Do We as Consumers Have a Responsibility to Support Businesses When We’re Also Struggling?
by Katy on April 28, 2025 · 75 comments
A Wall Street Journal article titled “Your New Lunch Habit is Hurting The Economy” came across my Facebook feed, referring to American workers who pack their own lunches to the detriment to the restaurant industry. This really pissed me off got me thinking, as the central premise places the blame on the consumer, rather than the government decisions that have resulted in people scrambling to stretch their dollars?
The article never once touches on the “why” behind why people are making this change to their daily work day. It also presents the premise that it’s “boring” choice.
“Bethany Kennedy, an attorney near Buffalo, N.Y., says she used to spend $500 a month going out to lunch during the week. Rising costs, including a jump in her property taxes, made her reconsider. Now she limits herself to one lunch out a week—when she’s really craving it. She brings in premade meals such as Southwest salads with corn, beans, cheese and tortilla strips or Stouffer’s three-cheese rigatoni from her local Aldi the rest of the week.
She revels in saving money, but there is a downside, she says: “I’m starting to get bored.”
“I’m not trying to eat this spaghetti three days in a row,” said Valerie Myers, a communications professional in Richmond, Va. She knew that if she brought in last night’s leftovers she’d give up out of boredom, so she alternates them and isn’t eating for lunch what she had the night before.”
I packed my own lunches over the 24 years that I worked as a labor and delivery nurse, as did most of my co-workers. Sure there were nurses who bought from the cafeteria or got takeout, but they were in the minority. Were we “hurting the economy” or practicing personal financial responsibility?
I found a non-subscription free version to read through my library’s website, so click here if you too wish to enjoy this Wall Street Journal article.
So what’s your take, does the American worker owe allegiance to businesses when their personal budgets are tighter than ever?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 74 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d love for you, Katy, to write an op-ed contesting what they said!
My entire 17-year blogging career is a op ed response to the Wall Street Journal!
I think one of the problems is that we are a service based economy. By not buying, whether it’s cars, clothing, or electronics we are not supporting our biggest economic driver which involves lots of spending. When the spending stops, whether for goods or services, the economy suffers greatly.
None of us wishes for people to lose their businesses, but you can’t have it both ways.
Therein lies the problem. It is troubling to unwind because there are so many interwoven parts that feel like when you pull out one straw the whole structure feels it.
Supporting local businesses…
I have a friend who owns a business. She buys used name brand/designer clothing, purses, toys, accessories (children’s and women’s mostly, but some men’s, too). No stains, occasionally light “wear and tear”. She then sells them in her shop for a profit. A lot of people in the community buy from her business rather than buy new. I support her business.
As for dining out, we RARELY do that anymore. When we do, we most always go to a fundraiser meal (church, fire department, scout troop, etc.). We get a meal and support our community at the same time.
We have a large number of fairs and festivals in our rural area throughout the year. Many outside vendors (not from the area), independent consultants (Tupperware, Pampered Chef, etc) and we just don’t enjoy those. Instead, we go to the local fireman’s carnival which supports the community.
This is a topic that infuriates me as well. I work for a large city and our mayor mandated employees return to the office 4 days a week(from 3) because we needed to stimulate the economy in the city by going out to lunch and buying coffee during the day. He could have at least lied and made up a reason about better collaboration or productivity or something. I’ve worked here 11 years and brought my coffee and lunch with me everyday so I’ve never “stimulated the economy” even when I was coming in 5 days/week pre-Covid.
I won’t even get on my soapbox about how terrible for your health most restaurant food is and so it’s also essentially saying people need to sacrifice their health for the economy.
That reasoning would make me certain to bring my own lunch and coffee.
Same. That’s awful.
My first job in high school 44 years ago was as a dishwasher at a private club (kind of like the Moose or the Elks). If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen, YOU KNOW….
Apologies to the service economy, but along with many others, I have to look out for Numera Una. (Hey, no one else is going to do it.) I can probably count on my fingers the times I’ve eaten out per year for the past several years; I try to confine my meals out to genuine social occasions.
