Yeah, sorry, no. Even if I had the space, when I get home from work at 1900 the last thing I want to do is more work. It’s not like you can just plop some seeds into soil and do nothing until the harvest is ripe—I know, we had a decent family garden when I was a wee lad. Took a lot of work to keep it going.
If I worked 4 or even 6 hours a day—sure, I could add some homework to my day. But not when working 8 hours+commuting. And many people are working even longer days.
While I like gardening, unironically advising people to grow their own food to cut costs is just bonkers.
It takes months to grow anything, and given the limited space, you can’t grow much anyway. You’ll be lucky to grow 20€ worth of food on your balcony while spending hours doing the gardening. That’s not cost effective.
And that doesn’t even count the cost of materials to get started.
Definitely not against gardening, me and my partners are in the process of getting our garden going in our new place, but dirt alone could easily eat up the cost savings if you have to build out your planters.
Yeah I’ve had gardens all the way up until covid when prices went bananas because it wasn’t feasible anymore. I can buy from a farmers market for less than the materials/time/water. I need to build a gray water capture system.
Now I just grow herbs and tomatoes.
As I wrote in another comment: you can create your own soil with earthworms. You can get a small batch of worms in fishing supply stores for like 5€ (or collect them yourself), these guys turn almost any plant material into pure fertilizer.
If your balcony could support the load you could grow quite densely with hydroponic towers, but you won’t ever recoup the costs. That method is also very little work beyond the initial compared to soil.
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.
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.
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 retardants, 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.
I was a bit surprised rent wasn’t higher, but I wonder how many of the respondents haven’t moved and have rent control, so they aren’t affected by rent hikes.
Rent and health insurance definitely for me unfortunately
Do we REALLY need to quiz people to know this? Ffs.
I assumed it was housing.
I mean, you’re not wrong there either.
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.
The article doesn’t say that. It says that most arent spending above 43% on housing. It doesn’t dig into that, likely on purpose.
https://archive (dot) is/2024.05.08-164727/https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/04/16/generation-z-is-unprecedentedly-rich
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?
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.
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?
You just need an account for the first few articles.
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I’m food insecure and a hufflepuff! /s
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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
Meat is obviously only for wall street investors
When you need to cut your food budget and still want meat, you watch for meat sales, buy a bunch and freeze it. A vacuum sealer is fantastic for this since it lets you split stuff into single meal portions and seal it. Most grocery store meat departments will also willing to cut roasts and the like into pieces for you if you ask and that doesn’t change the price - usually buying a pork loin and asking them to cut it into chops will be cheaper than just buying chops, for example. For quick meals pre-prepping a bunch of taco meat, meatloaves, chili or the like and freezing it is a great time saver.
Around here ground beef and pork loin go on sale pretty often, just a few weeks ago we had pork loin for $1.89/lb and discounted 85/15 ground beef.
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
Nope! I have hypertension, so I’m extremely sodium conscious, out of necessity. The king Oscar tins we buy have 350mg of sodium in them, which is around 15% DV. That’s not much compared to pretty much all red meats…
Havent you heard? You’re not supposed to eat meat anyway.
This but unironically.
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.
Your claim of two pounds of pork for $6 does not line up with Kroger’s meat pricing.
Your claim of two pounds of pork for $6 does not line up with Kroger’s meat pricing.
You could easily do this if you buy on sales or close dated and freeze. Last time I bought pork it was pork loin on sale from a Piggly Wiggly at $1.89/lb. Buy several, ask the meat dept to cut them into chops if they will (or do it yourself if they won’t) separate into single meal for the household portions, bag and freeze. They’ll last even longer if you use a vacuum sealer.
We do basically the same with ground beef - buy a bunch when there’s a sale, pre-prep some of it into taco meat, meatloves, chili, etc then portion, bag and freeze.
I guess that’s true. I don’t think we should be buying so much meat (if any) to begin with… I wouldn’t ban it or anything, but Kroger or whoever selling nearly-expired meat for very low prices is not going to help matters. The only thing I can say for it is that at least they’re attempting to avoid just throwing it out.
selling nearly-expired meat
For most things expiration dates are bullshit that’s more about profits or product flow than safety. Most things are usually more than fine for at least a few days after, and freezing meat extends it’s safe life by months.
To give you an idea how much expiration dates are bullshit, if you’ve ever been to a Sam’s they sell these enchiladas, pasta and the like that are just throw in the oven for a bit and eat and they’re all made with shredded chicken. They make these things in house, and they’re all chicken because the chicken comes from unsold rotisserie chickens that have been out too long that they pick all the meat off and shred. Because the expiry on them isn’t actually about food safety, and pulling them off the shelf, shredding and repackaging as chicken enchiladas or chicken pasta alfredo or whatever lets them invent a new mostly bullshit expiry date for the same chicken.
But your link shows a half loin being sold for $2.50/lb, and a pork shoulder being sold for just over that.
Toddlers don’t eat very much. I feeding a family of four including two teens. My point is that while individual foods are cheap, a balanced diet is still expensive, especially the foods for growing children. Milk, eggs, fresh produce, unprocessed meats, all are significantly more expensive than they were 5 years ago. Hell, even uncooked rice is up to $1/pound.
Yeah the price of food for one person is easily doubled now. If you are single it’s hard enough but if you have a family of 4 it’s insane
We buying a neighborhood cow. What are they gonna do about it?
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
So it’s either ‘bag of doritos’ or ‘eat all canned beans for the rest of your life.’
Most people in Mongolia eat one thing their entire lives and are fine.
This is just utter horse shit and it also sounds based in bigotry.
https://www.travelbuddies.info/mongolian-foods/ https://www.viewmongolia.com/mongolian-food.html
Etc.
I like how some Americans aren’t even pretending to strive to be the best nation anymore but just saying “eat like people in impoverished countries”.
Like, people in Mongolia or for example my parents when they lived in El Salvador didn’t eat beans every single day because they wanted to or enjoyed it - it’s because there literally was no upward mobility and the oligarchy kept it that way.
You’re the person who centuries ago would be defending the king as you ate only oats for the 10th day in a row because some other kingdom had minor starvation.
No need for bread lines if you can’t afford bread.
That’s why revolution starts with the bread
Especially burger buns, because they are round.
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?
In the US? I think they just die?
They eat cake? /s
They vote for the very people that aim to make them poorer?
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.
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…
Chicken tenderloins are $3.94/lb at Walmart in Central KY. Where were you shopping?
This was at a Price Chopper in western central MO
Is this Schnucks?
Price Chopper actually
Also from Missouri. I got Aldi near me and their chicken is cheap.
$3/lb for boneless antibiotic free chicken breasts here in Massachusetts. https://www.shopmarketbasket.com/sites/default/files/weekly-flyer/pdfs/2024-05/mb-flyer-May5-May11-2024_web.pdf
Tyson announced several months ago that they were cutting back supply, just so that they could charge more. They’re one of, if not the largest chicken supplier (and they are fully vertically integrated) in NA, so them raising prices affects prices across the board.
Prepare for more pain as bird flu seems to be spreading in US cattle populations.
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.
Maybe quit ordering out and having it delivered?
booooooooooo
Yesh, and knock ot off with the avacado toast! Amiright?
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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.
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.
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.
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
Man, I don’t know what I’d do without Aldi. Ironic that the best grocery chain in America is European, when the American Grocery Store used to be such a symbol of U.S. prosperity.
Lidl too
Same here. Aldi is the only place with affordable healthy food in my area. If it closed, then I’ll have to shop at garbage Walmart…
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
High COL area?
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?
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.
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.
I wish stores like Grocery Outlet had more attention. I’ve saved so much money there
