54% of young Americans say food costs are the biggest strain on their finances

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54% of young Americans say food costs are the biggest strain on their finances
cnbc.com
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So you are telling me your food bill is $2-3k/mo ??

Wtf are you buying?

My total food bill is almost a $1000. I'm single and live in a city.

65% of it is groceries. Nothing fancy. It costs me $150 a week for the basics. Veggies, few lbs of meat, dairy etc.

Could I cut back and only eat rice and canned/frozen foods? Yes. But I want to eat good fresh food. I drop about $50 in produce a week alone.

So you spend $400/month on restaurants?

$150 x 4 = $600/month.

That lines up with the '65% of it is groceries' part. 35% of almost $1000 is a bit shy of $350.

That's a lot of take out.

That's eating out like every other day. I eat out maybe every other week.

It's crazy. I'm spending like 500-800 max and I'm not really tryharding. No idea how anybody can spend like 3k and complain about how the whole system is wrong.

they have kids and/or buying prepared foods/takeout

Ngl, just had a kid and I spend less on food because we don't go out as often. It's more of a hassle. And when we do go out we don't get drinks or at least one of us doesn't because we can't take cabs with a baby.

Even with the multiple kid argument, there are economies of scale. You could almost make an argument that it's more justifiable to eat out when you are single since most recipes seem scoped for a family and you might waste more food if you aren't diligent about leftovers

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