And I’ll add that learning to live with “boredom” is a highly underrated frugal skill. Whether it involves getting used to eating leftovers, doing without the latest streaming service, or whatever, it’s usually a win-win. (For general amusement, here’s the comment I posted on a JASNA friend’s blog post about the upcoming Netflix Pride and Prejudice: “I didn’t get Netflix for The Crown; I didn’t get Netflix for the 2022 Persuasion; and I’m damned well not going to get it for this P&P. Money and time saved.”)
I find the concern people have about being “bored” irritating as well. Every meal doesn’t need to be an event. If you’re no longer hungry, it was a success. People can watch Law and Order episodes 16x but can’t have spaghetti two nights in a row? Give me a break.
@Lisa, we can waste a lot of time being irritated by others’ supposed shortcomings if we fail to honor the exquisite variety of human experience.
The ability to tolerate boredom is useful, but not in itself a virtue, and it does little to produce creative and enjoyable new options. Some of the most materially poor people on earth make some of the most delicious and varied cuisines, music, clothing, art, because why not? What are our many human gifts for if not the using?
What I seem to notice with some people is that they use shopping as a hobby and interest. Which is kind of sad and hollow. But maybe I’m missing something enamoring with retail? I think a lot of depressed and lonely people do retail as a hobby. Sorry, not sorry.
A.Marie, Wait a year or 2 and the latest P&P will likely become available for free. Either via an over the air broadcast or a public library video collection, where you can check out a DVD or Bluray copy of it.
I quickly learned as a small child to never be bored because my dad would send us out to pick up rocks in the hayfields if we even looked as if we needed something to do. People complaining that their lunch is boring get nothing but a glare of withering scorn from me.
Eat to live, not live to eat. I too have little sympathy. Our country manufactures almost nothing. It sells mostly junk/non-repairable items made in other countries (that are some times health hazards – think lead).
For centuries, people packed a lunch. And RTO was also pushed because of empty commercial real estate – hey, not my problem you bought too much commercial real estate.
And it goes beyond restaurants – house cleaners lose clients. Some times nannies do too. Personal trainers, personal buyers, the list of “services” goes on.
Do we eat out, yes we do. Did I buy lunches when I worked in an office – very, very rarely – took too much time besides the cost.
Those who live below their means tend to have a much more stable life – mentally, physically, and economically.
The primary reason not to subscribe for the new P&P is that it didn’t need to be remade; the Firth/Ehle version is perfect.
But, as the daughter of a musician and friend to many who work in the arts, I know these things aren’t free. It’s absolutely necessary for those who can afford it to pay money to consume creative work. I’m frugal in part so that I can buy play tickets and books from small publishers where it really matters – and even subscribe to Netflix, which with all its many issues also innovated a model that has saved its users a great deal of money and inconvenience vs. the older video rental model, and has fertilized creative film projects far and wide for a flourishing that was unimaginable less than a generation ago. I feel anything but cheated by it.
Long time reader, first time commenter. I had to as I was reading post this while consuming my packed lunch, a habit I have been doing for over thirty years. I even worked in the restaurant industry and still packed my lunch (much more healthy!)! What would WSJ think if they knew that I also pack my meals when I run errands on the weekends?! Oh, the horror.
Add to all the other comments that the cost of a decent lunch out has gone up drastically. And my pay has not. I was never one to eat out everyday even when I worked full time in an office. I brought leftovers, sandwiches… Being “bored” by one’s food is one’s own fault. When I did go out for lunch I typically went to local restaurants, not chain ones. And it was with co workers I liked so it was a social fun event as well. But mostly I packed my lunch.
I have long joked that if I wrote a memoir, the title would be “More than 50 years of packing my lunch.” It’s such a huge money-saver and you get what you like without the hassle of going to a restaurant. To this day, now retired more than two years, I still make myself individual freezer meals for a quick lunch. The habit is totally ingrained.
OK, Ruby, now you’ve got me going down a side aisle on the titles of memoirs that folks here might write:
Katy: “Proudly Buying Nothing New (Well, OK, Except Underwear) Since 2007!”
Me: “My 2010 Honda Element Stops for All Garage Sales and Interesting Trash Piles!”
