Food expenses

[Kriegsspiel]

Yea that's a good point. I eat like a fucking king. Not some prissy king eating... mice genitals or something weird. More like a Viking or Mongol warlord, plenty of meat and dairy and grog. Exotic fruits and maple syrups from the far flung reaches of my empire. Some vegetables from my private gardens when I'm feeling dainty.

[pp4me]

We spend about $600 per month for he three of us but that doesn't include eating out which we do about once a week. Or occasionally picking up some carryout because I'm the cook and I'm feeling lazy.

We eat well on that budget. It would probably be higher if I didn't do IF with only one meal a day.

I have a cashback American Express card that refunds 6% at grocery stores but they don't take it at Costco - only my 2% Visa.

What is the annual fee on the American Express card? Is that the Blue Card?

Which is your 2% VIsa? I get 2% on the CashBack card.

Every time I do the breakeven on the 6% American Express Card regarding it's additional 4% against the fee it never seems to work.

Vinny

No annual fee on either card. The Amex card is blue and says "Cash Preferred" but other than that I don't even remember where I applied for it and who actually issues it. It gives 6% on groceries up to a yearly limit, 3% on gas, and 1% on everything else. The Visa is a Fidelity Rewards card.

I manage the card at AmericanExpress.com if you want to check it out.

[Kriegsspiel]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

[pp4me]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

Maybe I'm paying a fee after all and just forgot. All I know is that it does pay for itself.

[Kriegsspiel]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

Maybe I'm paying a fee after all and just forgot.

Or MAYBE you were trolling personal finance nerds, seeing how much you could get away with, just out of the cold fucking DARKNESS OF YOUR BLACK FUCKING HEAR.. ok I agree. Easy thing to overlook when it pays for itself.

[yankees60]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

At a difference of 3% vs 6% cash back on groceries, you would have to spend around $3200/year to make it worth paying the $95 annual fee.

Less than that on a for a difference for a 2% versus 6%.

Where do you get the 3%?

I have a Penfed card which I think was giving me 5% on food and gas.

But I stopped using it when I went to use my rebates and two things happened.

One is I'm only interested in cash back. I do not want to use my rebates to buy things. The closest to cash was using them to buy Amazon gift cards.

I did not get 100% value in buying those cards. I think it was 80%. So brought my real rebate to 4%. If it was only that it would have been acceptable. But then it became time consuming when I had to buy the cards.

I just could not just buy one card for my entire rebate balance. There was a maximum amount I could buy per card so I had to buy multiple cards.

Way too time consuming as opposed to my other rebate cards where I just say: send amount to my bank account or give me a statement credit.

Vinny

[WiseOne]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

At a difference of 3% vs 6% cash back on groceries, you would have to spend around $3200/year to make it worth paying the $95 annual fee.

Yes - except they do have other nice cashback perks that help make up the difference. 3% cash back on gas and transit, including rideshares, and a constant stream of offers that surprisingly turn out to be useful. I made out like a bandit when I was buying a lot of stuff for my kitchen remodel. They also had a "shop small" deal that worked great for me because almost every store in NYC qualifies as "small", including my neighborhood grocery stores. All I had to do was my usual shopping and I got an extra $50 out of it.

Edited to add in actual credit card reward income (thank you YNAB). I got curious. In total, for 2020 I got $827. That's effectively tax-free income! It's also an underestimate, because some of the Amex rewards come in as a statement credit from the vendor, and I got lazy about recategorizing that. In 2019 it was $698. I suppose that's an indictment of how much I spend. I definitely don't skimp when I need something, and I don't compromise on food quality to save money, but I'm not anywhere close to being as extravagant as many people I know.

[yankees60]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

At a difference of 3% vs 6% cash back on groceries, you would have to spend around $3200/year to make it worth paying the $95 annual fee.

