the myriad atrocities of capitalism.
I think it still has meaning. Just not the same meaning it had 10ish years ago. "Boomer" has transcended description of a particular generation and now refers to a general set of real or perceived attitudes and behaviors.
I know you're attempting to explain the usage of the term, not defend it, but for those who are, I feel like that's a slippery slope and that in other contexts reappropriating an otherwise neutral signifier into what is functionally a slur would immediately be identified as unethical. It's like people using "gay" to mean "stupid" or "uncool." And, for anyone outraged at the comparison, no, sexual orientation and a person's age aren't the same thing. But they're both facets of people that are beyond their individual control and ageism is a genuine form of discrimination.
That's because we are starting to fill their spots so they are being careful now.
Calm down, there is plenty of fucking for everyone.
We're just hiding in the shadows silently eating avocado toast hoping the next generation will fix it because I think we broke it more.
This made me laugh.. but then it made me sad.
(And as a gen z who has no f-ing clue what to do, it makes me scared. Is there room for one more in the corner?)
Our groceries cost as much as ordering in food did 5 years ago.
We barely did as it was too expensive, the future needs some drastic adjustment otherwise some bad shit is going to happen.
Bad shit is already happening. How many more wars need to flare up, how many more inches does the sea need to rise, how many more acres of forest need to burn, how many more mass shootings, how many more people need to reach a point where working a full time job isn't enough to cover rent... I could easily go on. This isn't a future thing anymore. This is all happening now.
I know, right? Millennial, here. I eat out more often than I cook. I should probably be doing what the Zoomers are.
I make my own bread now 😭
Ay that's pretty cool! Is it hard? Do you do it for fun, or cause it's cheaper? The crying emoji has be leaning toward the latter, but I thought I'd ask
It was originally for fun but it turned out to be so easy that I just do it now. It's insanely cheap if you buy flour in bulk or get it on sale. I started with an easy recipe called something like "40 minute hamburger buns" and kinda went from there. You can also freeze dough which is nice if I want to make bread for the week but still have it be fresh. I just plop it on the counter and toss it in the oven once it's done defrosting and rising a bit.
If anyone takes anything away from this comment I hope it's that fresh bread is very easy to make and so worth it. If you don't have bread pans just make it into a lump and bake up a bread round or smaller lumps for rolls. If you don't have yeast but you do have flour you can make a starter out of it that'll replace yeast in recipes. It takes a bit but you can keep it alive forever by just giving it more flour and your bread will eventually develop its own unique flavor.
Bread is such an accessible and forgiving food that anyone can learn to make. I don't know how it got a reputation for being difficult to make in the first place. Kneading kinda sucks but it's just a few minutes out of the day and you get bread!
Millennials are still struggling. It's just that this article wasn't about us.
On the bright side I can make pizza from scratch and meal prep virtually guarantees I get the macros I need for the gym.
Yeah, I'm doing better off than most of the people I knew growing up, but I too have been looking at buying the cheapest of everything.
Great Value brand is getting the majority of my purchases these day. Just looked at my cabinet shelf, 18 GV brand items, 2 others (maruchan, rice a roni).
Also cut back on any drinks that don't come out of my faucet (excluding coffee grounds and milk for the coffee).
Media being out of touch with reality while being bootlickers of the wealthy will never stop being funny.
They are owned by the wealthy.
demand better kitchens and kitchen storage in rentals.
it is a fucking joke out here
You guys got rentals?
wtf, financial success?
Not sure i know what that is, but it seems a pretty depressing goal to have.
Could be worse though.
Should be "financial security" imo.
The prospect of not even being able to afford a "cheap" roof over my head scares me regularly.
Now you know why the boomers raise the rent to the point where it makes everyone but themselves miserable. They consider it financial success, where normal people consider it ruthless exploitation.
Better to talk about how they shaped zoning laws and other procedural matters to block the development of new housing for decades and decades.
Sure, the market price of housing is disgustingly high and you can say that it's exploitative to actually charge it, but a much better question is to ask why the market price of housing got so high to begin with, because the answer to that is more complicated than landlords just asking for as much as they can get. They've always done that, so why as has that ceiling price exploded so much in recent decades? That's where you can start to find actual solutions.
