Fast food is usually cheaper than prepared health food, but if you're cooking your own meals from scratch, it's probably cheaper to eat healthier. (I'm talkin' pantry basics and veggies, not organic tofu or whatever these dang hippies are into nowadays.)

That's a good point. I should probably add an option like that lol but idk how to word that so it'll fit into the poll without hitting the character limit. xD

Definitely harder to eat healthy on a low income.

Cheap convenience food, canned food, and processed corn/wheat products are cheaper than healthy food. You could argue that cooking from scratch using fresh veg is not particularly expensive (although less so when you factor in the expense of good-quality meat / protein)... but people on a low-income working multiple jobs often don't have time, are too exhausted, and/or grew up in a low-income household that never taught the basics of cooking

The traditional image of a 'poor person' is someone skinny from malnutrition, but that isn't even true in many non-western countries anymore. In parts of Mexico, coke is cheaper than water.... poor people ain't skinny nowadays but they're still unhealthy. Just swapped starvation for chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Your health and life expectancy is largely dependent on your income and food is just the tip of a shitty iceburg (chronic stress, working conditions, physical environment, access to medical care, etc). A nice graph on this link (haha just joking it's fuckin depressing)

(Credit for graph: link 'The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001–2014' (2016) 315(16) Journal of the American Medical Association 1750)

I seriously need to get off fanpop for a week lmao I'm applying for shit that will determine my post-uni job. Pls ban me from this cruel temptress of a website

Dude thanks for this comment! Pretty much summed up what I was going to say. I think that a lot of people don’t factor in time limitations when considering this question. Even if a person buys cheaper stuff to make a meal from scratch they might not be home or awake long enough to use that. Like if you’re always working (especially at a retail or food service job which is common for low income folks) it’s easier to go across the street and get fast food or get it from your work place which might offer a discount.

That aside I’ve noticed that whenever I try to buy the healthier choices I find myself screeching at the prices especially compared to a candy bar at the checkout counter. Healthy food options are way more expensive. Icing on the cake is that a low income person can’t afgitd a gym membership either.

it all comes down to choice. you can get fruits and veggies if you plan out your food budget.

Unless you're literally pinching pennies. Sometimes a poor person's budget plan doesn't allow for that kind of spending. You can't make room in your food budget without taking it from a different portion of your budget. This is the problem that my family has run into. If we wanted to buy some of the healthier food items we either had to buy less food (also not good because we'd run out) or we had to sacrifice buying a new tube of toothpaste.

Another point; some people can't afford groceries at all and rely on food pantries. In which case you don't get to chose what you are given. In my experience with the food pantry, we were given a lot of junk and snack food and (if we were lucky) a bag of apples. It was legit mostly cookies, chips, and some granola bars. Lots of canned goods. The kicker; most of it was either expiring soon or already expired. That right there is significantly less healthy.

I feel blessed that I have a friend who lets me have some of his food and takes me to the gym with him. Tbh idk what I'd do if I didn't have that.

Getting slightly off topic, but I feel this is valuable info, so eat it up, fellow cheap people:

Most expiration dates are just link - it's instinct to toss it when the date comes up, but if it's sealed and shelf-stable, it's probably still usable for quite a while. If you find a grocery outlet willing to sell products close to the stamped date, you can fill up a cart for crazy cheap. (This pandemic BS has really interfered with my love of exploring weird little grocery stores. I get off on hunting for deals. I have neeeeds. =P)

If your food bank is giving out crap, look around on community websites, 'cause there's probably more than one. For example, here there's a county-run one, at least two others run by community groups, and churches are always happy to help out too. (Unless you're that one wench who leaves churches negative reviews online when they don't have what she wants. Yes, this is a real person, and real thing that has happened several times. If ever there was someone who deserved to be Regina George'd... XD)

^I looove the adventure of weird little grocery stores, especially ethnic food ones. Cheaper AND more interesting. I'm sad that I can't get to my East Asian shop rn

@mushu Zan said it already but it's not as easy as just allocating part of one's budget - where do you cut from? When allocating money, immediate concerns like rent (ie. having a roof over your head) and utilities will always take priority over more abstract concepts like "long-term health". Also, like other comments touched on, low income people are not just money poor, they're often time-poor too. Time is an incredibly important yet overlooked resource, and just another thing you tend to lack when living on a low income.

@zan Good point about hospitality workers and also gym memberships. So sorry to hear about the fam, I hope it gets better for you all. People like your friend are wonderful and I'm so glad that we have them around when the world seems otherwise-shitty. And yeah food pantries are notorious for giving unhealthy food. I worked for a Soup Kitchen once and they tried to keep it healthy but there's only so much they can do on a small budget trying to provide for many people at once.

