Crazy – no wonder everyone says they have no money!
How DoorDash and Other Food Delivery Apps Are Reshaping Mealtime in the U.S. – The New York Times
In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group said. And in a survey last year, about one-third of American adults told the association that they ordered food for delivery at least once a week.
We have massive lifestyle creep. Just a few decades ago, 2 out of 3 worker brought a homemade lunch – today 2 out of 3 workers eat out for lunch.
We now have an exponential style curve in the growth of spending on eating out:
Retail Sales: Food Services and Drinking Places (MRTSSM722USS) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
U.S. Census Bureau, Retail Sales: Food Services and Drinking Places [MRTSSM722USS], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MRTSSM722USS, February 1, 2026.
If the pre 2002 growth rate had continued, this trend line would be at about 40,000 to 50,000 – half of what it has become.
Many Generation Zers who came of age during the pandemic can barely recall a life without delivery, and their social lives now revolve around it.
Gen Z, based on media and their social media posts has no idea how prior generations lived – and assume that today they should live a life of luxury. (What happened to the FIRE movement?)
The only way to build wealth is to earn, save and invest – you do not create wealth via frivolous spending. The subjects in the story are not saving time to make money – they are spending more time watching TV, socializing, and doom scrolling.
Spend wisely. Not wastefully.
I am typing this on a used top of the line, 2015 MacBook Pro, 16 GB RAM, 512 TB SSD, dual GPUs, quad core i7 processor. I paid $127 for it and wiped it clean and installed Zorin Linux OS. A remarkably capable system. I don’t need to spend $1000-$2000 on a new Apple M-series processor notebook or a new Windows 11 notebook (I can afford to buy a new system, but why?)
