5 ms·

I'm glad others are shocked by that $60/day on food. I would say food takes up the largest percentage of my expenses and $60 is easily 5 days worth of food for

by radec 5y ago

I'm glad others are shocked by that $60/day on food. I would say food takes up the largest percentage of my expenses and $60 is easily 5 days worth of food for two.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Lol I spend about 5-10$ a day on food. Where do these people eat at lol
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  Going to guess SF, where those are not overly expensive prices for eating out with a drink at each meal.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    I like cooking and tend to prep on a Sunday, and then midweek on Wednesday if I'm bored. I live in Austin, TX. I don't usually eat out at all except the occasional outing with friends. Of course I'll splurge on the weekend depending on what's going on. That said I tend to eat the "zone diet" that stuck with me even after I lost a bunch of weight on it. It isn't particularly "hard" to find food to fit that scheme. Of course you have to not mind reheating food :) . I'm a fairly rugged individual and don't really need froufrou food every day https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/meal-prep-recipes-week-ahead/ https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/meal-prep-recipes-wee...
- YinLuck- 5y ago
  You can barely get a single meal at McDonalds with $10, what is with the frugality signaling in this thread? I've never cooked a meal, and I never intend to. Why? For the same reason I don't grow my own veggies or keep my own chickens. Its low productivity labor. If you're posting on this site and cook your own food because its a hobby for you, great. If you're doing it to save money, you are probably being stupid with your time.
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  Can $5-10 a day get you food with this kind of quality and variety? https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-free-food-google-cafeteria-2016-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-free-food-google-cafe...
  - joeberon 5y ago
    If you are eating that every day then you are destroying the beauty of food for yourself. That level of food should be a treat, not your "daily driver"
    - eliseumds 5y ago
      Pretty common for me, but I've mostly lived in places with a huge variety of fresh ingredients. That "level of food" is actually not that high in places like Barcelona, Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Sydney, SF, LA, Guangzhou, Bangkok, etc. 60USD/day (~1300USD per month) is not that much compared to how much FAANG employees are making. At the end of the day it's a matter of priority. Tons of people spend more than that on alcohol/cigarette/drugs/cars.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - megous 5y ago
    Per person, yes. You'll have to cook it yourself though. You'll be able to make it healthier though, and tune it exactly to what you like.
  - radec 5y ago
    I think so. I buy bulk (15-50lb bags) organic grains, legumes, flour, seeds. Makes it more work to calculate per meal but it's pretty cheap. I get a lot of verity but you do have to be creative and it helps if you are fast at cooking.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- papito 5y ago
  The biggest injustice in life is that when you are young, food is just fuel to get through the day. You can eat all of it and you don't care if it's good. When you get older, you start to understand food, and you are willing to pay more for it, but now you have to count calories. Can I survive on $10 a day? I did it on $3 a DAY when my parents were on food stamps, but I am not that crazy about going back to the "franks, rice, and ketchup" menu.
KingOfCoders 5y ago
Same here. $60 is basically our two-people weekly shopping.
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  And those two people likely don't eat remotely as well as Facebook or Google employees. Even if you value your labor/time to cook to be worth of zero dollars, when I was at Google my cafe had fresh seafood (a rotation of different types of fish, scallops, shrimps, mussel, crab, etc) and good quality regular meat dish (I particularly liked the skirt steak with guacamole), great vegan/vegetarian options, in-house made desserts including fresh made chocolate truffles every day prepared by the chef. And that's just lunch, at one cafe, not including breakfast and dinner and options at the other 3 dozens cafes on campus. If you can recreate all of that for two people with a $60/week budget, then kudos to you. I know I can't.
  - antb123 5y ago
    Most employees in Paris get lunch coupons at work.. I guess they may eat better than FAANG employees Also fasting is better for you than eating all the time.
  - leipert 5y ago
    > those two people likely don't eat remotely as well You then mention chocolate truffles. Personally if I had my employer providing ridiculous good food for free, I’ll likely live less healthy because I will eat those nice unhealthy things every day. If I am prepping my own food I have complete control over what I buy and can choose _not_ to buy unhealthy things. Also in my experience a reason why food prepared by a chef tastes so good: more fat used. I assume that Google and Facebook canteens (well that’s what they are) are better than the ones offered by companies here in Germany, but I think I would still gain weight.
  - somesoftdev 5y ago
    I used to work for Google for few years and I did gain some weight - just like many of my coworkers did. The food was delicious and looked great so I was eating too much overall and did not pay attention to the healthy meat vs vegetables balance. For the last five years we're cooking most of our meals at home, maybe go out or order food once or twice a month. The food we cook isn't as exotic, nicely looking or sophisticated as the food served at Google, but it is tasty, fresh, healthy and the groceries are pretty cheap. And despite being older, my blood results are better now than when I was leaving Google.
Closi 5y ago
The $60 is laughably high, but the value of the perk of $400 a month might also be too low considering part of the appeal is presumably that it all gets looked after for you and you don’t have to prep food or even think about your meals (the value of having all your meals cooked for you isn’t the same as the value of the ingredients).
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  I read a bunch of comments in this branch, and I think yours nails it. Initially, I saw 60 USD per day and laughed. Thought to myself: "Ok, they will all be overweight in 1 yr -- like junior bankers!" Then, I realised the labour costs are pretty high, so 60 USD per day might be too low. It might be closer to 100 USD in "value" per day for Google to provide all your meals.
ir123 5y ago
My total expenses for groceries and vegetables is less than $60 for a full month in India.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  Why was this downvoted? It's useful anecdata. Thank you to share. At wet markets in China/HK/TW/SE Asia, you might be able to eat for a month on 60 USD.
sepin4 5y ago
You don't factor the electricity/water for cooking & cleaning and the time spent doing it(calculate it by the hourly rate of a mid-range cook assuming you are there).