Yes - except they do have other nice cashback perks that help make up the difference. 3% cash back on gas and transit, including rideshares, and a constant stream of offers that surprisingly turn out to be useful. I made out like a bandit when I was buying a lot of stuff for my kitchen remodel. They also had a "shop small" deal that worked great for me because almost every store in NYC qualifies as "small", including my neighborhood grocery stores. All I had to do was my usual shopping and I got an extra $50 out of it.

Edited to add in actual credit card reward income (thank you YNAB). I got curious. In total, for 2020 I got $827. That's effectively tax-free income! It's also an underestimate, because some of the Amex rewards come in as a statement credit from the vendor, and I got lazy about recategorizing that. In 2019 it was $698. I suppose that's an indictment of how much I spend. I definitely don't skimp when I need something, and I don't compromise on food quality to save money, but I'm not anywhere close to being as extravagant as many people I know.

Plus we all know that you are extremely financially responsible and you can well afford to spend what you spend. Unlike, sad to say, far too many of our fellow Americans.

Vinny

[yankees60]

I'm sure that with the age of many of the forum members that many are familiar with Aerosmith and their lead singer Steve Tyler?

It was the summer of 1973. Their first album had only been out less than a year and their second was still nearly a year away.

I was in a music club with someone in Boston. All of a sudden I recognized that Steve Tyler was walking around in it. I went up to him to talk to him.

Now for the few years prior I'd managed a rock band and there was always this tension with bands of playing their original music, which was not necessarily what the audience wanted to hear, or playing covers (other people's music) which the audience ALWAYS wanted to play.

It was a tension between being an artist or being commercial. Wanting to be hired our band did mostly covers with some originals thrown in.

Therefore when I'm about to talk to Steve Tyler this is the burning question on my mind.

I ask him, "How did you make it? Did you used to play a lot of covers?"

He said, "No.", which startled me. I was nearly speechless but I managed to then follow up with, "Then how did you survive?"

47+ years later I STILL remember his answer! "A lot of white rice and Campbell's soup!" Then he walked away.

I guess spending more time with this intense, serious person was not his idea of a fun night in a music club!

Vinny

That's a great story.

That was one of four somewhat happenstance interactions with four different personnel associated with Aerosmith, all which took place over a year's span around that same 1973 time period.

Prior to that interaction with Steve Tyler I was at an outdoor show. They were closing the show so other bands were playing before them. Somehow (I am not remembering how) I got backstage. Next thing I know I find myself standing next to Aerosmith's bass player. He turns out to be a regular person and we talk. The only part of the conversation I'm remembering is the two of us marveling at the current state of sound system effectiveness and how superb it is compared to what existed at the time of the Beatles live performance time period.

Later that year my friend and I attempted to see them somewhere in Massachusetts but it is sold out and we cannot get in. We end up going to a club across the street and see an excellent local band.

Now at this point I'm 22 1/2 year old. I'm collecting unemployment. I have no degrees. I have no marketable work skills. I'd just moved to this area and did not know where I was going to work. I was your basic minimum wage worker, working for whoever would hire me.

Therefore, once I realized the Aerosmith show was over I went to the place they'd played at to find their manager so I can present myself as being available to be a roadie for the band. What could surpass being a roadie for a band like Aerosmith?!?! I did find him but, unfortunately (but probably fortunately in retrospect), he told me that they did not need anyone.

My last interaction was after I'd moved here and found this place called Paul's Old Thyme Furniture. Paul was this older hippie, with long hair and long beard. But he had this van that had "Aerosmith" with big letters on it. Of course, I needed to find out what this is all about. I ask him. He tells me that he used to be Aerosmith's manager (not the same guy I'd met previously). I'm simply incredulous that he chose to no longer be their manager. How could one chose to walk away from that??!! I ask him why he left. He tells me that that "The rock and roll business was too cutthroat!!!" Even though I myself had been the manager for two years prior of a much less accomplished band I was totally thrown by his answer.

My last Aerosmith story was about 40 years later in 2013. A friend and I went to this great music club in New Hampshire - the Casino Ballroom. Located across the street from a well attended beach. Except this is winter time and no one was there so it looked like a ghost town compared to every other time I'd been there. The show was a traveling across country Jimi Hendrix show that had in it a lot of guitar playing talent that you'd know if I told you. We had general admission tickets. Whenever that is the case, I'm in line an hour before the doors open so I can be the first to get in to get my desired spot - as close as possible.