Okay, but did something happen that suddenly made people become more greedy? Are people in West Virginia simply not greedy? Did NYC landlords have a brief change of heart in 2020 when they allowed prices to fall, only to suddenly rediscover greed in 2022?
Again, how did it come to pass that shelter became a commodity? What things changed that resulted in it becoming a productive investment?
Greed isn't a useful explanation because people have always been greedy and always will be.
did the US have more rent controlled areas in central business districts - i guess that would vary by state/county/city?
In the UK there was a lot more rent controls in 40s-60s ish (then varying a bit over 70s) but basically was abolished entirely in the (mid-late) 1980s.
Cooking is expensive now too. I'm paying pre-covid eating out prices to cook food at home, and I shop cheap. $80/week if I really hit some savings to feed just myself.
i just started trapping and gathering in the city
Is this a joke? It's hard to tell these days
Are you in Canada or the US? I moved from Canada (Toronto) to Germany, and it's night and day how much less I spend on groceries.
I went from shopping at No Frills in Canda to Lidl/Aldi in Germany, and I spend half as much as I used to. At least in Canada, it's really disappointing to see how Loblaws has managed to get away with so much price gouging.
I'm in the US.
See if you have an Aldi near you. They are the cheapest grocery store I've been to in the US. I cook/prep 3 meals a day for only ~$40/week.
Problem with Aldi is all their produce sucks.
Shit goes back in like 2 days.
Yes please all come here and ruin the prices further /s
Prices increased over the last year or so justified by energy prices but in reality it is the profit margins of the supermarkets. Thanks for the inflation Aldi!
I just got back from vacation there and yeah groceries in Germany are like half price of Canada. And salaries are higher too.
Yep part of why I'm moving to Germany next year is the cost of living is so much more reasonable. Groceries costed me just around $25/wk when I was studying abroad. Can't beat that.
Aren’t we all? The price of everything has gone up the past few years.
Sometimes I have to go to the fucking food bank- I guess you could say I'm shopping less
I guess that is kinda like shopping but sad?
With all the food bank demand I wonder when companies will try and get in on it (like walmart and thrift stores)? Maybe they will make you watch ads while waiting in line? (For you to spend your non existent money on?)
don't give them ideas man
We call it microshopping.
If you watch this ad and click on which of these images looks like a semaphore you get 100 grams of rice!
Quality boring dystopia material
Cooking helps you save money, eat better, and can be entertaining. I've started to really get into recently.
Yeah I feel like the headline is intentionally bait-y here.
Eating out adds up fast, and if you're on a limited budget, of course you're going to start cooking more. Even if we're generous with the word "cooking" to include things like cereal and sandwiches. And of course you're going to reevaluate your shopping when money is tight. Lock down to the essentials to stretch that paycheck.
The people who complain about their finances while simultaneously eating out 3x a day and buying shit they don't need are digging their own holes. Spend the money on shit you DO need and save the rest.
Peanut butter and banana sandwiches have become a staple for me over the last couple years. So long ordering out every day. I hate cooking.
Same. I tried doing the meal kit things to make it a bit less painful but I just really really hate every part of cooking. I’d rather do dishes for an hour every day than cook.
Sounds like y’all want one pot, sheet pan, or dump meals. Those meal kits give you a bunch of cooking to do so you don’t feel like you wasted your money. Cooking everything at once does restrict you somewhat, but not as much as just eating sandwiches.
I hate cooking too... The secret is, you don't actually have to put in love or care to achieve a good result.
You just have to optimize
My boomer mother only knew how to heat up frozen foods or follow the directions on the box, so what really helped me learn to cook was Good Eats. Watch it and make the food. Many of the recipes were retooled by Alton Brown and are on his website for free (with no annoying monologues before each recipe). The rest are on Food Network’s site.
It's better for the planet too.
Not the way I cook. Can I interest any of y'all in some exhaust pipe s'mores?
Mmmmm, I can really taste the rich fuel-air mix. The 91 octane is divine.
Also: It's smth to do during small parties, hanging out with friends, dates et cetera.
Roses are red, Violets are blue, Our future ist burning, I am serious look at that shit.
You're learning the skills that none of the humans with the steering wheels can seem to muster - like sticking to a budget.
Now, the questions are:
Wdym by steering wheel?
People in power. They die. You'll inherit it.
Ah thanks
That's not a bad thing, actually I'd call that a success minus the financial struggles.