OK, I’ll let the Commentariat take it from here…
Mine: “Economist who brazenly packed her lunch for 32 years without giving a rip what the WSJ thinks”
Mine: Young girl turns old woman driving same car for 20 years…
How to pack breakfast, snacks & lunches for infants and toddlers going to daycare (and do it while getting ready for work)
@Juhli, I would buy that book!
“Doctor’s Wife Who Proudly Hung Clothes on Clothesline” I used to have people ask if my dryer was broken! Lol
This would an amazing title to a recipe book, actually….
I’ve been packing lunch as long as I’ve been working. For years it was because I was not allowed to leave the building for lunch (I had a paid lunch, so if they needed me I was there) Then I developed a food issue. It was WAY before other people know what a celiac was. It was just easier to pack hat I could eat. My house is paid off and so is my car. I don’t regret it. I choose when and where to spend my money.
@Gayle, my GF diet has saved so much money even though some of the foods are more expensive. I never ate out that much, but it does eliminate whole cuisines and restaurants right off the bat, and I never go somewhere new without GF options in my bag. My son was just formally diagnosed and it puts a whole new complexion on what I thought was NCGS. Still deciding whether to pursue formal diagnosis for myself.
When I was under the pressure of working, many of the meals I made were deliberately designed to become leftovers for our lunches the next day; in fact, some of the soups and casseroles tasted better the next day.
Here are my feelings about ruining the economy by bringing my own lunches: The fact is that people who don’t buy lunches, for example, are not just burning the money—they are usually spending it on other items so it does end up back in the economy, just not in restaurants.
If businesses can’t stay in business, it could mean we just have too many of those sorts of businesses. Do we need 100 different burger franchises? No, so I have no heartburn about a bunch of them closing or going bankrupt. I’m sorry if that is your place, but perhaps you should have done a better business plan and sold something with less competition or more essential to life.
Let’s put blame for damage to the economy where so much of it belongs: rapacious private equity firms. I cannot think of an instance where they take over something and add value to it. Don’t focus on my refusing to buy a burger, look at the human hospitals, animal hospitals, dental businesses that are being driven into the ground and bankruptcy due to useless middlemen who contribute exactly zero in real value.
Restaurants have had a free ride or a long time, using the public to pay the salaries they as the business owners should have been paying (through tips as well as through paying so little their employees often qualify for public assistance). Other countries have restaurant systems that don’t depend on tips and still pay decent salaries and even give benefits.
We act like constant consumption is the only economic model available. It isn’t. I support the idea that we have developed a malignant form of capitalism that could use a lot of restructuring so things like income disparity are addressed.
If I spend my money on restaurant lunches instead of investing it or saving it for retirement, no one is going to be there to take care of me when I need those monies I spent on lunches for my old age. (And wait until they privatize social security, which Wall Street types are drooling in anticipation of having access to that money. There will be more people whose retirement incomes are diminished by legal but lethal things like churning.)
Getting off the soap box now.
I agree that competition among restaurants will clear out the ones that can’t make it, however heartless that sounds. It is a risky business in any economy.
Also, it isn’t as though people bringing lunch aren’t spending any money at all, as they have to buy food and, depending on their style, packaging. The money goes somewhere, including, as you said, to retirement, housing, and the like.
Lindsey, Hear! Hear! A brilliant summation. We should frame your answer.
Lindsey, you have, as usual, said what I meant to say, except in a broader and more meaningful sense. My hat’s off to you.
WOW that is a great answer!!! Private equity is a scourge. Gretchen Morgenson has a book about how it is ruining our country. I tried to get it from our rural library system to no avail – I may have to buy it. I am not a fan of these aspects of capitalism, and while it seems that it is currently the best economic system out there, I still hope for better.
Lindsey, such a great summary. Those of us who pack our lunches rather than eating out every meal are usually saving those dollars to spend in another area, unlike the billionaires of the current regime who seem to be accumulating money for the sake of accumulating money. And if corporations/businesses/municipalities want people to buy restaurant lunches every day, then maybe they ought to be required to pay people a living wage. This really pisses me off (says the woman who packed a lunch to enjoy while out running errands earlier today).