While my friend and I are standing on these stairs, not far from the door, waiting to be let in, this guy comes up to me and thrusts in front of me this nice looking Les Paul which has several well known guitarists' autographs on it. I'm initially bewildered by what is going on. But then I realize he wants me to autograph it because he thinks I am one of Aerosmith's guitarists - Brad Whitford! As soon as I realize that I'm not going to do anything to his guitar to desecrate in any way so I just say to him, "I'm nobody." Which then prompts him to leave!

By the way. That Aerosmith truck?

It was discovered in the woods two years ago!

08-15-18

Amazing: After 40 years, Aerosmith’s tour bus turns up in the woods

A piece of living rock-and-roll history has been discovered in the New England wilderness.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90219390/am ... -the-woods

That person on the truck or bus with the guy walking next to the Aerosmith name? I believe that was supposed to have been Paul. Or, maybe not. Somewhat resembles what he looked like back then.

Vinny

[Pointedstick]

I read this article too and was similarly depressed, but not by the food budget: it was the debt and housing payments. Food is an elastic expense so if you have to splurge on anything, it makes sense to make it food and other luxuries that provide direct utility IMO. But you're locked into your debt and housing payments for the long term. You can't reduce them quickly without incurring major disruptive changes.

Of course there's a ton of fat that can be easily trimmed from just about anyone's budget without any loss of luxury. $80/mo cellphone contracts can easily be replaced with $20/mo ones; cable can be replaced with Netflix and YouTube; high-quality low-flow showerheads can slash your water bills with no loss of shower quality, and so on. It's just that most people never consider doing things like this until a financial crisis has already started.

[yankees60]

I read this article too and was similarly depressed, but not by the food budget: it was the debt and housing payments. Food is an elastic expense so if you have to splurge on anything, it makes sense to make it food and other luxuries that provide direct utility IMO. But you're locked into your debt and housing payments for the long term. You can't reduce them quickly without incurring major disruptive changes.

Of course there's a ton of fat that can be easily trimmed from just about anyone's budget without any loss of luxury. $80/mo cellphone contracts can easily be replaced with $20/mo ones; cable can be replaced with Netflix and YouTube; high-quality low-flow showerheads can slash your water bills with no loss of shower quality, and so on. It's just that most people never consider doing things like this until a financial crisis has already started.

I had two experiences which directly back up all you say.

In the late 80s I got a raise to $50,000 (probably equivalent to $100,000 now). Then the company hit hard times.

It was about a 100 person small business. I was the head financial person (the company had just had an IPO the prior year) and this other person was our head manufacturing person. We each reported to the president who told us we each needed to take pay cuts.

The other person said, "I cannot afford to do that." I said nothing but what was screaming in my mind was: "We have been both working in this shaky company for eight years, never knowing if the company was still going to be in the business the next year. [I think we'd only had two profitable years of those eight.] How could you ever set up your financial life so that you HAD to be earning $50,000." Me? I ended up being fired because I refused to take the pay cut. Not for the same reason as his but just on some principles I had then but which I've long forgotten. [That president who fired me that day now considers me his best friend in the area.]

How did I end up? My next job was a 1/3 pay cut from that $50,000. Yet I was still saving good sums of money. I've always set up my financial life so that I am living far below my means. I never wanted to be put in a position where I had to take a job which I detested for any number of reasons.

Around 2012 someone came to me, asking if i could give financial assistance to her family because they were not making it. She gave me some reasons. I said I'd consider it.

But being an accountant I wanted to know really what was going on. Over an extremely short period of time I spent 100 hours going through all their bank statements and anything else I could find to input it all into Quicken so as to analyze what was going on.

