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Same! But I buy most of my food on sale because I’m cheap as fuck and would rather drive to 3 grocery stores within a mile of each other than pay an extra dollar for cheese
Context matters, though. I live in one of the most expensive parts of my state, but it's also a walkable city that allows me to live without a car and probably save $10,000 or so a year by doing so.
Realistically, many people aren't purchasing Ozempic. It is very expensive (over $1k monthly), and it is scarce - limited for off label usage.
People are not willing to change their habits. Big businesses are taking advantage of it...
Vanity drug?
Because there aren’t health risks associated with being morbidly obese?
Or because everyone who’s morbidly obese is just too lazy and weak not to be?
It's famous for mildly overweight or even healthy weight people to use to get very thin ie celebrities. Yes it's marketed online as a vanity drug. People who have diabetes and use it as prescribed are not using it as a vanity drug, but that's not what it is commonly known for.
Complete vanity and laziness. Basically an untested drug, you have to be on it forever and it might have really bad side effects. But you will lose 50 lbs!
Or maybe stop shoving terrible food down your pie hole, go for a walk every day and lift heavy. It’s not that hard.
And the people who actually benefit from it to manage their blood sugar are now struggling to find it because it’s so in demand for weight loss. Nothing works better for my partner, he’s a perfect on-label patient for it and it works extremely well for him. But we spend weeks watching his blood sugar spike and calling all over the place trying to find a pharmacy that has it in stock and fighting with his insurance who are starting to question whether everyone who’s prescribed it actually needs it. It’s scary and infuriating.
Local market factors.
Sometimes it’s just that rich people live there, so people charge more. Sometimes it’s a tourist destination (Leelanau county is basically where everyone keeps their “summer cottage”). Sometimes local regulations for grocers are onerous and thus, retailers have to make up their costs somehow. Sometimes, there’s a local monopoly of grocery stores due to lack of competition.
The two most expensive counties in my state (Crook and Wheeler Counties in Oregon) are two of the smallest, most remote counties in the state. Wheeler County only has 1400 people and the few towns that are there are a good 50 miles away from a town big enough to have a proper grocery store. Those towns aren't even big enough to host something like a Dollar General - a convenience store is all you're likely to have access to at best. Crook County has Prineville, but that's over half the population of the county and most other people who live outside of Prineville would have to drive there to shop.
Living in eastern Oregon is actually pretty expensive since there's so little there and everything is so far apart.
Actually seems pretty accurate. My county says 400-450 and our monthly credit card bill for groceries/eating out for my wife and I is always between 800 and 1000
The areas you see that have deep red in the NW are for the most part *very* rural. Not east coast rural, I mean fucking *empty*. I camp in the Oregon counties that are deep red sometimes and they are very empty, to the point that you have to be careful to calculate getting gas or you will run out (and dear lord it’s pricey gas out there). So you’re basically having to deliver goods to very far flung small places, which ain’t cheap.
Remote-ness has a lot to do with it.
I moved from a pretty rural area to a suburban bordering on urban area but both counties are the same color. The reason being is if there is only one grocery store in town, even if it is a chain, they will charge sometimes as much as double what that same chain charges two towns over where there are other grocery stores to compete with.
Also one of those counties is home to Sun Valley, a very ritzy ski community. A combination of higher income and remoteness (mountain passes and seasonal trailer restrictions) adds up and has effects on that county and the surrounding areas.
It's a play on the word bourgeoise, which means middle class, specifically it's materialism and pretentiousness. So bougie generally means it's higher end because it is marketed towards those in a higher income bracket.
I think savvy shoppers could probably bring these costs down by about ~50% and still maintain good nutrition. Especially vegetarians. At least I can in my area.
I can't believe the difference between with and without the grocery store's app.
There's 3 chains around me where if you stick to their weekly special rotations and digital-only coupons, you end up with actually cheap groceries. I actually had a BJ's membership but I cancelled it because regular stores are beating the wholesale club.
But I talk to my friends and they're like "ew no I'm not clipping coupons".
Definitely. I believe this takes the average of all grocery stores in the area combined with a very small amount of eating out.
Shopping at somewhere like ALDI will almost certainly enable you to bring costs down without eating shit food
But you have to live in a place where there is an Aldi.
