Comment by pyrophane
18 days ago
A lot of people were conditioned to rely on food delivery when it was cheap. Pre-pandemic, restaurant food was much less expensive, delivery apps had low or no fees, and the options for tipping were much lower.
Now, of course, restaurant prices have skyrocketed, apps all charge significant fees and the tip expectation is around 20% (and don’t even get me started on how ridiculous it is to base tipping on food cost when none of the tip goes to anyone involved preparing the food and a 10lb bag of mashed potatoes is cheaper than a 1/2 oz container of caviar).
But people now expect their meals to be brought to their door and have a lot of resistance to going out to get it or, god forbid, preparing it for themselves.
The trick is finding enough self-respect for yourself to break that conditioning.
I was conditioned to smoke tobacco, waste money on crappy food, vote against my own self interests every two years at the ballot box, buy a new car every five years, hate people who looked or behaved differently than me, say 'yes sir' and 'yes ma'am' and do as I'm told, etc.
I still find myself trying to break away from the stuff I learned as a child and as a young man. It takes life long effort.
I often link to these articles. Especially the second one is exactly what you are talking about:
• 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor, May 27, 2011: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31752737>)
I suspect there's a cultural element that I can't speak for outside of my own bubble.
For example, I grew up in a rural area, large family, single income. I don't know exact figures, but adjusting for inflation, I suspect my dad was making what would today be $50K USD / year, feeding 4 kids (and a bunch of farm animals and pets.) Going to a restaurant was inconvenient and expensive. The food from animal husbandry and farm crops was labor intensive, but vastly cheaper. Every meal was cooked or prepared at home. (e.g. we'd have cereal or pancakes, sandwiches for lunch, a meal of meat and potatoes and vegetables.)
If there's a point in this, it's that going out or having someone else do all the work of making a meal was a special treat. It was rare, it was exciting, it meant something.
But I know as an adult with the means to live very differently, we order out at least once a week, which feels like a ridiculous luxury. It doesn't feel special. It just feels more like, well we didn't need to be prepared and have the ingredients we need here at home, so we'll settle for something convenient. (Though where we live, we do not do delivery, but have to drive 10-15 minutes for pickup. We're usually already out because we take our dog to the park regularly.)
Obviously there's a much bigger discussion on general financial literacy, defining "need", "quality of life", what we feel we deserve, whether we think about how today's decisions impact our future and if we care enough to do something about it. But at least in respect to ordering food, I think at least some of that is going to come from culture and family influence. In my specific case, seeing how hesitant the provider of my family income was to spend money also gave me reason to stop and think a bit before spending as an adult, even as my income grew well beyond what my birth family was getting.