Love your soapbox!
Amen Lindsey!!
Excellent point on private equity, but I can’t too strongly disagree that restaurants are getting “a free ride” on tipping. It’s a high risk business and many have tight margins – and unless everyone’s doing it, it’s incredibly risky to be the first, and only the pricier places will even consider it because they already have margin without price shocking customers.
1)I remember when I was living with my friends I was on my last $100 when I finally got hired by a long term job- I only had enough money for Trimet and new tights. I had to bring my lunch that first month- I need to wait for my paychecks. I did buy lunch, but only twice a week. My last contract had me in downtown Portland, and I ate twice a week at Fying Elephants to support the business, as well getting coffee with friends at a local cafe.I do want downtown Portland business to be lively.
However, rto initaitives have not come with increases in salary nor support people who are caregivers in families. Therefore, money MUST be saved somewhere, and that somewhere is lunch. $500 x12= $6000. That’s money that can be saved for a rainy day, pay off bills, even be a 3% downpayment on a tiny condo in Portland!
2) Being broke, having a family to support or having a low wage job teaches you to bring your meals, to prep your food. People having been packing lunches FOREVER and a day. My mom , who was a nurse, packed lunch almost every day. and it was just normal to bring last night’s curry, soup or casserole to work, along with tea bags and fruit. Everyone with families in NYC in the 1980s did this. Everryone with families in NYC in the 1880s did this!
I have been a lunch packer from day one. Even as a child, we all carried our lunch to school. So it was natural for me to pack my meals when I started working. Eating the same meals / leftovers doesn’t bother my frugal soul at all, it appeals to my tightwaddery LOL…..I also bring my own coffee. Always have, always will. And, like others here – when i am out running errand on weekends or a road trip – I pack my own drink, and snacks!
I do eat out on occasion, but its a social thing, and I try to support local places.
Both Hubby and I are retired, but I still pack a lunch for the days when I will be out and about. If it’s a particularly long day I will include a cup of coffee!
However, we are fortunate to have a little wiggle room in the budget for things like a weekly date night (inexpensive) meal out and an occasional pour over coffee at a local shop.
I heartily support everything said here. And, hey, WSJ is no friend of the people, never was, never will be.
I think the article title is trying to illicit the reader to get past the headline. Aside from that….if restaurants arent selling out there could be a manifold of reasons like the area is oversaturated with restaurants, the food is not so good, or the service. But assuming people eat out less to be economical to an extent in causes shrink in a sector….what can we do? At some point our economy will stop growing and shrink. There will be a tipping point, and it will be interesting economically.
I agree there are many reasons if people are not eating out at lunch. I suspect the real issue is the fact that many people are still working from home.
Hell, no. I owe the economy nothing. When I was a resident I packed two lunches, a dinner, and a breakfast when I was on call. We’ve eaten out a max of twice a month for our last thirty years–and that was after we became flush.
According to US Bank, “In 2024’s fourth quarter, personal consumption expenditures represented nearly 68% of the nation’s GDP. Healthy consumer activity is the primary economic growth driver.”
Well, I’m not playing. As few people as possible are getting rich on my back. I have been frugal all my life and I’ve upped my frugal game past what I thought possible. And I’m loving it. My biggest love right now is mending/remaking clothes.
I have no responsibility to support anyone outside of my children, and since they are self sufficient adults, I don’t even have that responsibility. Now I do CHOOSE to support some local businesses, community causes, humanitarian work. I do feel that is my responsibility as a human being. But I do not feel responsible for playing any part in maintaining this economy by buying unnecessarily.
It’s a good thing others support the businesses that support our children.
One of the core realities of extreme frugality is that it doesn’t work if everyone does it: then there simply aren’t decent things to buy secondhand, there are no seconds or marked-down foods, there are few family-supporting jobs: it’s a recipe for intractable economic depression. There is a certain amount of excess that goes into creating a market for anything but subsistence labor.
I’ve said before that when I commuted long hours for my job, you’re damn right I ate out every day. It was my one enjoyment in a long crappy day.