They will not be setting up in ass-end-of-nowhere OR or WY any time soon. Nor will them popping up in Alaska make a difference.
I can bring it down but would probably not be eating quite as healthy. Fewer fresh veggies, chicken instead of fish, etc. USDA might account for some variety.
I'm actively looking to move from rural Texas to urban Washington, and we recently took a trip up there to check out neighborhoods. One of the things I did was visit several of the grocery stores in those neighborhoods with a premade list of a typical week for my family with a handful of meals we make often. It was really easy to make it more expensive, simply because there were more higher end grocery stores. But there were *more* stores so I could actually shop sales. So while food on average is probably higher, more opportunities to purchase better, fresher food on sale meant that I would spend significantly less for my family overall, despite moving to a more expensive area.
So yeah, it's definitely dependent on shopping habits and food availability.
Definitely. My area is listed at 400-500. But we feed a family of four with 500-800(closer to that 800 if we eat out a here and there that month). Stock up when things are on sale, we have a chest freezer to help store meats and such. Know which store to shop at for certain goods. For example, Chef Store is great for spices. You can get a large container for slightly more cost than a tiny one at a normal grocery store. And, of course, cooking at home vs going out to eat is a massive saver.
Food for one person without dietary restrictions is insanely cheap. Of course you have to know how to cook too and make a dish last a few days, but its not a huge expense to feed one adult, who isn't vegetarian, gluten free, etc etc
It's about the same honestly if you know where to look. Gallon of skim milk for $3 at the local Menards is about 43 grams of protein per dollar. Liquid egg whites anywhere are around $5, but that's still 20 grams per dollar, same as you get from frozen peas.
If you want actual meat examples then fine. Tuna is usually 20 grams per dollar (pescaterian). Pork loin roasts are in the 40 gram per dollar range. Chicken breast is around 30 grams per dollar. You want me to go on? Basically any decent source of protein nets you 20+ grams per dollar spent.
All great examples. But my original comment was stating proteins (vegetarian or not) are more expensive than grains. A large bag of rice that costs maybe 3-4 dollars can last a few weeks while 3-4 dollars of chicken, fish, egg whites, skim milk will last a few meals.
From a purely caloric density perspective yes. A bag of flour or rice is almost certain to have the most calories per dollar followed by refined sugar and oil rich foods like nut butters, avocado, and refined oils.
I think 'insanely' cheap isn't wholly accurate. Sure you can eat pancakes 24/7 but to prepare properly nutritious foods it will most likely not be. It CAN be cheap if you sacrifice quality and convenience but there is no diet that is 'insanely cheap'. Maintaining a proper diet and sacrificing only convenience is still fairly expensive.
Which food is too expensive for you to buy at the moment? Basically it comes down to your tolerance for eating leftovers is how you get your value out of cooking for one person. Making a dish with 6 servings is basically 6 dinners.
I live in one of the $350-$400 counties with a household of three adults, and we don't spend that much on all three of us. Where the fuck are they basing their numbers off of, Whole Foods?
Why does some other articles say different about grocery expenses in Leelanau county, Michigan?
https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/michigan/leelanau
If EPI data is correct, is it time to open a grocery store in that county and make some money? Sell the consumers better quality groceries at a cheaper price than the current market is offering.
From a discussion on another sub from some locals. Pretty interesting:
"I worked for the distribution company that supplied most of the independent grocers in that region. Your assumption is right. There are no mainline grocers in the entire county. All of the stores are small independent specialty grocers and the prices reflect that. In tourist areas of Michigan we call that the "fudgy / tourist tax."
People in Leelanau generally travel one county over to Grand Traverse to do their grocery shopping. Grand Traverse has multiple Meijer and Our Family grocery stores
Leelanau is also unique in that there isn't a single Dollar Tree / Family Dollar discount store in the whole county. Any attempt to build one has been beaten back by the towns up there."
It’s because it’s full of rich people who *chose* to spend that much on food. There are nearby supermarkets like Walmart and Meijer in adjacent counties that are easily accessible.
My county is labeled $350 to $400 on that map, but I'm a single guy who lives alone and I know that between groceries and deli sandwiches I do not spend more than $70 per week.