In the process two things stuck out in my mind. She was explaining to me an example of why the mortgage was not being paid. Her words were..."The mortgage was due but then the cell phone bill came due." I said to myself, "Am I so out of touch with normal American life that it is a now a bigger priority to have cell phones and pay their bill OVER paying your mortgage??!!"

I also saw that they were paying the monthly fee to have XM Sirius radio in both their vehicles. I could have well afforded the same for my vehicle but I was too frugal to pay for it. I said, "I'm going to assist them in paying for things that I won't even pay for for myself that I can afford?"

I'm sure you being who you are can well imagine the myriad of other spending item issues I uncovered during those 100 hours. It was truly an illuminating experience, which clearly demonstrated how so many people are their own financial enemies and how they are fully responsible for sabotaging themselves.

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Vinny

[dualstow]

Where do you get the 3%?

In addition to the cards Pug mentioned, I get 3% back on groceries from both TD Cash and Savor (Capital One).
There is now a fee on the Savor for latecomers, but my zero fee is grandfathered in to all future card replacements.
Sometimes a farmer's market vendor or bodega is coded as dining out, in which case I get 4% back.

I signed up for a Chase Freedom card to get 5% back, but by the time the card arrived it had rotated out of groceries.
The two cards above don't change their benefits.

I do wonder if the pandemic is going to force them to cut back.

[Pointedstick]

lol I also don't pay for Sirius XM in my vehicle. They sure are persistent! I get gobs of junk mail about it! I'm sure they've lost money on me.

[dualstow]

The other person said, "I cannot afford to do that."

We should really start a thread on financial (not investing) irresponsibility. My accountant had the best stories at lunch, back when we could go out for lunch. They're like car wrecks or horror movies. I can't look away.

P.S. I love Steve Tyler even though he now looks a bit like a wax figure of a woman with a long moustache.

[Smith1776]

I've been really enjoying the bodybuilding journey lately. One of the bright sides to eating a boring diet is that it's dead simple to shop for and maintain. It's generally stuff you can buy affordably and in bulk, too. Though, to be fair, if you are bodybuilding you're probably eating a larger volume of food. Things like:

• Rice
• Chicken
• Fish
• Eggs
• Steamed vegetables/raw salad

That's mostly it. Food simplicity... just like the PP!

[yankees60]

lol I also don't pay for Sirius XM in my vehicle. They sure are persistent! I get gobs of junk mail about it! I'm sure they've lost money on me.

Way back in 2005 I bought this portable XM receiver. It was great. I could use it in the house. I could use in the car. I could use it walking around. It even had a six hour recording feature with the ability to set the times for the recordings to start and end. It a great unit until it stopped properly working.

While I had it I bought what was supposed to be a lifetime subscription for $500. It was not for just the lifetime of that unit. You got to make three total transfers to a different unit.

After that one died I did my first transfer. Two to go. That unit also died.

I found some new units for sale but they had nowhere the capabilities of those original two. But they were as cheap as anything. While I making the purchase and needing to do my second transfer I asked if I bought two of them could we not count this as a second transfer. The person told me, Yes.

This could have been eight years ago. After I bought the two units I have rarely used the one I transferred the subscription to. But in my mind, I'm thinking that I still have two transfers left.

But within the last month or so I get one of those little cards telling me that there is a class action suit against XM Sirius because they have not been honoring those lifetime subscriptions.

As I said I've not had a need to use the unit but when I do XM Sirius WATCH OUT! I will not be without power when I tell them I want my full subscription rights.

Over the years I've built up to 5,000 Facebook friends, 30,000 Twitter followers, 18,000 connections in LinkedIn. One of the reasons for doing so is to give myself - lonely me - some power against these mega-corporations.

I'm just biding my time for when one of them attempts to tell me, "Well, that is just the way it is." Then I respond with..."if you do not give me what I want then I will be sure to repeatedly inform ALL my social media contacts of all the details regarding what you did to me. Is that something you really want out there?" I suspect I might get a different response when I put it to them that way.

That, again, is another one of the good features of social media. I've several times read that many companies upon reading just one complaint from someone in social medial immediately contact the person to remedy the problem.

