I actually did add up my food spending for a month about 5 years ago and I got $120. (I'm mostly eating cheeseburgers, pizza, steak fajitas, etc. and buy in bulk when stuff is on sale. The most expensive 80/20 ground beef I have in my freezer cost $4/lb.)

No fruit/veggies in sight. Your long term costs of this way of eating is higher than you think.

I am thrilled to pick up $0.39 frozen turkeys, cooking them regularly for sandwiches and soup, (packing the extra into the freezer for later,) or deboning a Costco $5 rotisserie chicken that yields about 3 lbs of meat each, plus the bones to make bone broth. Scallops at about $18/lb, wild caught salmon at $12/lb or grass fed 90% lean ground beef at $9/lb is not a splurge, however. All served with generous amounts of whatever vegetable looks good. Adding in the pre-cooked chicken or turkey to a stir-fry is a snap, and left over crispy skin salmon amazing on top of a salad. Tofu can also be a cheap approach to good eating, with plenty of easy recipes at your fingertips via the web.

As a teen on my own, trying to survive in a high cost of living town during stagflationary times, I learned how to make my grocery purchases count. It is such a luxury to buy exactly what I want, and fortunate that I still tend towards value.

IP,
who will always be grateful to that WIC distributor who saw skinny me walking by, giving me "extras" he had on hand