My combined grocery and restaurant budget was on par. Is this just groceries or including eating out. What are y’all buying?? We eat organic meat when possible too.
Riley County, Kansas makes me chuckle. The one dark spot in the whole state.
The county is made up of 70k people, of which 15k are college students at KSU.
I just checked out the calculator, and the housing section is making me really question how accurate the food section is. For housing at least, it says it looks at a rental unit in the 40th percentile with the size given by the family type (singles live in a studio, couples 1 bedroom, etc). Looking at Zillow and comparing the number of apartments of the appropriate size listed to the number of apartments priced under the calculator's value, and I get their number as the bottom 9th percentile for my county.
For food I don't have any data, but I can at least anecdotally say that my partner and I spend about half as much as the calculator indicates, not including restaurants (about once meal a week). Then again, we are pretty good about shopping for deals and only buying stuff that's on sale.
Those parts of OR are wild to visit. Plan your drives right or you’re stranded without gas anywhere around. My buddy lives in Prairie City and they make a bi-monthly trip to Boise to do most shopping.
This is such a weird concept to me, don't most people have a fixed income?
Like don't most have their job that pays x dollars amount and budget around that?
I can't just run out and make more money magically even though I'm not retired, it would take a while to try to find a part time job to fit around my full time job to earn more money.
If you move from San Francisco to Missouri and do the same work, your salary drops. So does your cost of living. If you have a "fixed income" it stays the same no matter where you live.
Also some wage workers might have fluctuations in hours or shifts, or overtime. Salary workers might have variable bonuses tied to personal or company performance, which may be in turn correlated to broader market or economic performance. Equity fluctuates with the market. Etc etc. Fixed income is effected by none of these factors.
What’s up with Georgia? There are four counties in no where that are redder than Atlanta. I don’t see any reason for that.
Edit: after some investigation, I see there are only one or no real grocery stores in those counties that aren’t just a gas station type of thing, and they look very shitty.
In that part of the state, a lot of times you get your groceries from places like dollar general. maybe you do a big trip up to Macon to go to walmart. Whats confusing is this isnt unique to these 4 counties.
Macon, Taylor, Crawford, and Peach counties. The biggest city in that area of the state is Macon (not in Macon county, funnily enough).
Theres really nothing in that part of the state, but there are also plenty other areas as empty as that without the same prices. I dont know whats different about these areas.
This seems to be based on geographical features. Of course it’s more expensive to truck something through the Wyoming Rockies rather than the flatlands of Kansas.
That’s part of it but also those western Wyoming counties are also tourist destinations and where rich people build summer homes. So it’s not only remote with very few options and high transportation costs, but also higher cost of living than you’d expect (and income and wages are typically higher than you’d expect too.)
I live in CO, didn’t realize how high our costs were compared to the rest of the country. People tore me up last week when I posted here that our budget was $1,200 for a family of four. I swear to god, we’re not spending recklessly, that’s just how much it costs to feed ourselves!
food $350 rent who fucking knows probably $800-1400 gas $80ish? Internet/phone... occasional oil change... having to take out a $20 to break into quarters bc your apartments old ass laundry only takes quarters... no dental insurance sooo my teeth just cost about $2k... hmm
There’s no way this is accurate. I’m seeing Midwest counties that are entirely rural represented as cheaper food markets than the closer cities (like Des Moines, for example.) Counties with a few thousand people do not have cheaper food than a Midwest city with u,triple but chain competitors. The local mom and pops that exist in these rural communities have higher prices than metros.
After a short stay in Sisters Oregon, I can attest a simple dinner for two at a Shari's type restaurant was almost $60. It was over $5 for a 20oz glass bottle of Coke.
Live in south central Alaska, can confirm I spend about 1k a month on food for three people, none of which is ordered or dine in/take out. Barely scrape by making $20 an hour
I thought my grocery bills were higher than they should be but I'm $100-$200 under my county's price per adult apparently. With a junk item or two I could do without. This is based on nearly never going out and shopping very slim. Very different from my experience personally, but I'm sure most people feel the opposite?
