Let me rephrase it.
54% of young Americans struggle to buy food.
Would help if they learned to cook.
Vast majority of my under 40 peers, do not cook. Almost everything they eat is prepared meals or meal substitutes.
We cook for a family of 4 and grocery prices have still basically doubled in our area. Doing a lot more beans and rice lately.
Look up Justin Wilson’s Louisiana cooking. They make beans and rice tasty AF
A lot of people don’t have the time nor the energy to cook these days. If you work long hours or have multiple jobs to make ends meet, things can and will fall to the wayside. It’s not always a matter of laziness like you’re implying.
Yeah, I routinely work twelves and am in graduate school. I try to cook, but when I get home at 10 pm and have a paper to write (because my career is now illegal for trans people to do where I live, and an MS is the only ticket out…), I’m eating Taco Bell.
personally I’d rather be poor yet able to cook a healthy meal rather than work long hours, be tired and unhappy with no time AND struggle to buy unhealthy food.
Everyone picks their own poison. I think the core issue is that our options are all poison.
Well I guess someone picked for me. Because I didn’t choose any of this.
The number of young people with no money, but constant deliveries from Ubereats, Deliveroo, etc, astounds me.
Like, my brother in Christ, you are sending most of your food budget to Silicon Valley billionaires. No generation has ever survived entirely on delivered takeaways.
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42% are in school or are unemployed. 28% are working part time.
Yeah, food is the only real expense when you’re at home or in a dorm and not paying those student loans yet.
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I make way more than I did in my 30s (53 now) but I feel way poorer. Of course my mortgage payment is more than 3x what it was back then … that might be a reason.
The fact you can afford mortgage and a home blows my mind and I’m 40. I have no hope in hell of ever owning and I make decent money
If I lived in someplace like Silicon Valley California and making what I make I’d be homeless. Someplaces are better than others. But the system is definitely rigged for sure.
Considering only 30% of the people in this survey from ages 18-34 are working full time, i’m going to go ahead and say this isn’t an accurate representation of independent young adults.
26% are in school and 16% are unemployed for a total of 42% not really making money / are using loans for housing or are living at home.
28% are working part time and are unlikely to be living on their own - it’s rare to find a part time gig that can afford housing.
So 22% think housing is the highest cost issue… and only 30% are employed full time… sounds about right to me! I’m guessing it’s not 30% because those 8% got mortgages during the 4% or lower interest rate era.
What do you mean by independent young adult. Is that even possible to be any more? Without being born wealthy or making a huge gamble in health and safey or finances or both?
What do you mean by independent young adult. Is that even possible to be any more?
Yes
I was born into a poor family, single mom with mental illness. I never had air conditioning, we spent many years without a hot water heater lugging water boiled on the stove into a bath tub to wash up. My family drove beaters. Moved out at 14. Dropped out of high school. Spent a few years figuring out my shit. Got an associates at 25 at a community college. Got a job in IT support making 50k… ten years later at 100kish.
Today the same thing can happen but entry level pay is 10-15k higher. Renting just a room is still doable on that entry level pay. Community college costs are still effectively 0 if you have 0 expected family contribution. I did work retail while I was in community college part time, offsetting cost of living expenses only. Avoid education loans at all costs imo, you can’t declare bankruptcy and dump them if the worst case scenario happens and a degree is not a guaranteed job.
I never gambled health, safety or finances. I didn’t do drugs or get involved in something that could fuck my life too hard. I never spent a dollar I didn’t have in the bank unless it was absolutely necessary and still live that way because I grew up knowing how valuable money is, and how much it sucks when you don’t have it.
Nowadays even around Boston on public transit lines (no car expense) you can find a studio apartment for 1500/mo with nothing included. Once you’re making 60k you can squeak by living alone. You can instead save probably 1k by having roommates/a girlfriend and splitting bills. After five years and two job changes you’re gonna be able to bank a lot more money than you’d think.
People want it to be easy to live a high quality lifestyle but it just doesn’t work that way. Most people had parents struggling when they were growing up but they still managed to make it. If you get a bachelors degree in a higher quality major like analytics you can make way more money than I do.
One big mistake early and you’re fucked though. Babies, major health accidents, lack of dental maintenance all can hose you for a huge portion of your life. If you choose to live near family far away from jobs and opportunities you’re fucked. I have a ton of friends with child support payments that eat most of their take home pay.
