# Women are a Budget Expense **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 19, 2004, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619 "2004-12-19T06:55:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/21 "2004-12-20T04:42:06Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I’m always amazed to hear people say that they’re spending more money on healthier food and I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing before (unless you’ve started buying organic). It absolutely does cost more to eat healthily. You can get a hamburger at almost any fast-food chain for a dollar, and frozen burritos at the store are a couple bucks for 12. Hell, you can feed your whole family at Taco Bell for under $10. Fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit for every meal of the day costs a fortune. Eating crap does not. Also, poorer people eat a lot of pasta, rice, and potatoes. ---
**Author:** ![Melandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Melandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melandry)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/22 "2004-12-20T04:44:58Z")
My ex-boyfriend is just now finding this out. See, we were both grad students when we were dating, and so I paid for half of everything and never expected anything too pricey (and he never got me anything pricey). After all, we each made exactly the same pitiful amount of money. His new girlfriend keeps telling him “I love how you’re soooo generous” as he buys her flowers, expensive dinners, front-row seats to Blue Man Group, trips to Montreal and Iceland (!), jewelry, etc. She has paid for dinner once so far (the cheapest dinner they’ve had so far). As he complains to me about how she’s bleeding him dry (he’s no longer a grad student, now he’s a high school teacher) I reflect back on how I must’ve been a pretty good girlfriend after all. (Though I certainly wouldn’t want to date him again!) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/23 "2004-12-20T06:00:55Z")
An expense, certainly! Budget? bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! One can only _budget_ for them if you have the discretionary spending of the Pentagon in a Republican administration. (Yeah, yeah. They’re worth it and all, but the notion of _budgeting_ for what one is about to disburse is simply hilarious.) ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/24 "2004-12-20T06:35:44Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I’m always amazed to hear people say that they’re spending more money on healthier food and I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing before (unless you’ve started buying organic). Pretty much what **trublmakr** said: fresh veggies are more costly than rice, lean chicken more costly than fatty beef. > [@](#): > > That said, I hope you are doing all of these good things because they’re good and not because you’re looking to catch a baller. Who says I can’t do it for two purposes? I mean, really, if I wouldn’t want to date a guy who was in roughly my physical condition, why should I expect him to date me in my own physical condition? But I know that I need to do it for my own life too. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/25 "2004-12-20T14:13:44Z")
> [@lel](#): > > Pretty much what **trublmakr** said: fresh veggies are more costly than rice, lean chicken more costly than fatty beef. Running through my local grocery store, I see a significant savings from eating healithier foods and in this is the case in my own experience as well. I also notice that families who use food stamps tend toward healthier fare than the yuppie types (and I’ve noticed that the food stamp program is very lenient when it comes to what is and isn’t allowed - I think I could make an entire day’s meal plan for the family from junk food and still use the food stamps). > [@troublemakr](#): > > Also, poorer people eat a lot of pasta, rice, and potatoes. Are you stating these aren’t healthy? > [@](#): > > Who says I can’t do it for two purposes? Well, no one is, but you only stated one purpose in that post. ---
**Author:** ![Iceland\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@Iceland\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iceland_Blue)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/26 "2004-12-20T14:29:47Z")
Since I have not needed a budget expense for women for the past several years,am I entitled to a rebate? ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/27 "2004-12-20T14:51:30Z")
^ Nah, just a raincheck. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/28 "2004-12-20T15:36:19Z")
Total hijack: NPR’s _Weekend Edition_ just did a story out near Gilroy California. Apparently there are whole neighborhoods near the fertile Californian produce farms that – due to market forces – can’t get fresh fruits and vegetables into the market. It goes like this. Grocery store owners have to front lots of money to bring in produce. Produce is expensive to wholesale and at retail, compared to pre-packaged foods. Produce doesn’t sell well; grocers who continue to offer a large variety of fruits and veggies go broke, so they adapt by offering cheap food poor in nutrition. Local farmers ship their green tomatoes, and then plow under anything that’s “too ripe to ship” to fertilize next year’s crop :eek: A large amount of ripe produce goes to waste even though there’s a demand for it, because nobody wants to take the risk of stocking it. Grocers stock only limes (to go with Corona) because that’s all that sells. People living in poorer communities then have to pay a premium (in time, miles travelled, and money) to add fruits and vegetables to their diet. Most of them choose not to, and become unhealthy. Those who can afford it least have diet-related illness more often: heart problems, diabetes, poor immune system, and so forth. So, if you buy healthy ingredients at the grocery and cook all your meals you will realize a cost savings over restaurant food; if you buy crappy pre-packaged food you will discover that you are saving even more money, but slowly dying of scurvy. As for women costing money: my fiancée never pays a dime for dinner on Saturday nights (at my insistence). If we’re out to eat on a Saturday, it’s a “date” and I’m treating her as though she weren’t a “sure thing”. She does, however, buy the groceries for our house, and cook slightly more than half of the time. In a solid mutual relationship, I believe you must learn to see and appreciate what the other person gives you, and also learn to give without ever expecting to see an iota of return on it. If you enter into a relationship thinking that the only thing you have to give up is money, and the only thing you have to gain is sex, don’t be surprised when you find out that you were right. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/29 "2004-12-20T15:44:08Z")
Some of us are just cheap 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619/30 "2004-12-20T16:24:06Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I’m always amazed to hear people say that they’re spending more money on healthier food and I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing before (unless you’ve started buying organic). I’ve always been puzzled by this too. I hear the “burger for a dollar at most fast food joints” argument a lot, but where I am (in Toronto) any burger you could get for a dollar wouldn’t be enough to fill up most people over about age 7. Most people I see at fast food places are spending $5-10 a meal on fries, pop, pies, and at least one large-size sandwich. A while back I posted [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4344056&postcount=101), and if you added in peanut butter, eggs, and some chickpeas, it would be even cheaper. I guess, based on Jurph’s post, it does depend on where you live, but really, for the most part eating decent meals is not that expensive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-are-a-budget-expense/280619.md?page=1)