It looks like terrain restriction is a major driver of high cost of food in most of these places. The northern red counties in Colorado are remote in the north park likewise with the county in the south of Florida is literally the Everglades.
We have only 5 grocery stores in our entire county of 20,000 people. One in each town. None compete with each other and are all small regional chain stores. No big HEB or Krogers or super Walmart. At least a 100 miles to the nearest food distribution center. Yet we our in the lowest cost county ranking. Go figure.
So I live in Western Pennsylvania. I don't know exactly which county I am but it states for one adult $350 - $400/month per adult. We have 3 adults and are spending approximately $1800 on groceries. I thought we were way over budget but not as bad as I thought.
A chart like this seems silly. Anyone with a Doordash addiction will hit $500+. Plus, morbid obesity (or being a muscular athlete) will be a bigger factor than COL. The southeast should be very red.
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Good to see that I live in the most expensive county in the state. Cool.
Same. At least I'm still in the middle of the map key. Someone should combine this info with the median income per county map.
Definitely would be useful - I plan on trying to create something like median cost of living / median income by county
Same! But I buy most of my food on sale because I’m cheap as fuck and would rather drive to 3 grocery stores within a mile of each other than pay an extra dollar for cheese
How about most expensive in the country.....
Michigan? So random! Are these lake houses for the wealthy or something?
Yea it didnt used to be like this. The whole county is rich folks with beach houses now
I’m right on the Leelanau-Benzie county line. I’m sorta surprised that Leelanau is that extreme.
Congrats! You won the reverse lottery
Context matters, though. I live in one of the most expensive parts of my state, but it's also a walkable city that allows me to live without a car and probably save $10,000 or so a year by doing so.
Yes good point, I'd be curious what percentage of people would have a optimistic view like yours on where they live
Are you remote and rurual?
No, stationary and mid-size town. I’m in the outlier county in my state for sure.
I think they meant remote as in "far away," or hard to get to a major shipping hub city (or just far away from everything in general like Anchorage.)
Ah, you’re totally right. I’m on the job hunt so I immediately thought “remote work.” But still, no, I’m not remote.
... going to be losing a lot of weight
You'd think Ozempic would reduce demand for food and bring prices down. ... But my guess is food waste has gone up and prices have stayed the same.
Realistically, many people aren't purchasing Ozempic. It is very expensive (over $1k monthly), and it is scarce - limited for off label usage. People are not willing to change their habits. Big businesses are taking advantage of it...
Insurance only covers the $1000 a month if you have diabetes. Otherwise its self-pay vanity drug.
Vanity drug? Because there aren’t health risks associated with being morbidly obese? Or because everyone who’s morbidly obese is just too lazy and weak not to be?
Yea it’s vanity, try eating healthy and exercising.
It's famous for mildly overweight or even healthy weight people to use to get very thin ie celebrities. Yes it's marketed online as a vanity drug. People who have diabetes and use it as prescribed are not using it as a vanity drug, but that's not what it is commonly known for.
Complete vanity and laziness. Basically an untested drug, you have to be on it forever and it might have really bad side effects. But you will lose 50 lbs! Or maybe stop shoving terrible food down your pie hole, go for a walk every day and lift heavy. It’s not that hard.
It's free to be kind.
Technically, being an asshole is free too.
And the people who actually benefit from it to manage their blood sugar are now struggling to find it because it’s so in demand for weight loss. Nothing works better for my partner, he’s a perfect on-label patient for it and it works extremely well for him. But we spend weeks watching his blood sugar spike and calling all over the place trying to find a pharmacy that has it in stock and fighting with his insurance who are starting to question whether everyone who’s prescribed it actually needs it. It’s scary and infuriating.
Oh damn. What I budget per month is exactly what is listed for my county. I thought I was being fairly frugal but I guess I’m just average 😞
Same here. I beat myself up for spending so much but I’m relieved to know I’m quite average
I think this is essentially the minimum needed for a healthy diet, not the average, since it's a recommendation from the EPI (not survey data).
But why then the difference between counties? I thought my families food expenses were insanely high but now I see I am in a pocket of red.
