4 ms·
I feel like I’ve eat pretty well, and my household food costs are almost half what the calculator shows. Similar for vehicle costs etc. After looking at the me
by bumby 8mo ago
I feel like I’ve eat pretty well, and my household food costs are almost half what the calculator shows. Similar for vehicle costs etc.
After looking at the method, I think the calculator probably has some bias towards “what society has convinced us we need”. To a certain extent that is a relative and subjective perception problem, and one exacerbated when you live in a society with a lot of consumer debt.
- Larrikin 8mo agoWhat does eating pretty well mean to you? Maybe you don't even if you think you do? We don't know without your budget or a receipt from your typical grocery run
- NewJazz 8mo agoAlso some folks are just smaller than others.
- bumby 8mo agoThey do try to account for this in their method. Men, women, and children of different ages all have different amounts of assumed food intake
- bumby 8mo agoMostly what the typical nutritional guidance has advocated consistently over the last few decades, with maybe slightly higher protein intake. 6-8 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, fairly liberal amounts of dairy and lean protein, lesser amounts of red meat. Grains like breads/rice for additional carbohydrates. Admittedly, avoiding eating out regularly is the #1 way I keep food costs down, though.
- etchalon 8mo agoMy household food costs are about 20% more than what the calculator shows (and that's a very minimal budget) Behold, "averages" are not perfect.
- bumby 8mo agoAre you following the USDA thrifty food plan like the methodology assumes?
- etchalon 8mo agoI don't perfectly weigh our groceries every week to hit the exact counts they recommend, no. But we stick to the essentials, utilize different stores for the lowest prices we can get, and don't purchase nonsense.
- bumby 8mo agoWould you agree that large uncertainties can bring into question the validity of a model? Ie “averages” with large variances are not often very informative
- etchalon 8mo agoI agree that the very term "averages" implies "an average".
- bumby 8mo agoIt’s the second time you’ve had a snarky reply so I can’t tell if you’re having a good faith conversation. The average wealth between me and Elon is several hundred billion dollars. That gives you very little information about me. Which is why people can hang too much inference on a simple average. Like Nate Silver said in The Signal and The Noise, the real discussion for the data literate is about uncertainty in models, not just drawing conclusions from “averages”
- etchalon 8mo agoI'm being snarky because your criticism of the tool, and its data sources, is a weird form of nut-picking. You're able to purchase groceries for your family, for your diet, in your locality, from your available stores, for less than the stated average. You think the diet should be different, and blame "society!" for the nutrition goals not resulting in a lower budget. This is not a serious criticism. It is an unverifiable anecdote coupled with generic contrarianism. The fact some people spend more or less on groceries is already factored into the data, as it's an average of prices. Averages are imperfect. The fact it's an average of prices (instead of spending) makes it slightly better, but anecdotal data doesn't meaningfully contribute to a discussion about it. The diet, too, is probably imperfect, but the tool needed to normalize costs, not assemble a Costco rice-and-beans nutritionally complete diet to minimize costs. So I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make beyond "I like to sound smart."
- lp4v4n 8mo agoThe yearly cost of food for one person without children in the county of Los Angeles(I selected an expensive area on purpose) is showing 4,428 USD. That's about 12 dollars a day. I don't even live in the United States but that value looks pretty low if anything.
- bumby 8mo agoThat’s pretty surprising, honestly, because there are other areas considered much lower COL that are within spitting distance of that value.
- prepend 8mo agoI can easily cook all my meals for $12/day. I don’t consider daily or even weekly restaurants part of a necessity for life.
- lp4v4n 8mo agoPeople have commutes and work shifts that don't always allow them to buy food in bulk and cook their own food. Not everybody is like you. Restaurants have never been a necessity for life, but I guess that for a lot of people you should be upper class to eat out once a week.
- bumby 8mo agoIt has changed a lot over time though, especially when you also count fast food and delivery. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad, but the norm has changed and many people’s expectations.
- prepend 8mo agoWhat about commutes stops you from bringing lunch? You don’t need to buy food in bulk. Just buy regular food, cook it, and take it to work. Either take stuff that doesn’t need refridge (pb&j, hummus, etc), or insulated lunchbox, or thermos. This is not a complicated problem to solve. Ride the bus sometime and look at the lunches people bring long distances. Eating out isn’t a necessity. But at $12/day food budget you definitely have money left over to eat out every once in a while. And that if you cook only for yourself. If you’re part of a household who can share food, it’s even easier.