The Economics of Trader Joe's Mac 'n Cheese
If reading about money & finances makes you uncomfortable, read on. It's good for you.
Hello there. Did you know…it’s after five and it’s still kind of light out!
I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. For February and March, the organization is the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher, you can always find more details on the project on my About page.
I have also decided to extend the paid subscription discount offer! Paid subscriptions are 10% off for the whole next year as a celebration for NYC Decade-aversary. If you want to upgrade, between now and August is a great time.
It’s also also always a great time to share the newsletter. C’mon. Just throw a little share in that grocery bag of yours, huh?
It’s not a challenge to spend too much money at Trader Joes.
In fact, I would argue, a harder challenge would be to try to get in-and-out of Trader Joes for under $20. Impossible, I say! And, as my friend Charlotte said recently, “its so funny how everything at trader joes is like $5 and yet its so easy to spend $150 by accident.”
The fact of the matter is that Trader Joes is a grocery store. While not immune to inflation and economy woes, it’s usually, comparatively, pretty affordable. And it’s groceries! Technically necessities.
Yet.
Yet, ever since I went to Trader Joes on Friday evening and spent $106, a low, simmering guilt has been bubbling away in the back of my head.
For some context: I’ve used a specific budgeting method for years. Basically, after I have totaled up rent, utilities, credit card, meds, money to general savings, things like that, I set aside the rest. From the rest, I give myself a calculated weekly allowance and that goes to everything else. The allowance increases or decreases depending on my overall financial situation, of course. I like how it grows and shrinks with me. That flexibility of this relatively simple system really works for me. So much so that I’ve been using it since college.
Buying groceries certainly fits within that allowance. So, what’s the deal with the guilt?
I’ll interrupt myself here with a little tangent to say that I know it can be awkward or uncomfortable to talk about finances publicly. Capitalism (people with money) have taught us that it is, in fact, impolite and untoward to talk about it; your situation should be kept close to your chest. To that I say, with all due respect, hell no. I do think it’s important to talk about it. There have been many articles in the last few years talking about the necessity of pay transparency, as well as so many newsletters about money in general and so on so I don’t need to rehash all those details. I will say that I have attempted to make it less stigmatized, among my friends at least, to talk about it because I think it serves us to know all the different ways to approach this huge consideration in everyone’s life. This is not to say I think you need to be throwing out all your financial details into the ether willy nilly. There are better times than others and everyone has a different level of comfort or different mental capacity to handle it at any given moment so, you know, read the room. But, I think, we can take ‘finances’ out of the ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ realm, at least in broad strokes. /tangent
Okay, we’re back into it. The guilt about buying basic necessities.
My continuously increasing anxiety around my prolonged unemployment has less to do with the employment piece and much more to do with the steady income piece of it. I would guess that’s pretty common. Unfortunately, we do need money to live, for some reason, which means that anxiety about income is anxiety about fundamental life things. So, when I claimed my last week of unemployment insurance a couple of weeks ago, the panic that has ensued is built all around basic necessities.
Again, this is an incredibly widespread set of worries. Even with those in my close circle, I don’t think I know one person who has not worried about money in this way or been in this same situation at some point in their lives. It’s comforting…but also upsetting to me because it’s so hard to just function as a human when your livelihood is constantly in question. And, in the spirit of my tangent earlier, I am lucky in some ways. My parents are incredibly generous human beings and are doing what they can to keep me afloat. I don’t want to hide that part of my situation. So many people do not have that sort of support and/or have a lot of family—immediate, extended, found—to take care of. I am endlessly thankful to them. And constantly sad about it. Oh, and full of guilt.
Beyond growing up under a cone of silence about finances, I think most of us grew up with the assumption from ourselves, our caregivers, and society as a whole, that someday we would be able to take care of ourselves financially. “I am 36!” I’ve repeated to many people (my therapist) about my current situations. I would like to be able to repay my parents at this point in our lives. Or take them on a vacation. Something.
Yet.
Yet, here we are. During my last unemployment (oof), I had a conversation about the job search with my Mom and she was talking about when she was younger and looking for a job. Then she said something along the lines of, “I understand things are so different now.” Her saying that gave me such a moment of relief and comfort. So much of the discourse is about the rift in views between Boomers and Millennials about the job market, the economy, the housing market is about how the two generations fundamentally don’t understand the situation of the other. (Usually, it’s Boomers not understanding the movements of Millennials but, you know, some both?) In that moment, I knew she maybe didn’t understand fully, but it was so nice to be seen.
Which, you guessed it, brought on more guilt.
This is where we come back to Trader Joes. Which I avoid. Going back to Trader Joes that is. Well, at least more than, like, once a quarter.
When budgeting with an increasingly dwindling reserve in a situation that can (and will, she tells herself) change and often rapidly does but that there is no timeline for, basic necessities begin to feel like luxuries. It becomes a constant negotiation about what is needed and what is wanted and why those have to be two different things. Doing or purchasing anything outside of the basic necessities can feel like a waste. Or a spit in the face of people who are supporting you—financially, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise.
There’s an element of judgment in it as well. Or prejudgment. Or assumed judgment. And the call is coming from inside the house.
It feels like the classic Schitt’s Creek moment where Alexis and David are in the car on their way for David to take his driving test is appropriate here. “People aren’t thinking about you the way you’re thinking about you” Okay, Alexis. I GET IT.
The internal judgment is from the, likely false, assumption that people are paying attention to how you are spending your money. It’s from the, likely false, assumption that if you tell someone you spend $106 at Trader Joes, they’ll secretly wonder how you can be so reckless. It’s from the, again, likely false, thought that someone might be looking at you with the same eyes that you look at yourself with. It’s another facet of the anxiety.
The anxiety has too many facets, if you ask me.
So, that’s the deal with the guilt. And the prejudgment. And the regular judgment. For me anyway. It’s the broad strokes. Painting in broad strokes with generalizations doesn’t always line up, if I’m being honest. They are sometimes too general, after all. For example, after I sent out the treatise on Antiques Roadshow I realized many of my millennial friends do actually have houses and stuff like that. I just don’t have a house. But I do think the distinction between value and legacy is still a good one. So.
My guilt and my anxiety comes from many places. Many more to be discovered in therapy, I’m sure. I think in this case, it has a lot to do with feeling like I missed the memo somewhere. Or an email went to my spam. It is the feeling that I’m not doing something very simple which is why I’m in this particular place. The feeling that I’ve been doing everything just to the left of where I should actually be doing it. That is beyond the finances piece, of course. It probably has a lot to do with valuing stability while also pursuing a career that is known to be unstable. Which is funny and also an exploration for a future newsletter.
Guilt is generally a pretty useless thing, ultimately. I know that. I know it’s mostly a negative feeling that doesn’t necessarily come from somewhere true or inspire a lot of action. I think the guilt I feel over spending what feels like, in this moment, an inordinate amount of money on groceries is actually insight. I figure what I am trying to do is to prove that even in tough situations I can be really smart. I’m trying to say, “You don’t have to worry about me. Look at how good I can do.” I’m trying to make a point to an imagined set of people who are looking at me with a confused look on their face saying, “I didn’t say anything.”
Okay. I just…wanted you to know, I guess.
And that’s exactly why I don’t think we should be afraid to have these sorts of conversations. Ones about money, finances, living. When it’s an internal dialogue, you’re all sides. You are the positive, the negative, and the everything in-between. But what you don’t have when you’re doing all the talking to yourself is perspective.
Whew. Turning myself in this many circles has made me hungry. Good thing I have a metric butt ton of dried mango to go snack on.