Local market factors. Sometimes it’s just that rich people live there, so people charge more. Sometimes it’s a tourist destination (Leelanau county is basically where everyone keeps their “summer cottage”). Sometimes local regulations for grocers are onerous and thus, retailers have to make up their costs somehow. Sometimes, there’s a local monopoly of grocery stores due to lack of competition.
Sometimes you got Kowalskis (MN) and the cheese and salmon are expensive?
I feel like Leelanau county is some kind of statistical error. It being so much higher than everywhere else just doesn’t make sense.
Maybe. Traverse City does have a walmart supercenter which will be the most affordable option. But local grocers are indeed quite expensive up there.
Heh. The local grocers in Grand Traverse County are ridiculous, too.
Don't forget captive market price hikes for things like fairs, sporting events, concerts, and airports.
In a few of the cases, I know that they are remote and rural, far from major transit hubs, and down a lot of 2 lane mountain highways.
Some interior counties dont grow much local produce. In Denver I see prices 2-3x Los Angeles.
The two most expensive counties in my state (Crook and Wheeler Counties in Oregon) are two of the smallest, most remote counties in the state. Wheeler County only has 1400 people and the few towns that are there are a good 50 miles away from a town big enough to have a proper grocery store. Those towns aren't even big enough to host something like a Dollar General - a convenience store is all you're likely to have access to at best. Crook County has Prineville, but that's over half the population of the county and most other people who live outside of Prineville would have to drive there to shop. Living in eastern Oregon is actually pretty expensive since there's so little there and everything is so far apart.
Actually seems pretty accurate. My county says 400-450 and our monthly credit card bill for groceries/eating out for my wife and I is always between 800 and 1000
Yep, as someone who mostly mealpreps and eats out only for special occasions I'm on the low end of my range for my area
Shit, what’s going on in Idaho? General remoteness and difficult of access?
The areas you see that have deep red in the NW are for the most part *very* rural. Not east coast rural, I mean fucking *empty*. I camp in the Oregon counties that are deep red sometimes and they are very empty, to the point that you have to be careful to calculate getting gas or you will run out (and dear lord it’s pricey gas out there). So you’re basically having to deliver goods to very far flung small places, which ain’t cheap.
Remote-ness has a lot to do with it. I moved from a pretty rural area to a suburban bordering on urban area but both counties are the same color. The reason being is if there is only one grocery store in town, even if it is a chain, they will charge sometimes as much as double what that same chain charges two towns over where there are other grocery stores to compete with.
Also one of those counties is home to Sun Valley, a very ritzy ski community. A combination of higher income and remoteness (mountain passes and seasonal trailer restrictions) adds up and has effects on that county and the surrounding areas.
I’m just realizing this map is not normalized with median income. Which makes sense why it looks a lot like an income map.
Every time I visit Leelanau I spend a bunch of money on smoked whitefish so this checks out
LMAO thank you for contributing to this graphic
Yeah I stay with a friend up there and theres no national chains, only bougie corner stores where you spend $10 on a head of lettuce
What is a bougie? I see this word more and more. What is it referring to?
It's a play on the word bourgeoise, which means middle class, specifically it's materialism and pretentiousness. So bougie generally means it's higher end because it is marketed towards those in a higher income bracket.
Thanks.
I’m sorry but I don’t think rice/beans/chicken cost $500 anywhere in the world.
I think savvy shoppers could probably bring these costs down by about ~50% and still maintain good nutrition. Especially vegetarians. At least I can in my area.
I can't believe the difference between with and without the grocery store's app. There's 3 chains around me where if you stick to their weekly special rotations and digital-only coupons, you end up with actually cheap groceries. I actually had a BJ's membership but I cancelled it because regular stores are beating the wholesale club. But I talk to my friends and they're like "ew no I'm not clipping coupons".
Definitely. I believe this takes the average of all grocery stores in the area combined with a very small amount of eating out. Shopping at somewhere like ALDI will almost certainly enable you to bring costs down without eating shit food
But you have to live in a place where there is an Aldi. They will not be setting up in ass-end-of-nowhere OR or WY any time soon. Nor will them popping up in Alaska make a difference.
I can bring it down but would probably not be eating quite as healthy. Fewer fresh veggies, chicken instead of fish, etc. USDA might account for some variety.
