Comment by neogodless

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.