by radec 5y ago

I'm glad others are shocked by that $60/day on food. I would say food takes up the largest percentage of my expenses and $60 is easily 5 days worth of food for two.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Lol I spend about 5-10$ a day on food. Where do these people eat at lol

AlotOfReading 5y ago
Going to guess SF, where those are not overly expensive prices for eating out with a drink at each meal.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I like cooking and tend to prep on a Sunday, and then midweek on Wednesday if I'm bored. I live in Austin, TX. I don't usually eat out at all except the occasional outing with friends. Of course I'll splurge on the weekend depending on what's going on. That said I tend to eat the "zone diet" that stuck with me even after I lost a bunch of weight on it. It isn't particularly "hard" to find food to fit that scheme. Of course you have to not mind reheating food :) . I'm a fairly rugged individual and don't really need froufrou food every day https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/meal-prep-recipes-week-ahead/ https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/meal-prep-recipes-wee...
YinLuck- 5y ago
You can barely get a single meal at McDonalds with $10, what is with the frugality signaling in this thread? I've never cooked a meal, and I never intend to. Why? For the same reason I don't grow my own veggies or keep my own chickens. Its low productivity labor. If you're posting on this site and cook your own food because its a hobby for you, great. If you're doing it to save money, you are probably being stupid with your time.
Cookingboy 5y ago
Can $5-10 a day get you food with this kind of quality and variety? https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-free-food-google-cafeteria-2016-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-free-food-google-cafe...
- joeberon 5y ago
  If you are eating that every day then you are destroying the beauty of food for yourself. That level of food should be a treat, not your "daily driver"
  - eliseumds 5y ago
    Pretty common for me, but I've mostly lived in places with a huge variety of fresh ingredients. That "level of food" is actually not that high in places like Barcelona, Lisbon, Sao Paulo, Sydney, SF, LA, Guangzhou, Bangkok, etc. 60USD/day (~1300USD per month) is not that much compared to how much FAANG employees are making. At the end of the day it's a matter of priority. Tons of people spend more than that on alcohol/cigarette/drugs/cars.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- megous 5y ago
  Per person, yes. You'll have to cook it yourself though. You'll be able to make it healthier though, and tune it exactly to what you like.
- radec 5y ago
  I think so. I buy bulk (15-50lb bags) organic grains, legumes, flour, seeds. Makes it more work to calculate per meal but it's pretty cheap. I get a lot of verity but you do have to be creative and it helps if you are fast at cooking.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
papito 5y ago
The biggest injustice in life is that when you are young, food is just fuel to get through the day. You can eat all of it and you don't care if it's good. When you get older, you start to understand food, and you are willing to pay more for it, but now you have to count calories. Can I survive on $10 a day? I did it on $3 a DAY when my parents were on food stamps, but I am not that crazy about going back to the "franks, rice, and ketchup" menu.