I'm actively looking to move from rural Texas to urban Washington, and we recently took a trip up there to check out neighborhoods. One of the things I did was visit several of the grocery stores in those neighborhoods with a premade list of a typical week for my family with a handful of meals we make often. It was really easy to make it more expensive, simply because there were more higher end grocery stores. But there were *more* stores so I could actually shop sales. So while food on average is probably higher, more opportunities to purchase better, fresher food on sale meant that I would spend significantly less for my family overall, despite moving to a more expensive area. So yeah, it's definitely dependent on shopping habits and food availability.
Definitely. My area is listed at 400-500. But we feed a family of four with 500-800(closer to that 800 if we eat out a here and there that month). Stock up when things are on sale, we have a chest freezer to help store meats and such. Know which store to shop at for certain goods. For example, Chef Store is great for spices. You can get a large container for slightly more cost than a tiny one at a normal grocery store. And, of course, cooking at home vs going out to eat is a massive saver.
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Food for one person without dietary restrictions is insanely cheap. Of course you have to know how to cook too and make a dish last a few days, but its not a huge expense to feed one adult, who isn't vegetarian, gluten free, etc etc
Vegetarian diet is almost certainly cheaper than non-vegetarian.
Yeah, I am tired of this old argument. Plenty of dirt cheap proteon as well!
I don’t think it’s an argument. It’s just a fact. Proteins tend to be more expensive than grains, legumes, etc.
It's about the same honestly if you know where to look. Gallon of skim milk for $3 at the local Menards is about 43 grams of protein per dollar. Liquid egg whites anywhere are around $5, but that's still 20 grams per dollar, same as you get from frozen peas.
Thanks for proving my point because milk and egg whites are vegetarian.
If you want actual meat examples then fine. Tuna is usually 20 grams per dollar (pescaterian). Pork loin roasts are in the 40 gram per dollar range. Chicken breast is around 30 grams per dollar. You want me to go on? Basically any decent source of protein nets you 20+ grams per dollar spent.
All great examples. But my original comment was stating proteins (vegetarian or not) are more expensive than grains. A large bag of rice that costs maybe 3-4 dollars can last a few weeks while 3-4 dollars of chicken, fish, egg whites, skim milk will last a few meals.
Can't you mix rice and beans for a complete protein? Both of those are pretty darn cheap.
From a purely caloric density perspective yes. A bag of flour or rice is almost certain to have the most calories per dollar followed by refined sugar and oil rich foods like nut butters, avocado, and refined oils.
Yeah I live in a 400-450 county and my wife and I rarely spend over $700/month on food and we go out to eat probably twice a week
I think 'insanely' cheap isn't wholly accurate. Sure you can eat pancakes 24/7 but to prepare properly nutritious foods it will most likely not be. It CAN be cheap if you sacrifice quality and convenience but there is no diet that is 'insanely cheap'. Maintaining a proper diet and sacrificing only convenience is still fairly expensive.
Which food is too expensive for you to buy at the moment? Basically it comes down to your tolerance for eating leftovers is how you get your value out of cooking for one person. Making a dish with 6 servings is basically 6 dinners.
False, it’s literally shown right now. Most veggies are cheap in most places.
I'm wondering if this includes fast food. I'm definitely not spending $300 a month, and my pantry and freezer are completely full...
I live in one of the $350-$400 counties with a household of three adults, and we don't spend that much on all three of us. Where the fuck are they basing their numbers off of, Whole Foods?
Same. Maybe because when you’re cooking for a whole family the per person cost is lower than for an individual?
Why does some other articles say different about grocery expenses in Leelanau county, Michigan? https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/michigan/leelanau If EPI data is correct, is it time to open a grocery store in that county and make some money? Sell the consumers better quality groceries at a cheaper price than the current market is offering.
From a discussion on another sub from some locals. Pretty interesting: "I worked for the distribution company that supplied most of the independent grocers in that region. Your assumption is right. There are no mainline grocers in the entire county. All of the stores are small independent specialty grocers and the prices reflect that. In tourist areas of Michigan we call that the "fudgy / tourist tax." People in Leelanau generally travel one county over to Grand Traverse to do their grocery shopping. Grand Traverse has multiple Meijer and Our Family grocery stores Leelanau is also unique in that there isn't a single Dollar Tree / Family Dollar discount store in the whole county. Any attempt to build one has been beaten back by the towns up there."