I dunno. I read it as "Gen Z is poor" and it pisses me off because its true. It seems like a trend where the rich get richer and the rest of us get just enough to scrape by so we'll show up to work.
That's obviously what they are trying to get across but they affiliate it with something that isn't bad at all and people should be doing either way, financially stable or not. It's kind of a weird argument to say that Gen Z are poor, because it might also mean that they are just consuming more consciously by cooking themselves. There's clearly ways of telling they are poor without this ambiguity.
You will own nothing and be happy
We'll rent you anything you need!
That's the goal, and poor people are proud to support the wealthy in achieving it.
GenX here, sounds like me a few decades ago, counting the pennies and balancing everything, and not completely succeeding.
Also Gen X and what we had was hard compared to the Boomers but what Millenials and Gen Z have is far worse. This really is apples and oranges going on here.
Another Gen X here, yes, you are right, although being a Gen-Xer in the third world is/was not at all easy, even compared to millennials and Gen Z in the first world.
In any case, the title says "financial success" where it should read "survival skills".
So.. Just keep at it and it will work out? House, spouse, dog, picket fence and all that?
Sorry bud, looks like they ran out of internet. o7
For many it will. Incomes are increasing in real terms and unemployment remains at historic lows. We also just came through a decade of historically low rates which allowed generations of people to buy expensive homes.
Unfortunately those low rates, the neoliberal practise of high immigration, and NIMBY zoning laws have led to historically expensive housing and rent. Instead of war, that is this generation’s biggest challenge.
Millennial living that life right now. Assuming I stay on track, I might be able to buy a house when I'm in my 40's and literally work until the day I die.
Just save gold and silver, and wait for the market to collapse, then trade it for houses. So many houses. So much gold and silver.
Same here. The struggle was real.
I'm not sure who the article is referring to, but pretty much every Gen Z person I know lives at home with their parents. So not really a strong point being made here. Oh, it's fortune. That explains it.
From experience, fully 75% or more of what comes out on Fortune is bootlicking in disguise of journalism.
Gen Z is as old as like 26. There are plenty living on their own.
I'm 26 and I've been living on my own for 4 or 5 years now. I'm poor as shit and can't get ahead on debt, I wish I had the opportunity to live at home because I'm going nowhere right now and I'm making what would be considered a decent amount of money for my age and position. Shit is miserable.
I’m not much older than you and I feel you. I actually make 6 figures which I thought would make me very comfortable, but I incurred a lot of debt in the pursuit of making this much money which has been strangling me up the ladder for years. The cost of food, gas, and housing has been rising just as fast as my salary without any lifestyle changes except to accommodate my job, so paying down the debt only gets harder. I remember years ago making hardly any money daydreaming about finishing school and getting established in my career and finally having money, but honest to god man I’m probably more broke now than I was then.So theoretically, I make very good money but I won’t actually get to keep any of it for like another 10 years at this rate.
If I could move back in with my parents for like… a year or two I would be so golden lol.
Almost all of my 26-and-under co-workers are living at home. Not everyone immediately moves out at 18, and with the sky high housing cost in this area I wouldn't even say 'most'. Even for university, some of these co-workers have degrees but still live at home.
I always assumed cooking was the default.
I grew up in a household that did not cook. It wasn’t always takeout or junk food but “cooking” was grilled cheese and Kraft dinner etc. I loathe cooking.
I often wish I had a healthier (physically and mentally) upbringing that included cooking as a fun activity. Maybe I’d feel different about it.
I don't know of many doing day-to-day cooking for "fun". Its a bother. However, if you're okay without requiring gourmet meals, its not too bad. There are shortcuts.
Pulled pork is one of the easiest, cheapest, and tastiest meals you can make.
Ingredients:
3lbs (or 1.3Kg) Pork - any of these cuts is fine, buy what's cheap:
Buns
Green beans (can is fine to begin/fast, frozen when you want to up your game)
Bottle of BBQ sauce
Instructions:
Empty your can of green beans in a Microwave safe dish and put it on high for 2.5 minutes or until they're hot. Green beans in the can are already cooked when canned, so they're safe to eat at any temperature.
Get a bun, pull out some wonderful pulled pork on it, add some more of the BBQ sauce from your bottle. You've got a protein, a veg, and a starch.