Sure, get a job working in a construction trade, IT, sales (if you are good) and you are easily making 90-110k a year not long after. Independence isn’t difficult with 100k/year and not many obligations.
As they’re living with their parents because they can’t afford an apartment of their own.
This is a serious point. I couldn’t afford a place until I was in a relationship. And that was a long time ago. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be with today’s rent.
Having a roommate turned an apartment from unaffordable luxury to merely 25% of my paycheck.
I honestly think having roommates is fun, particularly if you’re old friends anyway. But its crazy that a spot at the ass end of town was eating so much of my take home pay even after we cut the bill in half.
Shit’s bad in Canada, and our grocery store megacorps are taking us for all we’ve got. Five boneless skinless chicken breasts for $28 is insanity. Yet here we are.
Five boneless skinless chicken breasts for $28 is insanity. Yet here we are.
The fuck.
Here in the Netherlands we apparently have the opposite problem. Lots of complaints that meat is too cheap, mainly by animal rights organizations who oppose the conditions under which the animals for this cheap meat are held.
Monopolies are a hell of a drug.
I went to get chicken for some meal prep a couple of days ago (Missouri, US) and a 1lb container of just chicken breast tenders costs $13, I figured it was a “labor” cost for cutting the tenders off before the customer buys it, like how a container of diced onion costs an order of magnitude higher than just buying a whole onion, but nope, the pack of 2 breasts right next to it cost basically the same, maybe only 50 cents cheaper, and I wasn’t in anything expensive like a whole foods, just a generic lowcost midwest regional store. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention 2 orange or red bell peppers costs $5…
Is this Schnucks?
Price Chopper actually
Also from Missouri. I got Aldi near me and their chicken is cheap.
Gardening has its own associated costs with supplies and requires space
It’s the cost of supplies and garden maintenance and see requirement vs the cost of food at the supermarket
It needs to cost less than the growable food you can buy at the store
You can get away with very little supplies, actually. Basically just a small shovel, the rest be salvaged.
Pots can be made from old plastic bins/containers, soil/fertilizer can be made from food waste using worms, seeds can be made from surprisingly many fruits/vegetables. Pumpkin seeds are right inside the pumpkin, potatoes and beans can be put right into the soil, even tomatoes can be grown from store bought ones.
And while it’s a really cool hobby: you’re right regarding the cost effectiveness. Unless you happen to have a significant plot of land, it won’t make a dent in your grocery bill.
Plastic can leech plastic into your food, I know this personally from getting headaches from using soda bottles as water bottles
And my aunt gets headaches from 5G.
You’re not getting headaches from water bottles. It’s placebo (or nocebo, in this case).
Toxic effects of plastic on human health and environment: A consequences of health risk assessment in Bangladesh
Ram Proshad, Tapos Kormoker, Md Saiful Islam, Mohammad Asadul Haque, Md Mahfuzur Rahman, Md Mahabubur Rahman Mithu
International Journal of Health 6 (1), 1-5, 2018
Plastics are used widely everywhere in our life and without plastic, modern civilization would indeed look very diverse. This study focuses on the toxic effects of plastic on human health and environment and possible consequences of health risk assessment in Bangladesh. Plastics are essential materials in modern civilization, and many products manufactured from plastics and in numerous cases, they promote risks to human health and the environment. Plastics are contained many chemical and hazardous substances such as Bisphenol A (BPA), thalates, antiminitroxide, brominated flame removedants, and poly-fluorinated chemicals etc. which are a serious risk factor for human health and environment. Plastics are being used by Bangladeshi people without knowing the toxic effects of plastic on human health and environment. Different human health problems like irritation in the eye, vision failure, breathing difficulties, respiratory problems, liver dysfunction, cancers, skin diseases, lungs problems, headache, dizziness, birth effect, reproductive, cardiovascular, genotoxic, and gastrointestinal causes for using toxic plastics. Plastics occur serious environment pollution such as soil pollution, water pollution, and air pollution. Application of proper rules and regulations for the production and use of plastics can reduce toxic effects of plastics on human health and environment.
This is just a paper citing plastics affects on health in Bangladesh but it does demonstrate that plastic can have these effects
You are wrongly comparing scientifically proven effects of plastic with misinformation
Nope, you’re simply wildly exaggerating the effects of the dosage you’re actually getting.