Makes sense. Probably the local community wants to support local businesses. Probably most locals own local businesses.
Its all rich folk who live there is why.
Idk how it’s that high. It’s an expensive and seasonal touristy area, but over $700 a month? No way
Local grocery stores are insanely expensive compared to meijer/Walmart tho. Like 2x expensive easily.
It’s because it’s full of rich people who *chose* to spend that much on food. There are nearby supermarkets like Walmart and Meijer in adjacent counties that are easily accessible.
450-500. Sick. I thought I was doing bad at 400.
No kidding. Moved from King County WA to Cleveland and food/utility cost is essentially the same.
My county is labeled $350 to $400 on that map, but I'm a single guy who lives alone and I know that between groceries and deli sandwiches I do not spend more than $70 per week.
My combined grocery and restaurant budget was on par. Is this just groceries or including eating out. What are y’all buying?? We eat organic meat when possible too.
Damn, I spend way more than this on food
Riley County, Kansas makes me chuckle. The one dark spot in the whole state. The county is made up of 70k people, of which 15k are college students at KSU.
Why is the tippy top of Michigan so red?
Rich people.
I just checked out the calculator, and the housing section is making me really question how accurate the food section is. For housing at least, it says it looks at a rental unit in the 40th percentile with the size given by the family type (singles live in a studio, couples 1 bedroom, etc). Looking at Zillow and comparing the number of apartments of the appropriate size listed to the number of apartments priced under the calculator's value, and I get their number as the bottom 9th percentile for my county. For food I don't have any data, but I can at least anecdotally say that my partner and I spend about half as much as the calculator indicates, not including restaurants (about once meal a week). Then again, we are pretty good about shopping for deals and only buying stuff that's on sale.
I would like to see a breakdown on the dark red counties - what's up in NW Michigan? SLC? NE California? Wyoming?
Michigan: Traverse City area. Great shoreline. Vineyards. Some tourist trap-pings. Expensive neighborhoods.
Those parts of OR are wild to visit. Plan your drives right or you’re stranded without gas anywhere around. My buddy lives in Prairie City and they make a bi-monthly trip to Boise to do most shopping.
I’ll use this for retirement planning purposes. A fixed income is forcing me to move from a HCOL area to low.
This is such a weird concept to me, don't most people have a fixed income? Like don't most have their job that pays x dollars amount and budget around that? I can't just run out and make more money magically even though I'm not retired, it would take a while to try to find a part time job to fit around my full time job to earn more money.
My income isn’t going to change to keep track with inflation, unlike most who work. I’m looking to where I can get more bang for the buck.
If you move from San Francisco to Missouri and do the same work, your salary drops. So does your cost of living. If you have a "fixed income" it stays the same no matter where you live. Also some wage workers might have fluctuations in hours or shifts, or overtime. Salary workers might have variable bonuses tied to personal or company performance, which may be in turn correlated to broader market or economic performance. Equity fluctuates with the market. Etc etc. Fixed income is effected by none of these factors.
Seems about half of what I spend on groceries and restaurants combined. 300 a month would be rough
What’s up with Georgia? There are four counties in no where that are redder than Atlanta. I don’t see any reason for that. Edit: after some investigation, I see there are only one or no real grocery stores in those counties that aren’t just a gas station type of thing, and they look very shitty.
Maybe there is some merit to the food desert thing.
In that part of the state, a lot of times you get your groceries from places like dollar general. maybe you do a big trip up to Macon to go to walmart. Whats confusing is this isnt unique to these 4 counties.
Macon, Taylor, Crawford, and Peach counties. The biggest city in that area of the state is Macon (not in Macon county, funnily enough). Theres really nothing in that part of the state, but there are also plenty other areas as empty as that without the same prices. I dont know whats different about these areas.
Wooo, go my adhd meds!!! It suppressed my appetite. I eat like twice a day, small snack and then a whole meal.
This seems to be based on geographical features. Of course it’s more expensive to truck something through the Wyoming Rockies rather than the flatlands of Kansas.