That 3lbs will feed you for almost a week. You can freeze some on day two or three for meals for future weeks.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out for a complete stranger. I’m gonna give it a go!
You’re a good human.
Amazing, that's an excellent comment. Hold up are there rewards on lemmy? I wish we could label a comment as "good comment" like a wordpress l Wikipedia article.
You can do this with beef or chicken too.
Did you miss the instruction to put half a bottle of BBQ sauce on it, and the other instruction to cook it for a total of 6 hours?
Yep, my bad.
No worries! Have a great day!
Not two, six hours!
if it makes you feel better I was raised in a house where my mom cooked. But she was not real great about it. Actually she could make some great stuff on holidays so more limited budget combined with limited effort really. Im not sure she liked to cook really but she pretty much had to. Typical week was chili, spagehetti, chilimac, shakeNbake leg quarters, macNcheese. Anyway Im not a very good cook. I don't necessarily loathe it, but im not good. Particularly at seasoning. that is the tough part. I can bake decently. Usually that is just following the recipe exactly and can grill decently.
You just listed my comfort foods.
All 3 of our kids that are still at home can cook well & we take turns doing it throughout the week. Been 6 months so far & it's working out great.
Cooking lets you off dish duty for the evening, too :D
The reason for this is bad but the end result is good. Let's hope these habits stick around once people are in a better spot.
I wouldn't get your hopes too high.
In the wake of the 2008 crisis, many people stopped buying huge gas-guzzling automobiles and started buying smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles.
Sure enough, as things recovered, people bounced right back to the SUVs.
Small vehicles aren't sold in the US anymore.
Just like small phones
Largely because there is such little demand for them relative to huge vehicles.
How else will Bob and Beth show off how deeply serious they are as people without a massive truck and SUV that they actually use for their intended non-urban purpose maybe once a year?
That simply isn't true. We have laws in the US that dictate fuel economy relative to the size of the vehicle. Car manufacturers realized that they could make bigger vehicles rather than make them more fuel efficient. That's the real reason our cars are so bloated
Also those fuel efficient vehicles got more expensive to make up for sales.
I think i saw someone say in the US a "commercial small truck" is exempt from various regulations (efficiency /pollution or something ) that apply to "cars", so end up more expensive for that too.
This is true; "light truck" is the classification.
Basically, it would have been annoying and more expensive for car manufacturers to meet the standards, so they just started producing and promoting a bunch of vehicles like SUVs that technically classify as light trucks and thus are exempt from them. American consumers are American and thus love dumb big things for the sake of being big, so that was a pretty good gamble.
Yes, there are loopholes for “commercial vehicles” that aren’t regulated as strictly, which is why pickups keep getting bigger and have such bad efficiency
It also creates weird counter-incentives, like no small/mid pickups. Manufacturers don’t want to build small to mid sized pickups because they would be subject to more stringent efficiency, emissions , and safety regulations, whereas large ones are not
Maverick, probably. Comes in FWD hybrid. Love mine.
Fuck personal transport all my homies hate personal transport
I'd love a personal teleporter though
@return2ozma
Or some just like cooking and don't give a damn about consumerism?
I'm not exactly struggling with finances. I cook all my food because I like to and have time. I hardly buy stuff because I unbrainwashed myself from consumerism.
Half the reason I semi-retired in my 30s is because I need little to satisfy me after de-bloating my mind.
I have a baby son and a wife and plenty of time to spend with them.
All of the people I know who have more money than me do not have any of this.
I think Vijay is sharing some really important insights that are lost on many in this era of ubiquitous advertising, subscription services, and increasing groupthink: be more buy less, especially if you need to conserve spending and/or save money
Vijay is sharing some really important insights on how to be insufferable.
Ad hominem
@streetfestival @the_q I'm glad you get it. I love "be more buy less"!
Many of us don't need nearly as much as we think we do. It takes a bit of growth & calming down tho, which is hard to do with all the noise
Media hypes us on the "cost of living crisis" and while I agree basic needs price goes up which sucks, but half the problem is really a "cost of confirming crisis". That is, wanting to live in a very specific and often sub-optimal way just to be at least "on par" with everyone else.
And I love "cost of conforming"! Unfortunately, it isn't easy figuring out that status/material crap doesn't equal self-esteem in this world
For fucks sake look at their profile banner, second coming of jesus type shit. What a wanker.
