this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Wait until you learn about cooking at home.
It's still expensive and you have to have time. I still do it, love to cook. But sometimes I have no choice but frozen or fast food. Saying you don't eat fast food, to me I just see privilege. Not that you said that, but it's in this thread.
It is interesting to see the American context where food is so cheap. In my country eating out, even fast food, is the privilege. For me there's no cheaper option than cooking at home, by a wide margin. It does take some planing. But I would go broke in a week if I ate a whole work week straight of fast food. It would be over half of my monthly income. Just one week of lunch only. So for me there's no option, I have to cook at home or I would starve.
I'm in Aus, and I basically never eat a proper home cooked meal. I can get a hotdog for $3.50 and outside of super basic food like just rice, or oats, I can't match that.
We don't need to talk about how much I waste on drinks though, thats an entirely different problem.
I'm an American but the $1 burgers from Maccas were a life saver down there. I used to get 2 a day while I hitchhiked. But y'all also have canned tuna with some great flavors!
I was told going down there that it was outrageously expensive. And I found that true when talking about non-essentials, headphones and quality clothes. But groceries were shockingly cheap the entire time I was down there. I could spend $30 on a burger and fries, or I could get a weeks worth of food from woolies or coles.
Even better, the corner store, the gas station really, was owned by coles and I could get milk and eggs (things I want fresh, in small batches) and a small selection of anything else I wanted for the exact same price as the larger stores! This freed me up to get veggies and fruit at the market and always have enough food unlike at home.
While in Australia, I had higher quality food for less money with more convenience. All while getting told by people back home how expensive it was when they visited. Maybe I had a different experience since I went for a year but I live in Seattle now and I miss having a corner store within a 5 minute walk that sold all my essentials.
Also Woolies has their mini stores in the big cities and those things are fire.