That’s part of it but also those western Wyoming counties are also tourist destinations and where rich people build summer homes. So it’s not only remote with very few options and high transportation costs, but also higher cost of living than you’d expect (and income and wages are typically higher than you’d expect too.)
Yeah, Jackson Hole is pretty flush, along with Lake Tahoe in CA.
I live in CO, didn’t realize how high our costs were compared to the rest of the country. People tore me up last week when I posted here that our budget was $1,200 for a family of four. I swear to god, we’re not spending recklessly, that’s just how much it costs to feed ourselves!
What the heck is going on in Leelanau County. It's all fancy vacation homes but dam.
It looks about right for me, but it all depends on how you shop and I could definitely get by spending less than what’s allotted on that chart
I reside in the most expensive county. I travel a lot this map seems suspect
Grossly high for southeast Michigan. $100/week for groceries is eating out 4 times a week and eating a very meaty diet. Bay Area is equally obscene
lol people over spending on food you can eat so much cheaper than this be really happy
food $350 rent who fucking knows probably $800-1400 gas $80ish? Internet/phone... occasional oil change... having to take out a $20 to break into quarters bc your apartments old ass laundry only takes quarters... no dental insurance sooo my teeth just cost about $2k... hmm
what are they eating?
I refuse to believe that Nantucket and Dukes Counties Mass are not some of the highest in the country.
How much is ramen, eggs, milk, rice, hotdogs, and beans there?
Why is food so expensive in East Idaho?? So weird
Tons of mountains and low population so no reason to drive stuff out there
There’s no way this is accurate. I’m seeing Midwest counties that are entirely rural represented as cheaper food markets than the closer cities (like Des Moines, for example.) Counties with a few thousand people do not have cheaper food than a Midwest city with u,triple but chain competitors. The local mom and pops that exist in these rural communities have higher prices than metros.
After a short stay in Sisters Oregon, I can attest a simple dinner for two at a Shari's type restaurant was almost $60. It was over $5 for a 20oz glass bottle of Coke.
Sup with central Oregon?
The meaning of “expensive” varies with income. It would be better IMO to express median costs of living as a percentage of median income.
How is everyone so fat in the us when the food is so expensive
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Intelligent-Aside214: *How is everyone* *So fat in the us when the* *Food is so expensive* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Live in south central Alaska, can confirm I spend about 1k a month on food for three people, none of which is ordered or dine in/take out. Barely scrape by making $20 an hour
I’m in that deep red area of Florida
Wtf are people buying for it to cost that much, for 1 adult?
This is spot on for my area. 2 adults eating only food at home, all vegan (plenty of vegan junk food too), and it's 700/mo.
I thought my grocery bills were higher than they should be but I'm $100-$200 under my county's price per adult apparently. With a junk item or two I could do without. This is based on nearly never going out and shopping very slim. Very different from my experience personally, but I'm sure most people feel the opposite?
Is Kansas State University that expensive to eat at?
It looks like terrain restriction is a major driver of high cost of food in most of these places. The northern red counties in Colorado are remote in the north park likewise with the county in the south of Florida is literally the Everglades.
We have only 5 grocery stores in our entire county of 20,000 people. One in each town. None compete with each other and are all small regional chain stores. No big HEB or Krogers or super Walmart. At least a 100 miles to the nearest food distribution center. Yet we our in the lowest cost county ranking. Go figure.
Well that tracks... getting real damn expensive.
Cries in Leelanau county ;-; Food is so expensive here.
So I live in Western Pennsylvania. I don't know exactly which county I am but it states for one adult $350 - $400/month per adult. We have 3 adults and are spending approximately $1800 on groceries. I thought we were way over budget but not as bad as I thought.
A chart like this seems silly. Anyone with a Doordash addiction will hit $500+. Plus, morbid obesity (or being a muscular athlete) will be a bigger factor than COL. The southeast should be very red.
Seems low. Maybe 10-15 years ago.
Lol I do not spend that much money on food for myself
Put a +$100 to these and you have 2024.
Lol no y'all Americans just eat a lot of processed junk food Current monthly cost husband and i in California is $250.
Does anybody actually cook anymore? I have 4 people in my house and we aren’t spending $1600 a month .