What I don’t understand is that this is the oft trumpeter experiences > things crowd. Which i don’t subscribe to anyway. Am I the only one who during a long hard workday didn’t want to eat some crappy leftover ravioli from last night?
Rose, for me it led to a lot of excess weight in the days when I rewarded myself for crappy days with food. Maybe if the food had been vegetables, but for me it was high fat stuff. Some people seem to have the metabolism to eat high calorie foods (the only ones that appealed to me), but for me it was lethal. I still have the urge to compensate and/or reward with food so I work hard not to reward myself that way. As for experiences over things, I associate my best memories of my father with experiences. He was between wives several times when I was a kid, and because I was the oldest, once he learned English and made it into his chosen career, he would take me along on business trips. Our home was a total hodge-podge that would always be redecorated by the next wife, so I never cared much about our surroundings. It was being in San Francisco or Italy or England with my father that mattered. My home as an adult is a hodge-podge of scavenged stuff that I hardly notice, but before I got so ill the husband and I traveled a lot and also lived in places in Alaska that tourists dream about. So, again, experiences over stuff. I don’t think either way is superior, right is just what works for a person.
As always, you are the voice of reason. Apparently it’s my autism that makes me cling to stuff like a security blanket, though I maintain that my kids can ruin any experience if they are in the mood. My taste is generally towards salads anyway. I know I am a freak.
So excited! My hopeful book about Rock Star’s crazy mansion is moving on apace!
Profits for major snack makers like Pepsi are also down, according to NYT. People can’t afford junk food. That’s a sign of the times if ever I read one.
This topic – frugal behaviour harms the economy- comes up periodically. It’s a furphy really, because not enough people are truly frugal to ever really harm the economy.
However, the restaurant industry has always been a risky proposition. My husband was a chef for a decade and I’m a very good cook. People often tell us we should open a restaurant. We are not inclined to burn our savings in a dumpster. When times are bad, eating out is usually the first thing people cut back on. Even when times are good, there’s so much choice, it doesn’t take much for a restaurant to go from hot to not. Just ask Jamie Oliver and the many other chefs that have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in restaurants.
Long way of saying, buy lunch, don’t buy lunch – it’s always going to boom and bust in that industry.
Personally, I rarely buy lunch. If I’m going to eat out, I prefer dinner or a lazy weekend breakfast after a walk by the beach. Eating out should feel like an occasion in my opinion, not day to day.
When I was still working I often brought in enough packed lunch items for 3-4 days because I had access to refrigeration. I often ran errands on my lunch hour and would grab something from my stash on the way back to my desk. I occasionally grabbed a sandwich while out. Dining out is not something I do on the regular because we live in a rural area – once home I want to stay home. Also, a lot of restaurant food is mediocre or unhealthy. I dine out for special occasions, on vacation and at places where the cuisine is unique and I can’t readily duplicate it.
I am no longer a fan of the WSJ since Murdoch purchased it. I can access it for free, on line, through my library though.
Like you Katy, when I worked as a hospital social worker I mostly brought
my lunch from home. Co-workers raved about how good my lunches looked.
When I retired one of my supervisors even commented at the gathering about
how good my lunches looked and how I brought them every day.
Restaurants charge too much and make bad food. If I could count on a restaurant to have consistently tasty food at a reasonable price I might throw some money their way. It’s like they think everyone is drunk and not gonna taste the food or look at the price. I’d rather eat a pb&j than be their chump.
Some TV stations (and city cable TV channels) in the U.S. do a “Restaurant Report” on their news. They’ll get the local health department’s restaurant inspection reports and tell you which eateries failed — and why. There will be such things as “black mold in the ice machine,” “food not kept to the proper temperature,” flies and roaches, stuff dripping into the food, thawed meat sitting out, food handlers not wearing gloves or hair nets or taking the proper sanitary measures, green slime on food, freezers or refrigerators that were too hot, food kept past its expiration date, etc. etc. etc. Eeeuuww! It’s enough to ruin your appetite! And, it’ll tell you which restaurants to avoid; some fail their re-inspections, as well. (To be fair, it also reports on restaurants that pass inspections with flying colors, but it appears that these are far fewer than the offending ones.) If your TV news doesn’t feature this, the health department inspections are public record; you can look it up yourself. Believe me, if there was anything that would make you want to eat at home a lot more, it’s this info!