@DS That's a good point about the expired food. Granted, the place I went to actually gave us grapes that got moldy the next day and bread that was hard. Stuff that tasted stale. Though we could deal with the stale stuff. A lot of the pantries in my area were kind of the same (some just gave more food than others). Might be different in other areas.
But the advice of taking the discount 'expired' store stuff is a good one. My family has actually done that too and it helped a lot.

@Princes Thanks! Tbh I don't have much hope for that my family has been in the same financial situation since 2008ish. The pandemic has only made it worse. Tbh I'm almost used to it at this point and just find myself blessed that I have a friend who can help.
And yeah that's true there's only soo much you can do on a minimum budget or a budget that relies on donations.

Don't settle for discounted groceries, seek them out! I went poking around and found a link of discount/outlet grocery stores in the US. If I didn't hate traveling so much, I'd be planning a statewide grocery tour right now. XD

Tbh that's the most inspireable (I accidentally typed that instead of inspiring, it's not a work but I like it so I'm keeping it) thing that I've heard in a while. Like everyone needs to get out and seek out their discounts! Get food for the price that they should be!

...do people not do this regularly? O.O

^ Exactly there are just more options when you can spend more.

Agree with ThePrincesTale's comments and want to expand on them:

Fast food and processed foods are also easier to prepare/access. Cooking at home requires a trip or multiple trips to the supermarket. And buying 'cheap' veges/fruits/meats often means buying in bulk, which is a larger upfront cost even if it works out cheaper in the end (ie buying a big ass bag of potatoes versus getting fries at the drive-through). This kind of shopping can also rely on having a particular set of staples in the pantry/fridge. And necessitates having resources like a fridge.

Cooking a meal at home takes time and resources, like the facilities to cook. Cooking at home requires stovetops, ovens, microwaves, fridges etc. As well as pots and pans and other cookware (which all cost money, even if you get them cheap - and if you do, they probably won't last as long, so you have to replace them more often). It also requires the knowledge/skills to make food from scratch. Most of us take this kind of knowledge for granted, but these are not knowledge sets that necessarily get passed along through generations, particularly as the 'working poor' workforce steadily grows. That is, parents work long hours/multiple jobs and do not have the time to cook meals, even if they have the resources like a working stovetop etc.

A really clear example is the impact of cooking on a power bill. For people living in poverty, heating is usually the first to go in order to keep the power bill manageable. Hot showers etc... that uses power, and so does turning on your oven. Not using the oven becomes a way to manage next month's power bill. Some families live without power completely. That means no fridge to store fresh food. So a 'food budget' is subject to multiple other budgets too, including time constraints.

The discussion of bargain-hunting is interesting: I am definitely a bargain hunter, but I have the resources to be one (ie access to a car, the freedom of time and budget to use that car and travel around and find the things I want at cheaper prices, driving them home to my fridge, freezer and pantry). But those living in poverty might not have those resources needed to bargain hunt. If they live in an area where the fresher, healthier food is expensive, they need to have time and resources to travel further to find bargains. If you have to spend time and money traveling for bargains, they are not necessarily bargains anymore. And the cheap takeaway option enables a fix to the problem (ie hunger), perhaps even saving money that can be put towards another bill.

I recommend checking out this poverty 'game': link There are a couple of food budget questions that may pop up for you as you go, which are directly related to this poll.
It isn't by any means perfect and fits more within 'working poor' poverty, but it is an interesting little exercise to get you thinking about the systemic issues that produce and exacerbate poverty, and explicitly it gets you thinking about precarity. I'm an expert at getting to 30 days, but there are tricky decisions to make along the way.

"And buying 'cheap' veges/fruits/meats often means buying in bulk, which is a larger upfront cost even if it works out cheaper in the end." Exactly! This is like buying a new car vs a junker. Often low income people have to buy junkers or lower quality used cars because they can't afford a large upfront payment. But low q cars break down more often and totally break altogether faster. So in the long run its cheaper to get a new car. But that's not possible because the person doesn't have all of that money up front/can't realistically pay it off if they take a loan so they settle.
The same can be said for food; buying in bulk might be cheaper in the long run. But a low income person might not have enough money on hand for it. And you can't exactly take out a loan on food.

"Most of us take this kind of knowledge for granted, but these are not knowledge sets that necessarily get passed along through generations, particularly as the 'working poor' workforce steadily grows. That is, parents work long hours/multiple jobs and do not have the time to cook meals, even if they have the resources like a working stovetop etc." This is also a very good point. Now if we're talking living on the streets, low income, options are even harder. I'm not sure how much access homeless folks have to stoves, cooking tools, and microwaves. But I can't imagine that it makes things any easier.