That’s like saying water causes cancer, because everyone with cancer drank water at some point.
You are not getting the minimum doses needed to get from a water bottle. And again, if you’re getting headaches from a water bottle, that’s your imagination. Period.
This is not great advice. Using random crap for planters can leech chemicals into your fruits and veggies. Also, you need seed-potatoes to grow potatoes you can eat. You cannot grow edible potatoes from what you buy in a grocery store.
“Random crap” is what’s used in agriculture as well, if you buy a big plastic tub, it won’t leech more into the soil than your coke bottle already did. There’s only so much plastic that can leech out and planters can be used for years, the plastic you’re using around your house gets thrown out in a week or two and replaced. Much higher chemical content there.
And you can absolutely use store bought potatoes, they are clones, there’s no difference between seed and regular potatoes. At most, there might have been something done to prevent sprouting for a bit, but that’s it. You can simply wait for them to sprout, if that’s a concern. You know how I know? I’ve been growing “old” food potatoes in pots for years. Works just fine.
Don’t worry though we solved inflation. We just removed it from our calculations. If we don’t count it: it’s not there!
Investment funds stocking up on US farmland in safe-haven bet
Investment funds have become voracious buyers of U.S. farmland, amassing over a million acres as they seek a hedge against inflation and aim to benefit from the growing global demand for food, according to data reviewed by Reuters and interviews with fund executives.
The trend worries some U.S. lawmakers who fear corporate interest will make agricultural land unaffordable for the next generation of farmers. Those lawmakers are floating a bill in Congress that would impose restrictions on the industry’s purchases.
Though their acreage is a small slice of the nearly 900 million acres of U.S. farmland, the pace of acquisitions by investment firms like Manulife Investment Management and Nuveen has quickened since the 2008 global financial crisis drove firms to seek new investment vehicles, according to Reuters interviews with fund managers and an analysis of data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF).
The number of properties owned by such firms increased 231% between 2008 and the second quarter of 2023, and the value of those holdings rose more than 800% to around $16.2 billion, according to NCREIF’s quarterly farmland index, which tracks the holdings of the seven largest firms in farmland investment.
Farmland offers steady returns even in periods of high inflation, and firms hope crop demand will remain steady as the United Nations predicts the world will need 60% more food by 2050 due to population growth.
You don’t want to confuse “inflation” with “economic growth”. One makes prices go up because the evil bad salaries are increasing. But the other makes profits go up because of the smart efficient business net revenues are increasing.
A prosperous nation needs big new investments in the future. And that means speculating in our domestic breadbasket, so we can maximize the price of inelastic commodities in an effort to optimize consumption habits. You don’t like waste, do you? Optimizing price reduces waste. Its all right here in the book Basic Economics by totally non-problematic and very smart guy Thomas Sowell.
Not really surprising.
yep. to anyone who is paying attention. and lives in a HCOL area.
but a lot of people aren’t/don’t.
hey rich people, ever heard the stories of what happens when the mass working class gets hungry?
They eat cake? /s
In the US? I think they just die?
Do we REALLY need to quiz people to know this? Ffs.
I assumed it was housing.
If we could afford housing, then that would be it.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/04/16/generation-z-is-unprecedentedly-rich
Y’all are buying homes just fine compared to the last few generations.
Y’all
Rich = Full Time Employed?
You seem to mistake having a salary for having money.
America now has more than 6,000 Zoomer chief executives and 1,000 Zoomer politicians.
Also, what if you’re not a CEO or a politician? Also, plus, too, how on earth is “small town city councilman” or “part-time New Hampshire legislator” a sign of wealth?
That was one single indicator. I agree it’s not the best, to your point, unemployment, homeownership, and salary averages are the ones that show middle class wealth.
I don’t see any of that in the article. Is it hidden behind the paywall?
I don’t get the point you’re trying to make with your graph. Obviously there wouldn’t be many Zoomers working full time; most are still in school.
Zoomers born after 2006 haven’t graduated high-school, and those born between 2002-2006 are in college. That’s leaves only a 5 year window of people you’d expect to be employed full time.
The line for millenials looks about the same as Zoomers.
The line for millenials looks about the same as Zoomers.
shrug
Take that up with the Economist, its their claim and their chart.
