It’s A Lifestyle Crime: If You’re Not Rich You Can’t Eat Out Everyday In 2023 America

The amount of money it costs to live like a European in America will blow your mind

I call them sheep.

Many of the people in the image that anchors this article.

They see one person eating the $16 burrito, $16 avocado toast, $22 traditional breakfast or $24 bowl of rigatoni at this “cafe” and they must do likewise. No matter what lies at the heart of the experience. No matter the cost.

They’re going through the motions of eating and drinking out in America as the experience of eating and drinking out in America continues to rapidly degrade. And get more, if not prohibitively expensive.

Even when it’s good, it’s bad. Because it takes a ton of money — like some form of immediate or otherwise sustainable wealth — to make dining out a primary element of your lifestyle.

This isn’t hyperbole. You have to be rich or otherwise wealthy to eat and drink on the streets and in the storefronts and strip malls of America on a daily basis. The way so many people in so many other parts of the world do. The way so many people apparently manage to do in, say, pricey Los Angeles.

By the end of this article, we will have defined rich or otherwise wealthy in this most meaningful, day-to-day, on-the-ground context. And we will have blown our minds with how much it would cost to live like a cafe-sitting, tapas-eating, vermouth-drinking European. Using my penchant for the Spanish lifestyle.

I used to think it was only an LA thing. But the more I hear from people around the country — and from Canada, the UK and Australia — the more I realize it’s not.

Rich or otherwise can look like one or more of the following:

• You actually make a ton of money through work. Maybe you live comfortably and save some of this cash. Maybe you live paycheck to paycheck or, as Ben Le Fort more accurately calls it, hand to mouth.
• You have a ton of money saved and you’re blowing through it.
• You don’t make a lot of money and you barely get by because you must, um like, brunch and totally, we’re gonna meet for cocktails!
• You make whatever you make, things are always tight and you do much, if not all of your discretionary spending on credit cards.
• You have a trust fund. Rich parents keep a lot of people running here in Southern California.

So, it’s not all about actually being rich or wealthy. Some of it is. But it’s more about the appearance of being rich or wealthy and living as if you’re rich or wealthy.

Who needs objective definitions of these terms? Because objectivity is practically meaningless in this discussion. If you can find a way to make it work — to keep it together with Scotch tape — you, too, can be rich or wealthy. All you need is a Tesla and a credit card that doesn’t get declined when you buy the next round.

Anyway, the only way to live this more European lifestyle of eating and drinking out most days of the week — without spinning on the personal financial hamster wheel — is to be objectively rich or wealthy. Because there’s no way the rest of us could possibly keep up the following house of cards.

• Morning coffee and a pastry in Los Angeles plus a $2 tip — $12.50
• Afternoon beer and a couple of snacks in Los Angeles plus 20% tip — $33.60
• A vermouth and two beers, a snack and an entree for dinner in Los Angeles plus 20% tip — $74.40

I actually went super low to the low end on the estimates I’m making. Estimates I’m 110% confident about because (a) I am obsessed with this shit and (b) I live it — here — on the ground. Which is, in part, why I recently relegated myself to morning coffee several times a week, practically no bar visits and dinners out 2 to 4 times a month — tops.

Sadly, this OverheardLA post on Instagram isn’t too far from the truth —

During most of my time in Los Angeles, I have lived within walking distance of a Kreation Kafe. It’s really good. Except a small standard smoothie costs $9.70, while a large sets you back $12.70. One of their high end smoothies runs $20. Avocado toast is between $13.50 and $15.50. And their “tapas” range from $7.25 to $10.50.

So you get a sense of the numbers we’re dealing with here.

Add up the bullet points from above and — on the conservative low end — morning coffee with a pastry, an afternoon respite and dinner out will cost you $120.50 per day. In a 30-day month, that’s $3,615. Or $43,380 a year.

You can’t do that unless you’re rich or wealthy.

By comparison, here’s how a typical day of eating and drinking out can look in Spain —

And that’s for two people, mind you!

And I didn’t even cherry pick receipts to “prove” my point. Reality needs no proving.

We’re talking 70 euros total. And, had I cherry picked, I could have come in much lower. Because these are receipts from a vacation. When you live in a place, you tend to go about the day to day of eating and drinking out differently. At least my partner and I do. And we even will in objectively less expensive Spain once we move there.

Of course, we could get into a whole discussion about why the prices are so much lower. We can talk about economies and wages and people like me being imperialistic colonizers living off of the backs of the apparently poor. We can and we, for better or worse, sometimes do.

But that’s not the point of today’s story. The point is to say it’s truly a crime that you can’t live this life in America. You can’t even come close.

Most of us aren’t going to eat and drink out three times a day, every single day. I don’t. I never will. My partner and I enjoy drinking black coffee in bed (though she takes some milk) and cooking meals alongside a bottle of wine or a couple of beers at home.

However, if you wanted to, you could. Because it would cost you 42% less for the privilege. (I ran the math).

Looking at a more realistic monthly hospitality schedule. Say — coffee and a pastry every morning, afternoon snacks and a drink five times a week and dinner and drinks out three times a week. And — in the Spain I’ll be running in — that’s an expenditure of roughly 1,224 euros. Throw in a 20% average tip and we’re talking 1,469 euros per month.

Lots of math. And it all adds up to the same sad conclusion.

Many of us want a simple life —

• A decent roof over our heads that eats up way less than 30% of our income.
• No need for a car.
• Reasonable healthcare.
• And the ability to eat and drink at relatively modest establishments — regularly — at affordable prices.

All of these things come together to help facilitate a culture centered around a vibrant and healthy public life. Around a lifestyle that it’s literally impossible to have — for most people — in much of the United States of America.

I referred to the privilege a second ago. Because no doubt it is. This is a great thing to have to worry about. However, at the same time, it’s not asking too much. At least I don’t think I’m asking too much.

And the fact that I have to move to have this simple lifestyle is, at the end of the day, a crime. Objectively speaking.

Don’t worry!

In my last Medium article, I addressed the burning question of privilege in this debate. It’s not lost on me.

If you’d like to know more about the journey I’m on and see the next article, follow me on Medium.

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