Vinny

this post has been shadow banned and will no longer be visible to face book, twitter, LinkedIn, google, and you-tube users....

[Mountaineer]

Sirius is the most difficult subscription I have ever canceled. Multiple calls to multiple agents I think all in India. Finally I told them the subscriber died. They canceled. Now I just play Apple Music in the car for no extra charge.

[barrett]

The last time we had a food expense thread on here I can remember that Pointedstick was somewhat appalled at our numbers. Then we were three people but our daughter is now supporting herself (and living below her means!). Anyway what my wife and I spend on food just blows away anything that has been posted so far. She does the food shopping and we just went over all the cc charges for the three weeks last month that we were not on the road in UT & AZ. Total charged at grocery stores for 21 days in November was $882. We almost always pay cash for take out and eating in restaurants so we can only guess at those amounts, but it's clear that we are well up over $1,000 for a month. We've agreed to actually keep track for a full month to see what the real number is. We probably won't change anything either way but this thread got me curious.

BTW, am I the only one that thinks of booze as a food expense? Kriegs?

[pp4me]

The AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card definitely has an annual fee ($95). The Blue Cash Everyday does not.

Maybe I'm paying a fee after all and just forgot.

Or MAYBE you were trolling personal finance nerds, seeing how much you could get away with, just out of the cold fucking DARKNESS OF YOUR BLACK FUCKING HEAR.. ok I agree. Easy thing to overlook when it pays for itself.

Not that I don't have a black fucking heart but I think my confusion might have come from when I first applied and there was no fee for the first year if you spent enough in the first 90 days. Or something like that. I've had that care for a long time.

[Kriegsspiel]

BTW, am I the only one that thinks of booze as a food expense? Kriegs?

Hell no, separate budget line.

[pp4me]

Yes - except they do have other nice cashback perks that help make up the difference.

I once took advantage of a reduced rate on Youtube TV which I had just subscribed to. It was for a certain percentage off the bill that I don't recall but I think that perk alone probably covered the annual fee.

[yankees60]

I am just one person...here are my annual amounts for the last six years (will probably be buying no more food or going to Subway for the balance of this year).

4,448 3,656 3,932 4,272 4,790 4,247

None of the amounts are inventory adjusted for how much food is in inventory at the end of the year. I've never had anywhere as much in inventory as I presently do.

I include all seeds and plants for my garden as food costs. Plus, some other non-food items that are used strictly for the food garden.

Here is a comparison for this year and last for the breakdowns between in-house food and eating out food.

In- house: 3,500 / 3,900
Eating out: 1,300 / 350

Obvious reason why eating out has gone so far down.

Major reason for In-house going up is that I really have a tremendous amount of food inventory in my basement. It used to all fit in one wooden cabinet that is there. Now, however, that cabinet is full with the overflow of stacks and stacks of cans and jars of food on the basement floor.

If you run out of peanut butter, raisins, canned tomatoes, canned beans, spicy mustard, canned pineapple. nutritional yeast, sour pickles, Hershey's pure cocoa....let me know so you can come by and get some!

Vinny

[Kriegsspiel]

None of the amounts are inventory adjusted for how much food is in inventory at the end of the year. I've never had anywhere as much in inventory as I presently do.

I include all seeds and plants for my garden as food costs. Plus, some other non-food items that are used strictly for the food garden.

Vinny

Word is you have quite a bit on the hoof as well that you aren't including in your totals.

And you're usually so precise.

[yankees60]

None of the amounts are inventory adjusted for how much food is in inventory at the end of the year. I've never had anywhere as much in inventory as I presently do.

I include all seeds and plants for my garden as food costs. Plus, some other non-food items that are used strictly for the food garden.

Vinny

Word is you have quite a bit on the hoof as well that you aren't including in your totals.

And you're usually so precise.

Yes. Usually precise to the extreme. But a few times I do let up on the precision.

Vinny

[dualstow]

BTW, am I the only one that thinks of booze as a food expense? Kriegs?

Hell no, separate budget line.

Medication