- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
I like food.
One could even say it is fulfilling to me.Ah yes buying groceries is trendy. Surely it will fade into obscurity soon as people stop this whole buying food trend. Who is this propaganda piece even for?
The firm asked over 4,000 people, from baby boomers to Gen Zers, about the categories they intend to splurge on this year. Groceries ranked highest for millennials and Gen Zers, outpacing restaurants, bars, travel, beauty and personal care, apparel, and fitness.
Yeah I mean, we can’t afford any of those listed, we just have enough to EAT, crazy right ?
No that cant be true. Every media outlet says workers are making hand over fist right now and the economy has never been better.
The average economy is going great, but that number is heavily skewed by a small number of big earners. The median economy, what reflects the income of most households, went down.
Funnily enough, median income actually went up quite a bit here in Romania over the last year. Mainly because of successful union action.
I mean, the economy has been doing great if you look at a purely wall-street perspective. The problem is, that doesn’t translate into shit for the average person. Corporate/stock profits != individual financial health.
Objectively the health of the US economy is pretty great now. All the B2B indicators are green, Velocity of Money finally bounced back, etc.
Unfortunately, the health of the economy is divorced from the health of the US laborer… but for those that own business, they are pleased.
(I always thought how funny it would be if they all took the republican advice of “pull up your boot straps and start a small business”. The labor force would evaporate, and it would all be small independent contractors that will take you to small claims if they need to…)
This is really doing my head in. Democrats keep touting how good the economy is, and while the IRA and infrastructure bill were definitely good, the lived experience of your average voter isn’t that they’re doing so much better. Inflation has gone back to normal levels, but that doesn’t mean that prices went back to how they were, it just means prices aren’t going up as much as before.
New sandwich place opened up down my block. Everyone by me was praising it. Went in last weekend, 3 sandwiches and 2 drinks. A bit over $50 dollars. Yeah not going that again. Only two years ago that would have been half the price.
Yep, going out for brunch or whatever else we used to do just a few years ago has become ridiculously expensive. And no, my wage hasn’t gone up enough to compensate for that.
I mean, isn’t it normal to spend more on groceries than these other things on a yearly basis?
Like it’s the one thing you pretty consistently need.
With that being said, I find it so annoying how frequently we need to eat.
Like every 6 hours you need a full meal?
How time consuming.
I guess my real problem is how busy I need to be to survive.
The typical American household would need to spend $445 more a month to purchase the same goods and services as a year ago, a report from Moody’s found.
Wow, just looked that up, and people are spending ~11% of their income on groceries. I was just saying that groceries have gone from a part of my budget that I don’t really think about, to the #2 expense, behind my mortgage.
Outside of not allowing mergers for large companies, I would like stronger restrictions on deceptive packaging/marketing. Off the top of my head, shrinkflation items should be required to have a big ugly warning on the label.
Not starving is considered splurging now, got it.
I had to splurge on some hospital bills recently. Such a luxurious life we live, with our not wanting to die of starvation or disease.
Back in my day, we didn’t even eat breakfast! We just smoked a Winston with our instant coffee. “Granppa, if I had cigarette money I could afford food”
Not eating American corpo-factory food that causes chronic health conditions is splurging, got it.
Nah, the article is actually the contrary. The splurge is on snacks and sodas apparently.
Plan to? I think you mean “must”
Planning ahead and budgeting is apparently bad now, as is not planning or budgeting ahead.
Whatever Gen-Z or millennials do is bad, as usual.
I make a decent wage. But for the last few years I’ve just been really uninterested in spending money, because shit is so crazy nowadays that I might lose my job and be unemployed for a while. So I just stopped eating out. Stopped buying the expensive brand. Stopped buying random little things. I’m fine. I just put my attention into other things. I spend half what I used to, and I don’t really notice. My phone? Older, but still supported and works fine. Just lost my desire to have brand new and gained the desire to hoard money.
