You can spend 14¢ and 37¢ on a bun . . . or you can pay $1.50 and feel like you got a good deal on a hot dog.
You can spend $8-12 steak dinner or $40 to have someone cook it for you.
Still buried in monopoly money, Americans are spending more than half their food budgets on having other people cook their food for them and do their dishes.
Americans are spending more money at restaurants than on groceries — and the gap has been widening.
By the numbers: People spent 20.7% more at restaurants than they spent on groceries in 2022 — and that figure rose to 29.5% in the first two months of the year, according to Commerce Department data compiled by JLL.
Put another way, consumers spent about $130 on dining out for every $100 they spent on groceries to start the year.
Restaurants enjoyed another strong month in March, too.
Restaurant spending rose 13% in March, compared with a year earlier, outpacing retail’s overall 2.9% gain, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Sheesh.
It’s almost enough to make a person want to cut back on their $9.00 double frappe, dragonfruit mocha cappuccino latte with swirly cream and make a 25¢ cup of coffee at home.
I am constantly amazed at the ever growing plethora of dining establishments, and the ever-full parking lots around them.
Our culture’s priorities are askew.
I used to joke that I wished I were a smoker. Then I could quit and save a fortune.
Same holds for the dining decisions so many people make. (But apparently they don’t have enough money to pay their school loans, or afford a house, etc.)
We’re a culture of “experience”. Multiple TVs fed by multiple streaming services. Daily lattes. Buy your lunch every day, rather than a bagged one from home. Sporting event tickets. Concert tickets.
Clearly everyone is entitled to make his own spending decisions. I just don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who complain about paying bills after telling me about the great seats they had at the Taylor Swift concert.
My granddad always told me that to afford a frivolous experience or buy a frivolous object, you need at least three times its cash value handy at all times to truly afford it. Otherwise you’re cutting too deep into emergency money.
That’s probably why I’m considered a boring person by people my age. I don’t really do much of anything or spend money beyond necessities.
In my personal line of work what really grinds my gears are people buying high maintenance cars and then bitching about the cost of upkeep and parts.
They could have bought a 2003 Camry that would be reliable, easy to service, and most common failure parts on those cars are dirt cheap, and it would get excellent fuel economy.
Instead they go buy a 1997 Range Rover and seem shocked and throw a fit when their water pump costs 300 dollars.
Could have had a nice Camry, but ya wanted a Range Rover instead. I don’t feel sorry for those people at all. Common sense should apply.
“But it doesn’t look cool and it ain’t got the brand cache.” Bro you’re broker than I am. The fact the car runs and is reliable is all that should matter. But ya know you could just invest a little bit money making it look sick and it’ll still be cheap to work on and reliable. Instead of buying someone’s red headed problem stepchild of a BMW 328i.
I think feminism is the biggest contributor to this. In the last 20 years I can pick on one hand the girls I got with who knew how to cook. The overwhelming majority eat out all the time and if they ever have “home cooked” meals it’s microwave trash like frozen chicken nuggets or Chef Boyardee.
“Cooking is more for ‘pick me’ girls” I’ve heard before.
Self-sufficiency. Necessities. Repair rather replace.
People pay others to pick up their dog’s backyard poops.
We all make choices. I don’t agree with the choices a lot of others make, but it’s their prerogative to make them. I applaud your choices.
Heck. I even distill my own spirits rather than buy them. And when the apocalypse hits, I’ll have a marketable and high-demand product that people will flock to. I’ll consider my customers foolish for wanting a frivolous product in a survival situation, but I’ll be the Starbucks of the day and will gladly take their trade items in exchange.
If the economy crashes many of them will have no choice but to return to traditional roles and look for “good men” to take care of them. After all, many restaurants will close and positions held mainly by women (HR positions, admin roles,etc ) will be the first ones cut.
I was freed 20 years ago. My ex was from another country and was a great cook, but fell into the clutches of the harpies at work and started to think cooking was lame. For economic reasons I picked up the slack until she found an older simp who could afford taking her out to eat all the time. I shook his hand a couple years later and thanked him.
