endlesseden

lol American clearly. gosh, buying in bulk would be amazing. closest to that is Costco, but when you calculate subscription cost, travel involved, and price compare individually it's rarely cheap (I live more than 2h from closest one).

buying in bulk is rare. most things are 1-3 servings at most, even pasta. I used to live in the states and genuinely miss the availability of bulk sizes of some things. meats being a big one. that's simply not a thing here and the price per kg of meats doesn't make buying and storing any cheaper as the price is pretty stable per month. it just goes up month after month...

my grandparents didn't pay $7 for milk and $6 for eggs. they also lived on veggies and butchered meats that were cheap. I have the privilege of remembering my grandparents being around and doing shopping with them when I was young. a month's groceries was $40 and 80% of that was meat and cheese. which I would help them repackage and freeze that very night.

the last few years before they passed they were unable to make by and my parents would often have to share food with them. I don't think many people realise how much things have changed in that regard.

my own parents are now suffering and eating far worse than when I was growing up with them. so I don't think that your point is universal.

I think you have overlooked something. my parents worked 8h days and made 4x what I do relatively to inflation. my grandparents worked 6hour days and made 6x as much as I do relative to inflation. I'm also much older than 2000+ lol

It's not that shopping/cooking time is worthless, it's that sometimes you have to choose between that and essentials, like sleep and relaxation.

I refuse to be like other people my age and rely on copius amounts of alcohol, to offset the stress of life. my time and money is valuable, and if I want to spoil myself on a healthy weekly dinner that saves time, and energy (and often money in my case), to maintain my mental health and /save/ me money as a result. I don't see your point.

I wish labour was the most expensive part. much to my frustrations at my grocer, prepared meals (as long as they are not locally prepared) are far more cost effective at any volume locally.

best example of this is with meats. frozen prepared Schnitzel is 60% cheaper than its fresh counterparts. it's also not truly "fresh" here unless it's from a butcher, due to our duopoly of options. (our courts have already found out big two supermarkets to be price-fixing...)

I could spend pretty close to $80 just on 1l milk, 1 carton of eggs, bread, 4 cans of green beans, 4 boxes of spaghetti, 4 jars of sauce, 2 boxes of cereal and 1kg of beef mince.

I just spent on Wednesday, $208 and that was 20 things, most of it being just 2 weeks of cat litter and it was the cheapest in 80km...

location is everything it seems rn.

"pop psychology". yeahhhh, next your going to say something like Maga with that attitude...

spoon theory was just a example of the very real and well documented psychological impact of chronic exhaustion. -- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11624833/

I swear, every one of you must live in a big city and work part time jobs.

my day starts at 4am and ends at 9pm. I have 1hr and 41 minutes between work and commute, to cook, clean, relax and prepare for work/sleep M-F every day. I often sleep 6.5hrs a night, as any longer means I don't get any time to relax after work and do anything other than eat and go to bed.

you keep using possessive terms to imply that "spending money on prepared and delivered food is lower value". when it's not /always/ the case.

it's incredibly frustrating as while I can relate, when I did live in CBD and commute by PT. Grabbing fresh produce, meat, cheeses, grains and pasta was easy. as it was all right there on my way.

but I still spent more than delivery. time shopping, added commute time for added layovers between trains and then the 20minuts of prep and cook time. the 1+hr spent on that, is still less than ordering a healthy meal from a local restaurant. delivered in 8 minutes or less for $12 delivery fee.

sure I could go super cheap and make bargain meals... but that was never the point of any of this.

I said it's not any cheaper to make it yourself, if you count your time involved. I was implying the same quality meal... unless your ordering junk food, which why TF are you eating garbage anyways, I don't see your point...

I'm seriously wondering if half of you are in some midwestern US town with 3 restaurants, and a supermarket. which is NOT the expierence of most of the world.

I do not live in the US, and even where I live, which is a tiny suburb, 1.5hrs direct from the city, I have over 40 restraints to choose from, but only 4 supermarkets in a 38km radius.

sigh... your applying "value"(monetary/finance), to "value"(possessive)...

is it saving me financially? no, ofcourse not. im not a business, I'm not selling the servings I'm making, and buying them back from myself.

however, energy is finite. let me introduce you to spoon theory. the point that the trappings of mental exhaustion from physical and mental strain have a cost on your health and well being.

that cost /becomes/ monetary later when you lose the ability to maintain the money earning opportunities or expierence injury as a result of overwork. very real things that occur every single day.

point being, that Friday night beer and slice your m8 gets delivered from door dash is saving him from having a mental breakdown or being exhausted and burning himself on the stove. these are possessive costs that translate to literal finite costs later.

I return to my point I seem to be making alot lately, do people think "preventive care" is a scare word?

you just ignored something core. time spent cooking can't be spent doing anything else. it's also mentally exhausting when you work 14.5hr days and have a 2hr commute.