THATS WHAT YOU GET CAPITALISM! No money for you.
It’s interesting to see someone’s perspective as you.
I am on a slightly different path in that I have always not splurged on myself because I always wanted to know I was secure, but after the shit show that has been the last 6 years, I now splurge more than ever because I’m not even sure if I’ll be here tomorrow.
Truly, at this point, all that I ever worked hard for in life is so far out of my reach, I just really do not give a fuck anymore.
I hear that not giving a fuck part. I’m really just take it or leave it regarding life.
Cheers. May we outlast this crazy shit, or at the very least, not suffer when it all comes crashing down.
Sounds like me. Maybe once or twice a year I spluge less than 200 bucks on something nice for myself, (last year it was a new knife, and I went halfsies on a new headset with my wife as a bday present). I just literally don’t buy anything.
Why do millennials and gen Z spend so much of their income by percentage on the lowest tier of Maslows hierarchy?
Regulatory capture, mostly.
Especially failure to enforce anti-trust law.
From what I briefly read, Maslow’s hierarchy is an oversimplification and academically disputed or even disproved.
From what I briefly read, the Earth is flat, god is real, and ivermectin will cure covid.
I just saw a dozen eggs going for almost $9. I’m not splurging; shit’s just fucking expensive.
I saw potatoes for $2 each. I was like wtf!? That’s supposed to be the cheap food you use as filler. Now we can barely even afford that.
Removed by mod
“Plan to spend”. No, “Forced to Spend” is the headline.
It would be interesting to look at generational differences in what people consider a splurge at the grocery store nowadays. Things like chips that didn’t used to be luxury priced cost $5-$6 dollars a bag now. I’ve always considered items more than about $4 (for individual items) to be expensive.
Things that I ate regularly that have drifted into “splurge” territory for me in the last few years:
-chips
-Veggie italian sausage
-Naked juice/bolthouse juice
-grapes
-chocolate chips
-pineapple juice
-potato bread
-salad dressing
-croutons
-yogurt
-cottage cheeseMy baseline is 30 cents per oz. That’s the sweet spot for decent value on food. Anything less than that is great. More than that, better be exceptional. I generally won’t buy anything more than 50 cents per oz.
Can you recommend me a good cheese? Milk? Beef?
Sometimes when I’ve hit a big milestone at work, or for my birthday, I like to say “fuck it” and just splurge on a piece of potato bread.
Gen Z, meanwhile, said they often choose high-quality snacks and beverages, which makes for expensive grocery bills.
So they are buying garbage? What’s wrong with produce and water. This article is all over the place.
Depending on the time of year, produce is what I splurge on.
In winter, I get sick of apples and satsumas, I could spend $4 on a highly processed snack that is tasty but doesn’t offer much else, I could $8 on a relatively “healthy” sweet snack (compared to the cheap snack), or I could spend $8 on small scale greenhouse grown strawberries.
Given my options, if I’ve got money, I’m going to buy the strawberries, which is a splurge considering apples were $3 and there’s nothing wrong with apples other than “I’m bored of them”
It’s all over the place because ita recycled drivel. I remember reading an article complaining about poor people buying fresh food way back in 2008.
They are throwing contradictionary statements at the the emotional wall to see what sticks. What sticks makes you like and share.
Maybe they choose the nicer groceries because eating is the only thing they have left in their life to look forward to? Since having children, home ownership, and retirement are all off the table in terms of affordability? Idk, just spitballin.
I didn’t think buying preprocessed garbage was better than a goddamn vegetable 🤷♂️
No one said that we’re buying processed garbage instead of vegetables.
If vegetables, beans and rice is the core foundation of your diet, then any money you spend on processed snacks is a splurge, because it’s not necessary but you enjoy it.
The example of buying water in cans and protein bars are like… Ok, the money we spend on those was spent on wine and chips by my parents. Habits haven’t changed. Prices have.