@t it sounds as though you live in a place with few good options – there is some wonderful food where I live that is difficult to get just right at home. And they only charge “too much” if you relentlessly devalue the labor of the workers and the cost of building and maintaining a safe and compliant commercial kitchen.
Personally, I think it’s a miracle of the modern age that I can turn the corner and purchase wonderfully fresh, fragrant homestyle Nepalese cooking from the most kind and wonderful family, complete with labor-intensive seasonings and traditional ferments and their special chai, for the cost of half an hour of my own pay. That doesn’t seem like a lot for something that would take me two or three times as long if I could even make it at all, that is good enough to be my last meal on earth. Of course I can just make another round of black beans and rice, which I also love and do often, but it doesn’t need to be every time.
The headlines seems to want to hook the reader in with a doom and gloom connotation. Nothing wrong with it, but it is pessimistic.
Even if people are packing a lunch, it doesn’t mean they’re not buying food, the money is just being spent at the grocery store instead of a restaurant. Restaurants are hard to operate. I’m so on the fence if our country is heading into a recession financially. Time will tell. I don’t have a crystal ball.
Well, BOO-HOO. I’m so sad for restaurants, not.
Sorry, too busy laughing to say more..
No, I don’t think it is my responsibility to keep the economy up and running, BUT I do feel some responsibility to support local small businesses, if I can afford it. Supporting the small businesses in my neighborhood is not a selfless act. I like living in a vibrant neighborhood with bakeries and bars a restaurants and florists and coffee shops. If I want to keep things this way, then I should do my part!
Li, this is my take, too. I want to live where there are local businesses, so we need to be there for each other.
@Li, couldn’t agree more. When I spend in my neighborhood, it supports my neighbors – almost all of the businesses are independently owned by residents. These places provide first jobs to neighborhood teens and flexible work for our musicians and actors and writers and parents, they allow skilled and creative people to make a living doing what they love – the owner of our nearest coffeeshop just sold to a longtime employee who had expanded the business to include a roastery. Our deli and our small zero waste shop are run by couples who work together every day. And, the money circulates longer and creates more local prosperity overall than anything I spend at the grocery store. It is a great deal of value for the money, and I only regret I can’t responsibly spend more.
I notice politicians and WSJ want me to spend money on their campaigns and consumer goods like eating out. I am OLD and retired. IF THEY WANT ME TO SPEND MONEY NOW THEY OUGHT TO HAVE PAID ME AND MALE MINORITIES AT THE PAY RATE THEY PAID WHITE MEN. They didn’t. I cannot afford to spend money I need for rent/basic food/medical care on restaurants and their campaigns …. and now they are threatening my medicare and social security. NOPE NOPE NOPE. Their cheap actions are roosting. AND, IF THERE HAD BEEN EQUAL PAY it would have been taxed and that tax money would have covered most of the national debt prior to the past 10 years. You too can run those calculations. Call your elected officials. Imagine if there was NO NATIONAL DEBT. TAX THE BILLIONAIRES! Tax on the marginal dollar earned over …. say 1 million…. at say 75%, and over 2million at 80%. We used to do that back under Eisenhower and the economy boomed.
I’m a teacher and I don’t have time to go out to a restaurant–I’m lucky if I get 30 minutes to eat my lunch. Restaurant food isn’t that good and my family are all good cooks. We’ve spoiled ourselves with our own cooking. I’d rather eat homemade leftover Thai red curry soup, or black bean burgers, or quiche made with eggs from our own chickens. I agree with Jane, I’m so sad for restaurants-not.
I always bring my lunch. I “might” eat out maybe once every six months for lunch if that much. There are no restaurants in the tiny town where I currently live but even when I lived in a major university town, I didn’t eat out much at all. There are gas stations in the town where I live that serve food which is common in my part of the country. The town where I work has a couple of restaurants, and gas station food, and a Hardee’s. If I were to eat out, I would pick up a catfish plate at the gas station. I just think not eating out is the easiest way to save money, along with just using my prepaid phone for entertainment and not having any subscriptions I would forget about if I needed to cancel. I mean, a smart phone is a mini computer in reality.