KingOfCoders 5y ago

Same here. $60 is basically our two-people weekly shopping.

Cookingboy 5y ago
And those two people likely don't eat remotely as well as Facebook or Google employees. Even if you value your labor/time to cook to be worth of zero dollars, when I was at Google my cafe had fresh seafood (a rotation of different types of fish, scallops, shrimps, mussel, crab, etc) and good quality regular meat dish (I particularly liked the skirt steak with guacamole), great vegan/vegetarian options, in-house made desserts including fresh made chocolate truffles every day prepared by the chef. And that's just lunch, at one cafe, not including breakfast and dinner and options at the other 3 dozens cafes on campus. If you can recreate all of that for two people with a $60/week budget, then kudos to you. I know I can't.
- antb123 5y ago
  Most employees in Paris get lunch coupons at work.. I guess they may eat better than FAANG employees Also fasting is better for you than eating all the time.
- leipert 5y ago
  > those two people likely don't eat remotely as well You then mention chocolate truffles. Personally if I had my employer providing ridiculous good food for free, I’ll likely live less healthy because I will eat those nice unhealthy things every day. If I am prepping my own food I have complete control over what I buy and can choose _not_ to buy unhealthy things. Also in my experience a reason why food prepared by a chef tastes so good: more fat used. I assume that Google and Facebook canteens (well that’s what they are) are better than the ones offered by companies here in Germany, but I think I would still gain weight.
- somesoftdev 5y ago
  I used to work for Google for few years and I did gain some weight - just like many of my coworkers did. The food was delicious and looked great so I was eating too much overall and did not pay attention to the healthy meat vs vegetables balance. For the last five years we're cooking most of our meals at home, maybe go out or order food once or twice a month. The food we cook isn't as exotic, nicely looking or sophisticated as the food served at Google, but it is tasty, fresh, healthy and the groceries are pretty cheap. And despite being older, my blood results are better now than when I was leaving Google.

Closi 5y ago

The $60 is laughably high, but the value of the perk of $400 a month might also be too low considering part of the appeal is presumably that it all gets looked after for you and you don’t have to prep food or even think about your meals (the value of having all your meals cooked for you isn’t the same as the value of the ingredients).

throwaway2037 5y ago
I read a bunch of comments in this branch, and I think yours nails it. Initially, I saw 60 USD per day and laughed. Thought to myself: "Ok, they will all be overweight in 1 yr -- like junior bankers!" Then, I realised the labour costs are pretty high, so 60 USD per day might be too low. It might be closer to 100 USD in "value" per day for Google to provide all your meals.

ir123 5y ago

My total expenses for groceries and vegetables is less than $60 for a full month in India.

throwaway2037 5y ago
Why was this downvoted? It's useful anecdata. Thank you to share. At wet markets in China/HK/TW/SE Asia, you might be able to eat for a month on 60 USD.

sepin4 5y ago

You don't factor the electricity/water for cooking & cleaning and the time spent doing it(calculate it by the hourly rate of a mid-range cook assuming you are there).