I’m trying to understand your argument against the article and what point you’re trying to make by using their chart.
Wait, what? If you’re hungry, nutritious food (canned beans and such) will cost less than $5 a day. And that’s without cooking. If you can boil water, you can save some money and increase the variety of food available to you.
I’m so excited for my new all-canned beans diet.
What if I told you that you don’t need the processed foods you’ve been eating your whole life? Shocking I know.
You “I can’t afford food” Them “here’s food you can” You “no not like that! I need muh Doritos to be happy like the commercials tell me!!”
Most people in Mongolia eat one thing their entire lives and are fine.
I buy vegetables and meat mostly. are those luxury foods now? Last I checked that was just food.
fresh food is a luxury in the usa, yes.
i was grew up in a bottom 50% household. most of my childhood diet was sugary snacks, canned/boxed foodstuffs, and frozen meat/vegetables. fresh food was largely reserved for holidays. my mother used to spend about 60/week to feed a family of four, and this was after coupons and in the 1990s
When milk of $5+ a gallon in most of the country, the solution isn’t as simple as “cook at home” for those of us with a family to feed. Young Americans don’t mean just 24 year olds.
I have a toddler and cook at home. What exactly is your point here, I don’t understand. Rice, beans, meat, produce call all be had for cheap. Milk IS one of the more expensive foods but it’ll last two weeks, is probably a poor example when you can also buy 2lbs of pork for $6.
Ah yes, surely the issue must be that people aren’t eating enough poverty meals of canned beans and rice. Meat is obviously only for wall street investors
Sardines are a great (and cheap!) source of protein and they’re super nutrient dense. Tons of vitamin d, b, fish oils. This has little to do with the topic at hand, I just got turned onto sardines as someone that wrote them off my entire adult life and they’re awesome!
On topic though, I love threads like these because we get to see all of the middle/upper middle class nepo-babies come out with their advice on how to manage living with a level of poverty they have clearly never experienced. Always such a special time.
they also have a fuckload of sodium
I remember having to spend $20 a week on groceries 15 years ago. Now I’m spending ~$30. It’s disgusting.
Edit: I don’t know why I am getting downvoted.this is really about what I spend on groceries.
I may also have some advantages here. I eat almost a vegan diet. I do a large amount of cooking from scratch. I also will look for the discount items at stores and plan accordingly from what I find. The most expensive thing I get is Yogurt because it’s where I get my protein besides beans.
This week I was making vegan Bahn Mi sandwiches. (Cilantro, Pickled carrots, Pickled radish, cucumber, green onion, tofu, and Avacado that was bought the previous week, baguette)
$6 Yogurt $12 vegetables/fruits $1 Bread $3 sting cheese Cheese $2 Tofu $5 premade non perishable food items $12 bulk energy drinks, this will last me a while. Found them on discount. $3 pickles
So, we are up to over $40, but because I bought stuff in bulk this week. Next week it will probably be $25 or so.
If anyone is in a bind that wants food ideas, hit me up. I love cooking.
… You’re spending $30 a week on groceries? That’s it? Are you being facetious, or have you been living on ramen, beans and rice for 15 years?
I spend about that if you exclude my splurge on Soylent for breakfast (substitute oatmeal, for example). I eat wraps that are 90% veggies for lunch and the premix Birdseye veggie/chicken dinners where I can get 2 meals per bag.
Soylent alone averages $3 each, so that’s already more than 2/3 of a $30 weekly budget on breakfast alone. Birds Eye Veggie Made Garlic Chicken is $7 for a 21 oz bag, if that’s what you’re talking about it’s (7*7/2) about $25 a week. So now we’re at $46, or more than 150% of a $30 budget, and we haven’t accounted for a single lunch.
I literally said in my comment that Soylent is a splurge that could be replaced with oatmeal. I don’t get it to be cheap, I get it because I like it and it’s pretty good nutritionally. Make that change and you’re under $30, like I usually am outside of that.
Here was this week’s cost, including splurging on a 1lb bag of nuts for snacking: https://i.postimg.cc/GmSJWVxp/Screenshot-20240509-111904.png
More importantly I was replying to your “only ramen or rice and beans” comment, because I don’t eat either of those. I could reduce my costs further if I did, but I like what I eat and don’t need to save money on my food budget.
That’s why revolution starts with the bread
Especially burger buns, because they are round.