I always bring my lunch. I “might” eat out maybe once every six months for lunch if that much. There are no restaurants in the tiny town where I currently live but even when I lived in a major university town, I didn’t eat out much at all. There are gas stations in the town where I live that serve food which is common in my part of the country. The town where I work has a couple of restaurants, and gas station food, and a Hardee’s. If I were to eat out, I would pick up a catfish plate at the gas station. I just think not eating out is the easiest way to save money, along with just using my prepaid phone for entertainment and not having any subscriptions I would forget about if I needed to cancel. I mean, a smart phone is a mini computer in reality. It is plenty of entertainment, along with books, gardening, and walking, for me.
If you work at a hospital performing direct care you get a 30 min lunch break for an 8-12 hour shift. You are lucky if you get to take the lunch break. It can take 30 min to go to the hospital cafeteria to get the food leaving little time to eat it. Most nursers I know took their lunch. As for getting bored with a packed lunch, I guess the people interviewed were not very hungry. When you are hungry a PBJ sandwich is delish. Occasionally I got the pleasure of eating a tray of patient food if the patient was dismissed before lunch. Health care personnel have to endure long hours, cranky patients, exposure to lethal diseases, and other unpleasant things. Don’t make them responsible for propping up the food industry.
Happy to pack my lunch yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The restaurants selling expensive, crappy food can suck it.
This very thing used to cause a HUGE argument almost daily in our house. Flashback to about 10+ years ago. My husband at the time was literally working one mile from our house and ate lunch out every. day. he was scheduled to work. I worked downtown about 4 miles away and came home every day for lunch. We still had dogs at the time and they also needed to go outside. I’m not kidding when I say it about ended our marriage. Instant gratification is a thing.
To answer your question – absolutely not. We do not have a responsibility, at all, to prop up the economy when we are also struggling. As with everything, however, there is a bit of nuance that your blog and your followers seem to really understand. And it is one of the many reasons I appreciate this space.
I’ve been having conversations with friends and one of the things we keep bringing up is this – If you are struggling, do not feel like you have to spend your money on anything unnecessary. But if you are doing ok financially and have a moment of wanting to indulge, prioritize those places that you would really really miss if they were to close (for me, it is a used book store and the corner restaurant that does a ton for the community). I think this conversation came about because a friend who had recently bemoaned a favored restaurant closing was telling me how she was going to some chain for dinner because she didn’t feel like cooking.
Yes. Not my job to keep restaurants afloat. We hardly ever eat out. Partly can’t afford it, and partly restaurant is disappointing too often.
When I worked at a major grocery store, I got teased for buying 2 slices of deli meat, slice of cheese, and a roll. Premade sandwiches were expensive and my $1 sandwich was fresh
I tend to disagree with the WSJ on just about everything. They tend to align themselves with rapacious capitalism, & conservatism and they don’t give a crap about the average American.
I recall Amy Dacyczyn addressing this issue in the Tightwad Gazette back in the day. Her opinion was that the economy is at its healthiest when individual families are financially healthy, and I agree.
The reality is, paying others to do things you can do for yourself is a luxury, and luxuries are the first to go when things get tight.
Ideally, a capitalist system rewards entrepreneurs that provide value for service. Business owners are free to pivot in a different direction if people aren’t buying $15 sandwiches and $6 coffee every day. Working people should not be made to feel guilty for not supporting others’ business ventures.
I can’t read the article but I get the gist of it.
This : ”She knew that if she brought in last night’s leftovers she’d give up out of boredom, so she alternates them and isn’t eating for lunch what she had the night before” got me rolling my eyes! OMG, 1st world problem right there.
WE have absolutely ZERO responsibilities toward businesses to keep them alive. I bring my lunch at work, even though I am surrounded by restaurants. And the hospital cafeteria prices where I work are ridiculous, so no thanks.