Millennials and Gen Z's trendy new splurge: groceries

Not starving is considered splurging now, got it.

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.
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"

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? And it's not even that we spend more on those, it's just that everything has become so expensive

The typical American household would need to spend $445 more a month to purchase the same goods and services as a year ago

No that cant be true. Every media outlet says workers are making hand over fist right now and the economy has never been better.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

I remember reading an "article" stating that:

"People are buying groceries despite their high costs"

Really? No fucking kidding, us poor folks have to eat to survive, just like the rich pricks!

And even worse is when it said: "Grocery chains have reached record profits"

Fuck them all

In my state, they are charging record prices for chicken, at the same time, multiple of the largest suppliers in my state are under investigation for hiring children as young as 11, in dangerous meat processing jobs, and paying them less than minimum wage.
These fucks are actively trying to take wages and workers right back to the early days of the industrial revolution.
- All politicians are corrupt, it's gotten way out of hand
us poor folks have to eat to survive, just like the rich pricks!
Big if true
This post perfectly embodies my complaint about Lemmy.
Multiple unsubstantiated claims that are fully outrageous, and of course the post is filled with outrage against rich people.
But not a single challenge to the claim, and it's universally upvoted.
This place is fully entrenched in outrage culture.
- What's outrageous about what I said that I read in an article?
  Are you part of the 1%?
  If not, stop defending them. They don't give two fucks about you

Gotta get that little snooty dog in there that Gen-Z and Millennials are buying high quality, expensive groceries, to make sure we know it’s our own damn fault because we won’t bend over and suffer by eating store-brand cornflakes with water for dinner.

Keeping in mind those store-brand cornflakes now cost the same as a box of Kellogg did 5 years ago.

"Plan to spend". No, "Forced to Spend" is the headline.

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.

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.
Sounds like me. Maybe once or twice a year I splurge 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 also plan to spend more on groceries.

Because I don’t have a choice.

Because groceries are stupid expensive and unbridled Capitalism has condemned us all.

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 cheese

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.
My 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?

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?

I thought this was going to be an onion article.

It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes.

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.

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.

Aw hell yeah. Gonna splurge on heirloom tomatoes.

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.

Why do people keep posting this shit rag? Never once had an article worth reading.

Who'd have thought Business Insider would be running interference for the neoliberal slide into end-stage capitalism, by blaming those worst affected by the collapse for the symptoms that are fucking them over?

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.

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.

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 🤷‍♂️
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.
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"

I agree with others who have a problem with the tone of the headline and the article, but it eventually gets to the point that it's trying to make, which is that people (not just Gen Z) are spending too much on more expensive brands. What it doesn't really get to is the fact that this is by design, because those expensive brands can higher psychologists who can design marketing campaigns and packaging designs maximized for gaining attention.

Which box of frosted corn flakes looks more appealing to many people, the one with just the corn flakes, or the one with the fun cartoon tiger telling you that you'll enjoy them?

Same with the marketing around 'high protein" foods.

That's the same for everyone.

If you spend more on "travel, beauty, apparel, and fitness" than you do on groceries, then you're spending way too fucking much on those things. Those are not things that are expensive or common enough to do all the time.

This is an absolute fucking nothing of an article, that's thrown generations into the headline as pure clickbait nonsense.

I like food.
One could even say it is fulfilling to me.

Oh good, more avocado toast

Buy veggies instead of meat.

Veggies went up in price too.
Ok, I'll buy expensive vegetables instead of expensive meat.
Yupp. It's by far more healthy, has an incredibly positive ecological impact (especially if sourced locally and organically) and for those who are concerned about ethical issues regarding the life and treatment of animals, this is also a win.
- Now I have no money and I'm still hungry.