I see someone who values spiritual growth and isn't ashamed of presenting that to the world. I don't see someone who thinks of themselves as a messiah. They appear to be someone I'd enjoy having a chat with. You seem quite anger prone right now
@the_q Oh don't get me started flexing on how I sleep on the floor and no longer own a car
Oh yeah? Well I don't even have a floor
I like making homemade chicken bowls. They were originally meant to be cheaper alternatives, but KFC food quality is kinda shit sometimes, so at this point I outright prefer my own version. Mine also has shrimp since they take about the same time to cook as the chicken, so I mix throw that in.
Just frozen corn at the bottom (well, heat it up, just follow the instructions on the bag, I usually just stick frozen veggies on the microwave with a bit of water for 3 mins).
Then the breaded shrimp or some popcorn chicken pieces on the bottom with the corn.
Then mashed potatoes. Instant or ones made from actually smashing potatoes work (for real ones, just peel some potatoes and cut them up into smallish chunks and boil them for about 10 minutes, then drain the water, add some milk and butter (or dairy free alternatives). About 1 tbsp of butter, I like to do the milk by ear, starting with too little and adding more until the moisture is about right. Also add salt or it'll taste like it's missing something. Taste it for both milk (moisture level rather than flavour) and salt (flavour for this one) to get it right. You can add oregano or chives, or any green seasoning to enhance it without changing the flavour profile entirely. Or if you want to change it entirely, go with curry powder, Cajun, or some other spice blend (not sure that would work with chicken bowl, but it doesn't hurt to experiment).
Then more chicken on the top, shredded cheese, and gravy (I use envelope gravy, pretty quick and easy to make, just follow the directions). Add paprika or cayenne for colour/heat.
Maybe it's just me, but the envelopes on my desk don't look particularly tasty. (I assume this means something else, heh)
You'd be surprised at how well they turn out when combined with meat juices and water! Actually, I wonder if you could use ground up paper (like dust) to replace flour and make gravy.
But I meant the dried up gravy solids you mix with water and heat up that comes in envelopes at the grocery store.
The title of this article reads lile a dr seuss book
Where are they getting their ingridients from to cook if they shop less? Or do they just eat less? Is this about starvation?
From personal experience:
Store brands
Self-checkout ("shopping less" on record)
Not buying avocado that ripens in 3.23 days and goes bad in 3.56 days. You're on time out, avocado.
Careful with the self check shenanigans, especially at Target. They wait to let you know they know until you reach felony price totals and then have you arrested. https://www.paypath.com/Small-Business/why-target-is-the-worst-store-to-shoplift-from
Damn morality of shoplifting aside that should qualify as entrapment or something. At that point it's not about loss prevention, it's just petty revenge.
The cops where I live, a couple of times a year have a full on bike thief entrapment fest. It's disgusting. They get a bike that's worth a felonious amount of money (IDK, $1K?) and leave it UNLOCKED in an area where bikes have been reported stolen over the past few months. Then they hide out and arrest 100% homeless people who take it for a spin. Then they fucking brag about it in their fucking email newsletter that you can't fucking opt of unless you don't want important alerts about like, wildfires approaching residential areas and which evacuation site you've been assigned to. It will be 10 to 20 people each time, they list their full name, age, the fact that they are "a transient" and any other charges they got them on at the time, like paraphernalia possession. A fucking CAB. Fuck. FUCK.
You know what would stop these people stealing bikes better than this bullshit? SERVICES. This rich ass county can more than afford to care for our destitute human beings, who, by the way, are not the ones out there with bolt cutters and lock picks stealing your bike while you're at work. Those people know better than to fall for the bicycle honey pot trap.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
That's a solid take on avocado.
You shop less when you buy whole ingredients and make sizeable batches than when you buy pre-made food. They're shopping more efficiently.
Beans, bread, rice and noodles are cheap af
I'm sorry but this is just a failure on your part. There will never be a product that requires processing that is cheaper than the raw ingredients to make it.
Ramen noodles are literally just flour, salt, and baking soda. 99grams of flour is enough to make noodles for 4 people. So, buying 10lb bag of flour for $10 means your ramen noodles come out to $0.06 per serving. Please, show me any premade ramen noodles that cost less than $0.06.
That sucks man. In Germany the basic food quality is fine and food staples are quite cheap here.