I swear, you must live in a major city with that attitude or work part time... idk how many times I've gotten home on a Friday night so knackered from stop-go traffic for a hour and another of avoiding idiots jumping two lanes without signaling to exit... after working a full shift... that I can barely remember how to cook pasta, much less stand their chopping onions, peeling potatoes and browning mince.

you don't know exhaustion from work if you can honestly be like "lol, cook, it's no big deal". if I'm treating myself 1 day a week and it's effectively costing me less in that state. for real, what logic are you using.

how? my time is 3x the going rate, because it would be a /second job/. like I said before, how much are you valueing yourself.

if I'm ordering a pasta that had a sauce that was slow cooked over 8h. if I'm going to do the same to make my own, it's going to be astronomically more work.

if reducing sauce by maintaining a simmer for 8h sounds like easy work, you clearly live alone, have no pets and have LOTS of free time...

however, I think I know what you are implying. it's cheaper if I just got a $1 jar of sauce, and cheap $4 pack of thin spaghetti and a clearance special for mince for $9. so the same size serving of pasta made this way costs $9(note: serving size), that costed me $11.50 (before delivery) for delivery service.

but these things are not the same... your comparing apples to oranges and going "they are both fruit. just eat the apple, it's cheaper". by that logic, yes. ofcourse it's contradictory. but also by that logic just sell everything you own and live on ramen. fml if people don't get "living" is not "surviving".

also I should add, if you paid yourself the $13 for the 15~ minutes of prep+cook time, it's still bloody expensive unless your paying rediculous delivery fees that you shouldn't order anyways.

employment contracts include stipulations like not involving yourself in criminal activities and periodic checking of unreported criminal activities.

it is ABSOLUTELY not a crime for a employer to verify a employee has not broken a employment contract. it's common practice. check your employment contract. most will inform you when they are going to do a background check, but it's not a requirement.

truck drivers are EXEMPT from standard rules as your employment contracts don't have stipulations as you are interstate subcontractors.

YOU hold the liability, not the employer.

https://www.eeoc.gov/background-checks

check your regions laws, EU & UK is different, due to workers rights unions having more teeth.

au: https://www.veremark.com/blog/background-checks-in-australia-legal-requirements-processes-and-best-practices

imagine feeding 4 on $500... 3 pets and 2 adults, we Average $230/week...

that's bread, long life milk (1x monthly), 2 jars of Bolognese sauce, a frozen bag of ravioli, dried pasta of some kind, 5x protein of some kind (usually frozen veggie meat replacement, as all the beef/chicken/turkey/roo/croc mince is off or nearly off by the time we get home and we get food poisoning...) of some sort, a few snacks, some produce, a few yogurts, grains and rice. every fortnight is pet food and litter.

we stopped getting eggs, started getting beans and lentils in bulk. canned goods when they are on sale... still never less than $150.

the bulk of the price is not even the proteins. is the grains/produce/pasta and snacks. when we cut down on snacks, then we end up with even higher spending, as we ended up eating larger meals more often...

I'm really thinking alot of you must be in north America near the grain belts or something...

--

also 30 minutes maximum for pasta is average in our house. 10 minutes of prep/brown, 8 minutes to boil, 9-12 cook time. considering we have 1.5hrs to eat and a 2hr commute... it's exhausting some times.

• licensed sign. if it's not licensed, and printed overseas and shipped... it's a looot cheaper. RadioShack signs were just black with red lettering. match the font, have plastic lettering made and use a black backing board and your done.

for internal signs, about $30 for large prints. they come shipped in a large roll.

it's far cheaper than you think, what hurts you is things you cant simulate with plastic/cardboard/etc. actual goods on display.

depending on the business you are targeting and the era. getting products to display that are in mint condition is expensive.

surprisingly, the cheapest ones are clothing stores. you can just pick up reproductions. the plastic pushtags and original product label tags are cheap to make if you have references. they just make them in sheets with cardboard backing. you make a stencil, mark the outlines of each tag with a hobby knife and cut them out.

the most expensive cost is the space. leasing and restoring/maintaing a space is not cheap. even "abandoned" malls still want premiums for those stores...

in 2026 this is far more difficult. surveillance tech and AI has turned privacy into a premium feature.

I've seen people (nearly) lose their jobs as their employers did silent background checks throughout the year to confirm that they haven't been convicted of a crime and it come back that Thier registered address didnt belong to them as state police were getting bad information from a databroker. flock was misreading thier plates and thinking they were living 1h away in a parking lot...

point is, when mistakes like that are made, it shows how hard it is to hide when you are doing something.

in many parts of the world, it's a criminal offense not to have a permanent residency with a mailing address registered to you.

vagrancy laws first existed due to health and wealthfare concerns (albeit this was a lie), but reality is these laws remained.

as a result many employers, when they do background checks and discover you don't have one, have to deny you as your a liability.

if your already employed, if your employer finds out, they can fire you and request compensation, due to violating liability insurance clauses.

the only way to typically do this successfully is to be self employed or to be a day labourer.

this is all before the tax issues that apply...

as some one who spent many months homeless while employed and hiding it from their employer because they didn't make enough to continue living in a sublease... yeah... most people that prefer that typically are on a ton of copium to avoid society or actively are doing it to skirt legal requirements, to maintain a "lifestyle"...

that said, all the more power to anyone's personal choices. I personally hate the system that makes the bare minimum include being homeless.