Those are good noodles, a few ingredients and you spruce them up to be a real ramen dish.
Maybe if you're considering buying a single meal at a restaurant vs the cost of buying packages of ingredients at the grocery store which would net you many meals. But I don't think there's a single place on Earth where grocery store food is more expensive than the equivalent restaurant serving.
Canada
Where do you leave? What if you buy family packs and mealprep and freeze?
That's the key phrase in their post. They simply don't want to, so they've come up with excuses to justify that stance. Raw ingredients are always cheaper, but you have to put effort in to see the savings, they don't want to.
There is more upfront cost in acquiring some stuff, and that has to be amortized over many meals. Some spices are just... expensive if you're not using the whole container, so if the recipe calls for a pinch of something that's $7 for a one-time use, it gets pretty crazy pretty quick. Not that I went through this very recently.
I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend about 7 months ago and we had the same problem. Cooking everything ourselves was causing our grocery budget to balloon out of control because we had nothing in the pantry, no spices, no oil, no sauces, nothing. So every new dish was an extra upfront cost that would really only get used one time and then go back in the cabinet.
After about 3 months, it somewhat stabilized now that we have all the staples and it is cheaper to buy raw and cook ourselves, especially if you buy in bulk and freeze leftovers.
You can also soften the financial blow by eating more simply with less spices and fats, but that's definitely a tough pill to swallow for many.
You are absolutely right. Getting started is hard, and I think your point is similar to the Boots Theory. Luckily, the savings that can be had by buying basic staples and eating simply will compound and can be rolled forward into the next grocery trip where you can buy a spice or two.
Unseasoned rice, beans, or pasta is not anyone's ideal meal, but if you're truly in such dire straits that you cannot afford a spice, then the only way to move up is to buy as much bulk staples as you can on each grocery trip. Eventually you'll have enough of the basics that you can skip buying any staples and start buying spices.
Another issue many people have is just buying name-brand, or shopping at convenience-oriented stores. If you shop around, you can often find really good deals. I've also found that shopping at ethnic stores is really good for deals on bulk staples like rice and beans.
Calorie per cost isn't a useful measure unless you're a livestock animal. Heavily processed bullshit with more calories will leave you hungry in much less time than a well prepared meal with lots of unprocessed fiber.
I get that, and I had a similar problem when I was first living on my own. I specifically remember deciding to make lasagna from scratch, and when I went to the store to buy the ingredients, it came out to over $50 for one dish (this was probably 10 years ago too, so maybe more like $75 today).
These days I could make a very similar lasagna for about $15, and that would be enough for dinners for entire week or more. It's definitely not easy, but if you shop around I'm sure you can make it work. There are also a lot of online communities devoted to this very topic. Reddit had r/eatcheaplyandhealthy. Maybe you could start the same community here on Lemmy.
By family pack I mean if you buy more for less price per kilogram (or ounces IDK what you use).
Usually when I buy chicken for example even if it's just me, I buy 2kg (4.40 Ounces), I cut out what I need for the day and the rest get frozen. Same for some vegetables. Then for shelf stable stuff I always overbuy as well. For example I use a lot of oregano and I bought the dried plant 2 years ago and I'm almost finished with it (it costed 5€, the usual 10g spice cost like 1.50€ and it last me a couple of months)
Why is this a headline? It's just called living within your means. Smart people have been doing this forever, it's nothing news worthy.
And they’re doing it cheerfully, I’m led to believe. Images don’t lie. Look how happy they are.
I never go out to eat anymore. Not worth the drive and everything is ridiculously overpriced.
Walmart+ has been a blessing because I can get groceries delivered to my house same-day.
I think restaurants are just taking more advantage of an ever-shrinking pool of idiots.
I'm in a dual income houshold, in a single bed/single bath apartment that, 5 or 6 years ago, would have run for about $600/month. Now it costs us $1200 (this is in Canada where the housing market is in complete and utter shambles, only getting worse and heading for a complete fiery crash).
At this rate, I will never be able to afford a mortgage. Let alone a mortgage and car payments, let alone all that plus food, utilities, or any liesure activities to, y'know, give me and my girl any sort of quality of life. No wonder we eat Kraft mac n cheese and hot dogs instead of hitting the town on friday nights.
Good. They're finally learning that sending all your earnings to UberEats middlemen isn't a sustainable way to live.